You Don't Know What You've Got 'Til It's Gone

Certain things you just always assume are going to be there. We all know that's not a safe assumption, but it still came as a shock to me to learn that the Spot is closing at the end of September. It caused me to make a pilgrimage and take this photo, which is making me extremely hungry even as I type.

If you're a local as many of you gentle readers are, you remember the Spot when it stood on Market Square. Muggy hot Friday nights, my Dad would put us all in the car and we'd drive down and get a bag of one-e-ups (a word I've never seen in print before, so that's an approximation.) The guy would line the buns up his arm and make them assembly line style. None of us wanted the one the farthest up his arm. The car and then later our house would fill with the fragrance of chili dogs, and after we ate we would be allowed to sleep in the living room and watch Johnny Carson, another rare treat. We never stayed awake for more than the monologue, but that wasn't the point.

As I walked downtown towards the Spot, I couldn't help but think of other landmarks that are gone like the Canton Inn, which was the only Chinese restaurant I was ever in for many years, and Mike's Kwiki-Lunch, a/k/a Dirty Mike's, where I ate the majority of my meals while working at Bell of Pennsylvania (there's another one gone), most often grilled blueberry muffins or BLTs for breakfast and chili dogs or ham subs for lunch.

Nostalgia is powerfully tempting at times like this, on a warm summer night, making me wish we could pile back in the car and go to Sam's -- no, not the symbol of Corporate Evil and Greedy World Domination, but the absolute best ice cream place in town. When our car got close to Sam's, we'd get more and more excited until there it was, like the Gates of Paradise, only with more neon. Sam's was right next to the City Line Diner, where everybody went for eggs and home fries after a night on the town or playing gigs. In fact, for a short time you could play gigs in the basement of the City Line, and it was on one of them that I learned/stole The Gloria Joke.

Yes, so many great places and great cases of heartburn, only a memory now. What's the point? I guess gratitude is in order, to have lived long enough and in times prosperous enough to have had so many cool food places around. The neon is still on in my memory long after the buildings have been torn down to make room for banks and parking lots and other crap. For me, it becomes more important all the time as we get closer to the end of Summer and the end of other things to remember the advice of Warren Zevon:

Enjoy every sandwich.