MEMORIES OF TIMES GONE BY

A few days ago, I was driving in the neighborhood and noticed that the building that had housed Mapes has a new tenant pending. Who will that be? Another bank, another sushi restaurant? Just another business without charm or ambience in a building with a rich history of charm and ambience?

What’s Mapes? Mapes is a general store, family owned, having served the locals since 1897. When we moved to the area, they had several stores. Now, there’s only one. Mapes was a throwback to a kinder and gentler era, where service was prime and looking through merchandise was like walking through Fairyland. The local mantra—“You can find anything at Mapes”. I still have a thingamajig that pulls a snag on a sweater through to the other side. And my magic seam ripper to remove those pesky scratchy clothing tags without making holes in the fabric. When Tracy went off to college, we found her a screw driver with a flowered handle. I’m not sure why. I don’t think that she ever used it, but at the time, it seemed that she couldn’t start college without it.

There was a Mapes in the borough of Narberth, a local version of Brigadoon. I think that the old Narberth Mapes is a Thai restaurant now. And Bryn Mawr. That Mapes was in a building that had been The Main Point, where Howard and I had gone on our first date. The Main Point was a coffee house, where we saw Robert Klein and ate homemade gingerbread on that first night together. I can remember years later, moving to the area and driving to that building, after it had become Mapes, with Cory and Tracy in the back seat. Now young marrieds with young children, we were looking for basic home stuff—trash cans, light bulbs. That one building had owned a chunk of the history of our life together. Now it’s a furniture resale store.

The Mapes that closed a few months ago was in a building that had once been a supermarket. A resource for a community that needed all things quotidian, in a place that had charm. Amazon may be the new go-to, but it certainly lacks charm. Cory and Tracy could walk to Mapes with their friends to buy candy, toys, trinkets. It was a place where you could walk into a building with history, looking for something specific and also stumble over an unexpected find. Being helped by someone who’d had years of experience serving customers. None of that can be matched by the internet. It was far better than the non-experience of scrolling online.

But the best memory of times past, the one that consolidates everything that was good, happened when Howard and I went to Mapes the evening before a camp visiting day. We went to find candy and special odds and ends to bring to camp for Cory and Tracy. As we waited in line to pay for our finds, we found ourselves standing behind two boys. One was about 13, the other about 8. The 8 year old had a little football in hand, and a mountain of change to pay for it. It was obvious that he’d saved his allowance and that his older brother had taken him to go on an enchanted trek through the store to find the right treasure to spend it on. As we waited, a problem occurred. He was 12 cents short. The cashier stood and waited. The brothers looked at each other, stymied. Time seemed to stand still. What to do? Howard and I could envision the scenario of this 8 year old, saving his allowance, finally getting to walk to the store with his older brother, proud of having saved enough for that football. Miscalculation, and now—nothing. Howard and I looked at each other. We pulled out a dollar and went up to the boys. “It looks like you worked hard to save money for the football. May we help you?” The younger one looked to the older one. The older one hesitated. After a moment, he nodded to his brother and told him that it was okay. The little one handed the dollar to the cashier, who rang up the sale and gave him change. The older boy instructed him to give us the change. We told him to keep the change and use it to start saving for his next treasure. The older one hesitated. I said, “It’s okay. Someday, when you’re older, you’ll run into someone in the same boat, and you’ll remember this evening and help that person.” The boys thought for a moment, then smiled, said thank you, and walked out with the football. Howard and I enjoyed an experience that you can’t put a price on. That can’t happen with Amazon.

Driving by the site of that little adventure brought back that memory. The boys would be adults now. I hope that they had more gentle adventures together. And I hope that they remembered a very small favor in a very special place on a lovely summer evening and paid it forward.

BRICK AND MORTAR OF YESTERYEAR CAN HOUSE CHERISHED MEMORIES THAT CAN’T BE ERASED

WE NEED MORE OF THAT