“The past is never dead; it is not even past,” wrote the 20th century American writer William Faulkner.
I have been thinking a great deal about memory. Not the middle-aged paucity of, which ultimately explains why am I standing perplexed in front of the open refrigerator, or the “where are my keys/cell phone/eyeglasses” conundrum. I am referring to the dreamy, nostalgic thoughts that leave us longing for that happier, simpler time that was probably neither, but it seems so from afar.
Perhaps it is the fervent plans swirling around my high school reunion next year, or the twentieth anniversary of my mother’s death in a few days, that has left me wracking my brain to remember the little details of my formative years. As my classmates reminisce on Facebook about teachers, classes and the everyday minutia of our high school days, I will either smile at a memory being pulled from the deep inner resources of my mind or, many times, I will shake my head in astonishment that I have not an iota of recollection about events that had obviously made a big impact on many of my peers. Where was I? Perhaps my mind was “taking a little vacation,” as my daughter once described her penchant for daydreaming in second grade.
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At least I have my younger sister to aid me on the home front. When she’s not remembering the times I smacked her or hid cookies from her, she can be a fount of information concerning our time growing up.
It was the mid-eighties and I, freshly married (as a child bride, for those of you doing the math!), moved to West Hartford. Here I am, a quarter century later, and I realize that I have lived here longer than I lived in my New Jersey hometown. A while back, I was flipping television channels and I happened upon an amateur home movie of West Hartford Center in the mid 1980s. Someone had stuck a camera out of a car window and filmed a loop of West Hartford Center. And there I sat transfixed as I saw the town of my newlywed youth.
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Afterwards I kept thinking about how much West Hartford has changed in a relatively short time. Stores and restaurants that I had frequented years ago had slipped from my mind until I had seen them whizzing by in that movie. So I have decided to compile a list of my town memories, places that I visited or walked by regularly while strolling my babies, in the hope that it may give someone else an “aha” moment. I greatly encourage Patch readers, young and old, to submit their own recollections of long-gone establishments or places that hold a special spot in their hearts and minds. They may be gone but they shouldn’t be forgotten.
1) Val’s restaurant (cream of carrot soup, in particular)
2) South Seas restaurant which became Panda Inn which became an Indian restaurant and then Max’s Oyster Bar
3) Maple Hill restaurant
4) Scoler’s at Bishop’s Corner
5) Dino’s Italian restaurant at Crossroads Plaza (best sausage grinders ever)
6) The Hot Spot (best onion rings, hands down)
7) Central Deli
8) Teddy’s Lunch on New Britain Avenue
9) The Youth Center, children’s clothing store
10) Dunn’s fabric store
11) Galloping Boutique
12) Metzger’s lighting store
13) Nanny’s and Nanny’s II children’s and women’s clothing
14) Finast Supermarket
15) Colonial Hardware
16) Kabel’s luggage store
17) Hilliard’s candy shop
18) Howard Johnson’s on Farmington Avenue
19) Sage-Allen
20) Three “other” Friendly’s: Bishop’s Corner, Elmwood, and Park Road. I know, I know, there was one at Bridlepath but it was gone by the time I moved to town.
21) Briefly, an outlet center where Bally’s in Elmwood is located
22) The Connoisseur Gift Shop
23) Service Merchandise at Bishop’s Corner
24) 224 Park clothing store, located first on Park Road before moving to Farmington Avenue
25) Art Moderne splendor of the Elm Theater
