The more things change...

The more things change, the more they...

Page 3 Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper & Schleswig Leader- Thursday, September 21 2006

“Daddy...” started Ellen, our four year old while we were on a walk to the library one Saturday morning.

“Yes honey?” I responded, waiting for her to continue.

“I miss our old town,” she sighed.

Needless to say I struggled to imagine what she was talking about. She was born after we’d moved back to Charter Oak from Los Angeles. She’s never lived anywhere else and doesn’t have an “old” town. However, she does have an amazingly active imagination- like most preschoolers, and she tends to be our drama-queen, so she could be talking about anything.

She’ll often pretend to be someone we don’t know and engage us in an imaginary conversation about people and situations she makes up. The most disconcerting one had to be when we were driving home from getting groceries and she announced-

“Mom,” serious dramatic pause, “Dad,” another pause, “I think I’m PREVAnant.” Obviously we need to cut off this kid’s TV intake. Needless to say, this pretend soap opera scenario led to some discussions about the birds and the bees about a half decade earlier than we had hoped.

But that “I miss our OLD town” comment had me stumped more than anxious.
“Uh... what do you mean Sweety? Why did you say you missed our OLD town?” I inquired.

“Yeah, where’d it go to?!” demanded her older sister, Grace, who is seven.

“I mean I miss the way our town USED to be,” Ellen explained.

“Huh?” I muttered. She’s only four, how sentimental and nostalgic can she POSSIBLY get? She never know a Charter Oak with a restaurant or a grocery store, let alone a bowling alley, movie theatre or car dealership. Heck, I doubt she even noticed the graphic design studio or the archery shop that were down town just a couple of years ago.

“WHAT are you talking about?” Grace and I both said to her incredulously.

“Why did we need a new bank? I liked our old bank,” Ellen pointed out. Forget about the fact that she probably never set foot in the old bank on the corner of First and Main or the fact that the new one on the corner of Main and Highway 141 is much bigger and gorgeous. I was about to point out these facts to her, and the fact that we conduct our business at the bank where her grandmother has worked for decades in Denison when she went on-

“Plus now they’re going to build ANOTHER new bank across the street from the new bank...” she complained, “how many banks do we need, anyway?!”

This did actually remind me a little of one comedian’s routine about stepping outside of a Starbucks only to be confronted with what, just across the street? Another Starbucks. But heck, as guilty as I might feel about Rickett’s loss, another new business in Charter Oak has to be a good thing for Charter Oak, right? So I was ready to explain this to her when she continued...

“And why did they have to make all the streets BLACK? I liked the streets the OLD way...” she pined.

As nervous as I am about my property taxes, I for one really appreciate how Charter Oak has brought in an asphalt company to resurface our streets. Frankly, it’s downright luxurious to have a smooth ride and an even walk.

I was about to try to explain this to her, to try to help her listen to reason, when she went on-

“Plus, I miss ‘Shell,’ why did they have to change the name of our gas ‘tation? Do we have no call it ‘CEMM-EX’ now?” she grumbled.

I was prepared to prepare a case in the defense of the owner and to explain that the Cenex corporation would probably offer him less expensive gasoline than Royal Dutch Shell when her big sister Grace piped in-

“Yeah, I miss Shell too! Only I miss ZIT-CO too!” she complained.

“Yeah, I miss ZITS-GO too!” agreed Ellen. Before Cenex was Shell, it was Citgo- I suppose that’s why the owner also calls his convenience store “EZ-Stop.”

There are folks in Charter Oak who still call it “Maria’s,” but of course my girls wouldn’t know that. Plenty of folks will always thing of it as “the General Store,” for that matter, even though that gas station was actually across the street from EZ Stop.

“Wow, Ellie, you sure miss a lot of things about how our town used to be,” I offered humbly.

“I just wish things could always be the way they used to be,” she finished with a sigh. “Why do things always have to change?”

I thought to myself, “Boy kiddo, if you feel this way at four, how will you feel when you’re 34?” But I didn’t see the point in saying it to her out loud.