They Paved Paradise to Put Up a Parking Lot

Of course, a mall isn't exactly paradise, I suppose, and a corporate headquarters isn't exactly a parking lot either, for that matter.

But what "paradise" is, of course, depends on the person defining it. To a kid from East Nowhere in Upstate, NY, paradise was Midtown Plaza in Rochester.

Midtown was the nation's first enclosed shopping mall and was completed in 1962. It had a couple of office buildings and department stores attached and/or linked by skyway. My dad worked for Lincoln Rochester Trust/Lincoln Alliance/Lincoln First Bank/Chase Lincoln First in the Plaza and related office buildings for 29 years, I worked a couple of college summers as a bank teller in the Midtown branch and a summer in the leasing department in the Seneca building, my mom and my sister also worked for the Bank in the attached buildings. In fact, in this video (Midtown Plaza in 1963), you can actually see my dad. In the scene where there are people looking through little windows at the construction, he's the third man from the left (the big guy with no hat).

But, when I was little, Midtown wasn't a place to work. Oh sure, people worked there - my dad did, of course - but, no, for a five year old, it was a fantastical kingdom, a place where Santa was real and lived on a glistening mountain that a monorail went through. After gingerly visiting Santa, we'd cross the skywalk to Sibley's department store and walk through their holiday dioramas to a little shopping area they'd set up just for kids.

From the glittering palace that was B. Forman (another department store) to the high-ceilinged dining room at Sibley's with its two-story, drapery clad windows where they served your milkshake still in the metal mixing cup so that you could have seconds, from McCurdy's (also a department store) with it's wonderfully helpful staff, a "lunchroom" that was nicer than most restaurants today, and a bakery filled with innumerable treats, even the long shiny escalators that went from the underground parking garage and the clock - that magical clock that featured hourly music and dancing marionettes from countries around the world - it was a place of unparalleled elegance to a kid from a cowtown that never saw much more than pastures and orchards.

Now, it's 85% vacant and scheduled to be demolished next year to make way for the corporate headquarters of a telecom company. I understand, oh I do understand, but it makes me so sorrowful to lose a place that was symbolic to me of all that was to be yearned for as a child.

You see, homesick isn't about geography; homesick is about a state of mind, a state of being and, try as we might, we truly cannot go home again and recapture what was in the same way we experienced it the first time. I know this. But I did so hope to bring my daughter there one day and see her delight in the monorail that run a circuit around the center court and through Magic Mountain where Santa sat in stately array waiting for good little boys and girls to present their fervent pleas for their heart's delight.

For Jade

Because I didn't manage to make her puke last night...



Don't Click if Easily Offended

This One Either

I'm Proud of You

"I'm proud of you."
"Pride goeth before a fall."
"It is better to lose your pride with someone you love rather than to lose someone you love with your useless pride." (unk.)
"And nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope." (Robert Frost)
"Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us." (Jane Austen)

What is it about pride? We strive for it; we disdain it. We both commend and condemn it in others. But, really, what is it? Is it the self esteem we crave or, as Jane Austen suggests above, the esteem of others?

I have been thinking on pride today in a roundabout way today - about how much reward there is in hearing someone else say "I'm proud of you." I do not ever recall my parents saying that to me - I'm sure they must have at some point but my mother, in particular, was (and is) one to whom there is no superlative, no high compliment appropriate for her children as there is always room for improvement and, after all, they might get too proud of themselves.

Is it, therefore, pride in ourselves that is so abominable, pride in our achievements? Or is it the craving of the approval of others? The satisfaction of having someone else be proud of you? I am beginning to think that, like most things, there should be a middle-of-the-road word that covers the appropriate amount of "pride" - enough so that it is healthy but not so much as to be obnoxious.

It is unfortunate, I think, that many of the women I know do not take pride in their achievements. They downplay what they have accomplished if, indeed, they take note of it at all. I find this reflection brings me much sorrow for I know many, many women with many, many accomplishments to be proud of. For some, it may be a grand achievement of publishing a book or building a self-sustaining business; for others, simply making it from one end of the day to the other given all the burdens they must shoulder; for still others, fighting a constant battle against seemingly neverending forces to work toward their best and highest good.

I think that one of the most heartwarming things to hear from someone is not necessarily "I love you" but "I'm proud of you." "I love you" carries so many burdens and uncertainties with it but a heartfelt "I'm proud of you" brings nothing more than a real sense of accomplishment and gratification that someone else noticed your perseverance, your struggle.

I want each of you to know that, for so many reasons, I am proud of you and my wish for you this holiday season is that you experience genuine pride in your accomplishments and continued struggle against strife. You have each come through so much. Be proud of yourselves. You deserve it.

As Mr. Rogers sang, "I hope that you are proud of you too."