Random Tuesday Thought Meanderings

Yesterday I spent part of the day watching the demolition of a building in my neighborhood.  I had known it only as  "that place on the corner" which housed two studio apartments and a Jamaican Restaurant.  It looked old but the porch which surrounded it looked new. 

As I stood with others watching the swift destruction of the old Dade county pine beams and flooring, I heard the story of the building.  It had begun as a small house over on Whitehead Street.  It was already old when the La Concha Hotel was poured into existence.  By then it had been added onto by at least one addition.  When the era of easy motor car travel to Key West became established in the 1980s, it was moved to make way for an enlarged hotel parking lot.  That move sealed it fate in a way: it was not longer considered historic having been taken from its spot of origin.  In its new home, it served as a childcare center as well as Johnson's Cafe, famous for its conch salad.  Another addition increased its size.  Then, not that many years ago, the covered porch was added.  

In the crowd yesterday were a young woman who remembers playing on the floor, a much older gentleman who remembered the food, a middle-aged woman who remembered working through a hot summer week double insulating the house to prepare for central AC, and so forth.  Everyone had a story to tell about a building that would soon be only memories.  

I was surprised that only the tourists coming by took any pictures of it all.  The locals, however, put that into perspective for me:  "we want to keep the building we remember." 

Last night I was thinking about how much that building is like anyone's life.  We begin somewhere, are added onto, move here and there, facilitate a variety of roles, touch many lives, slowly age and creak a bit at the joints, and then in a short period often pass into memory.  But, even as the lot is cleared of the last physical remnant of that building, what has been ripples outward in community, in memory. 

Soon a new building will arise on that same site, all new and shiny and up-to-code.  But, like a family remembering its loved ones at the annual reunion, I can hear the voices now that will echo into the future:  "go down to where Johnson's Cafe used to be, and turn right," "best damn conch salad on the island," "the childcare place by Blue Heaven," "you know what once stood right here? No?  Sit down, and I'll tell."

They can cart away the debris, but nothing can end the story.