Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
– Robert Frost
A closing door will click and clack, but never says to hurry back.?“They’re gone,” it tells the checkered floor. Expect no thank you, Reverend Door.
We live near “City Center” – That is what it calls itself., although we are NOT near the “center” of the city. Once it was simply “Sears Roebuck”- the entire half-block was theirs! Portions of the original Sears were, over the years, replaced by big outfits like Mervyns, Toys r Us, Best Buy and Office Depot.
They are no longer around, and I guess they are missed by some folk, but they were replaced by businesses which will no doubt one day vanish and be missed. But those too will be replaced!
Already, Whole Foods is re-structuring the former Best Buy space, and its coming is highly anticipated.
So, you get the picture – It’s called CHANGE.
Things change, things disappear, but often something else will replace those things and we won’t miss them too much. I long ago stopped searching for Studebakers, Mercurys, Odsmobiles, and Hudsons,
Now, most “things” can be replaced by other things and not cause major disruptions in our lives..
However, there are changes that result in losses that are not, and cannot, be replaced!
The recent announcement that Haight Ashbury Music Center – my go-to place for everything music – is closing for good after forty-seven years, hit me like a ton of
bricks! That is because it is the last of a kind – a “Music Palace” of note – the last MUSIC Store (As I define it) in this large and supposedly enlightened City.
This closing, following the closure of other legendary music stores in the San Francisco Bay area, is nothing less than disastrous.
I have spent many hours with the knowledgeable people at Haight Ashbury Music Center. I’ve ordered instruments, bought just about every music book, tried out every brand of strings, tuners and picks. I spent a few hours time plinking in the beautifully stocked back area and quiet room. I even volunteered to set up banjos sold to “Newbies” when all employees were busy. They KNEW me, and trusted me, acting like I was one of their own!
The Owner, Massoud Badakhshan, stands among his organized mess of stock, spread all over the main floor of his business (and all of which is on sale) as he speaks of rapidly rising San Francisco rent (His current rent is $14,000. per month) and declining sales, as people turn to the internet. He will close the doors for good on October 27th.
Already departed in the recent past is the Fifth String Annex which was situated out on Geary Boulevard, where just a few years ago, my wife surreptitiously bought me a half-dozen banjo lessons and brought home the rental open-face and an Earl Scruggs Book That store became a comfortable place in which to hang out, try out and make offers for a variety of used banjos and talk to knowledgeable folk.
Of course, everyone knows that most holy Fifth String in Berkeley – the “Mother Store”, is gone.
There is remaining that one chain, “Big Box, ” music store on Van Ness Avenue where one can buy instruments and books, but I found little help beyond, “I don’t know -cash or card, and see you next time.” No one there could answer many of my questions nor could anyone set up a beginner Goodtime that one of my friends had purchased for his son. Service and more knowledgeable help may happen there, if they decide to fill in for the loss, and if they attempt to be more responsive to the more serious, hollow-eyed musician.
We still have Gryphon, forty miles south, and a couple others that I hear about but have never visited. We have music “Schools” and we have music “teachers”, but we don’t have enough of those wonderfully dark and odorous hovels called Fifth String!
Nothing gold can stay.
