Fugue #109

In 1929, sociologist Robert Lloyd theorized that Middle America towns were becoming caught in a web of consumerism, which threatened to strip away their traditional values.

That was 80 years ago. And now we have the World Wide Web to finish the job, obliterating with finality any distinction between communities of mutual interest and communities of mutual location. These towns are not just losing their values, they’re losing their very identities. They’re disintegrating, figuratively and literally - the ties that bind us together in this place, as well as the place itself.

We used to know each other, to care about each other. Think about your mother and Miss Mitchell and their Holly Hobby cup. Sugar, flour, milk for coffee, even cigs. And your little legs to shuttle it back and forth down the street. Now Miss Mitchell is gone, and the white paint and sharp corners of her house are now dull. The people who live there now park their cars on the front lawn.

Homes are rotting into the ground, concrete sidewalks are becoming impassible, buckled by tree roots and cracked by weeds. The streets are mostly quiet. And the school playgrounds, too - jungle gyms rusting, sheet metal slides hammered by rain, and dodgeball circles fading under the sun.

"I don’t remember it this way, I remember everything new, newer anyway." Paul grabs the tetherball pole.