(Editor’s Note: The writer’s grandfather owned and operated Birch’s Market in Ocean City from 1936-1968. After the recent demolition of the property, he offered these thoughts.)
Another torn down heart-of-town,
of famous past, its days of new.
Yet just such was shelter once,
for lucky child to grow, where
like Parthenon or Pantheon,
stood roof over moments of
life’s unrepeatable plenitudes,
Here family store grew with town:
’30’s Friday night, radio fights,
Coke box on end sat local men
round the wood stove, tilted in
to sound now vanished, listened
as vacuum tubes warmed, and dial
glowed “Philco” ’til fire was ashes.
“Don’t turn us out, Birchie! Cap’
Hudson jests, “Spend ‘nother log!”
Such winters then built community;
Each charge account grew on trust
that fed many a table set without
money until the fish Spring rush
begin the sleepy part of Summer;
Slow raising tide of prosperity’s
barely hundred days of spending,
earned. Sleep-short days of weeks
til time’s low tide left pockets dry,
again all scavenging for a living
come fall, watermen turned handy:
Carpenters, painters, shipwrights,
and Mothers stretched cooking
flour in a barrel, made ever much
slick dumplings cheap for supper;
Apples in straw under the porch
a treat of dull, dollar-less winter.
Hunt or fish, all ate in effort’s luck,
But milk’s bread and butter, Birch’s
stored essential, six days worked
plus one; no Sunday in summers.
Butcher’s white, bib-apron attired,
pocket protector below his smile,
Milton at his counter, patient, stood;
“Would you want I should bag
Miss, those bananas for you?”
Thirty-two, season-round years, serving
with Mary’s help, and four children.
There, undoubted, all their protection
for youth to grow its days cared;
Spin squeaking comic stand, making
imagined worlds, reading atop boxes,
child’s back against the cool slant
glass of the showcase enamel,
eye a-scant for the old grey cat
store mouser who’d rather scratch.
In that time, before youth knows
the truth, that everything changes,
they helped hold, and held good
old heart of town, gone Ocean City.
Some buildings keep souls awhile,
so if, “It’s not dollars made but,
what’s saved, son, that matters.”
When proof of place’s destroyed,
(yesterday bought by tomorrow)
no matter how a heart-place dies
pulled down for dirt to remember
unless is stored recall; sanctuary
of hearts resolute with history,
boxing time in adult reliquaries,
no value’s then in acumen of sale
no price ever for what was there
of cause, nor, no save in re-build.
Let then this, as drift wood script;
sentences floated, found walking,
High tide-line at forgetful’s beach,
dried out of liquid time’s drowning
Flotsam, by striving’s broken shells,
carry on these words that cherish
continually, our time of community,
as the built, loved endeavors again
in buildings torn, come down again.
David Bunting
Salisbury