Wellesley, Swellesley

Business in Wellesley, MA today. The great gift and housewares store Marco Polo is shutting down. We bought two used vintage steel office chairs and other sundries. We moved to Wellesley a couple decades ago and has it ever changed! In the old days if you wanted make up you shopped at Filene's or CVS. Now there are at least three high end makeup stores in addition to the Body Shop. Loads of glitzey clothing stores. Gone is the twice annual Wellesley Used Clothing Sale which originated during the 2nd World War. It was a great place to shop for lightly worn children's clothing.

I looked in the shop windows and sure enough, none of them had a tailored blazer. Plenty of jackets, and I realized the last 3 or 4 jacket I bought hadn't been tailored either. Now I know the reason. Probably they'll soon be as scarce as the opera gloves we used to wear to charity benefits. Wasik's Cheese Shop was so crowded you couldn't get in the door, and Roche Brothers had the traditional line up of carts for the check out. I remember in the old days it stretched around the store. Before they expanded. We wondered if this was a New England tradition.

The first nor-easter I experienced occured the first winter we moved here. The train from Boston was so jam-packed that I stood all the way, and the floor felt soft and rotten, as if it might deposit me on the tracks any moment. There were trees across the tracks and a lot of people got out at Wellesley Hills, but I persisted to Wellesley Center. Before cell phones. Didn't know where S.O. was, so I headed for the now obliterated Wellesley Inn, where an old lady and I shared a table and I drank two Manhattans. S.O. finally appeared and we had dinner. Later our neighbor had an impromptu party (by then all the lights were out) and we drank more and ate appetizers from her freezer that she worried might spoil. The next day I had a hangover.

The Wellesley recycling center was so famous we took all out of town visitors there. The book drop and the take and leave sections were best, until various out-of-town scavengers parked all day at the take and leave and mostly took.

Cyrano the cat hung out on the top shelf of the book store above the cash register when he wasn't curled up in a cozy arm chair. When my Dad used to talk about the days when bread was 5 cents a loaf I yawned and vowed that I would never be one of those people who always remembered the good old days. Bah!

Never say never. I am workin on the 25th (at least) World of Mirrors query letter. It's beginning to seem pretty hopeless.

Onward,


Grapeshot