Day 15 April 1, 2008
This morning's run takes me past the Upper Darby Post Office to the lumpy triangle shaped, block formed by Fairfield Avenue, Terminal Square Boulevard and the last block of Garrett Road. This is our township's ethnic business garden of delights. In this one block there are a Korean Realtor, a Korean computer store and a new huge Korean supermarket called H-Mart. Also there are an Asian boutique, an Asian DVD store and an Asian gift store. When it comes to a good meal, one can choose among a Vietnamese restaurant named Little Saigon, a luncheonette called Sol Del Peru, or two Mexican restaurants: La Marqueza and Sabor Latino.
In past decades I can remember a host of businesses that failed on this block including: a dance hall, a gym, a model car racing center and a self defense studio. For years a shoe repair and typewriter repair store stood guard on the block unflinchingly. I remember getting my school shoes resoled at the former at the end of every summer. These days people throw away worn shoes. The tops don't last like they did when they were made in Boston or Hanover. Typewriters too have gone the way of the dodo. Slowly the two repair stores gathered dust in their front windows and aches in the joints of their craftsmen. Their skills outlasted their trades. Only the Pipe Store still smolders.
There was a convenience store here that met a more abrupt end though. On the south side of the block when I was a kid there was a store with a soda fountain style counter. It was the first "restaurant" that I went to without my parents. A hamburger, fries and a drink cost $1.25. I first learned to tip here, rounding out my meal to $1.50. My buddies and I would go to the library in the municipal building then there for lunch on Saturday. We loved the burgers. They were big and greasy, and tasted better than those at home. We were stepping out! One weekend the place was shut. There was a notice from the Health Department on the door. They never reopened. We were heart broken, and hungry. About a week later the rumor spread that they were closed for serving uninspected meat...from Australia...from kangaroos. To this day I am still looking forward to a trip Down Under...for the hot, jumping food.
I criss and cross the blocks just south of the 69th Street Terminal. On Richfield Road between Chestnut and Samson is one of the township's few examples of courtyard houses called mews. This term has a royal heritage. It came from a French word, muer, for the moulting of falcons. The English king kept his hunting birds at the stables at Charing Cross, which became known as the King's Mews. These buildings were clustered around a courtyard and, when they were converted to living quarters, the name stayed with the building style. I'm sure that this architectural terminology was started by a quick thinking Elizabethan realtor.
Further south on Richfield I run into a draft of colder air emanating from the Sears parking garage. This three story structure is half buried in the hillside and is so big that it acts like a cavern. Hampden, Glendale, Copley, Ashby Roads, I run back and forth, up and down. These blocks are most distinguished by those with sycamores and those without. These peeling bark trees look diseased at first glance, but it is just their healthy growing trunks needing to exfoliate their outgrown bark, like garter snakes shedding their skin. They also grow curiously in another way. Rather than heaving the sidewalk upward, their trunks grow out over the sidewalk like the exploding tops of baking muffins. The blocks with sycamores, even without their foliage, seem close and comfortable; those without, elemental and exposed.
Distance: 5.15 miles Time: 49 min 9 sec Pace: 9:33 min/mile
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