Leah and I hardly ever go downtown any more, but we arranged to meet Leah’s hairdresser Sheila for dinner and a drink Thursday night.

Downtown Rome is very different today from the way it was when I was growing up. Back then, the five blocks of downtown had multiple dime stores, locally-owned clothing and furniture stores, multiple chain department stores even in the same block, a theater, shoe repair shops, a newsstand (where one Baptist minister was caught buying a copy of Playboy. Scandal!), banks, and two restaurants. The Post Office was one block off Broad, and there were two mail deliveries a day. Today, the biggest draw is the many bars and restaurants. There are a couple of tattoo parlors (do they still call them that?), a few sad boutiques, the history museum and more restaurants. Oh, and one local jeweler who still manages to hang on.

If the city fathers had had the sense to realize what they had in the original buildings, downtown would look like Disneyland. This is an example of the architecture.

This is the Masonic Temple, whose upper stories remain pretty much the same as they were when the building was constructed in 1877. The street front has changed. The tan building behind it is the old, old Post Office, where my father worked. I spent many a long afternoon parked in front of that building, waiting for my father to get off.

I have updated this post to show this image that was on display on the wall of our local mall along with a lot of other shots of Rome from years ago. If you compare this to the current building, it’s clear that the ground level of the Masonic Temple has suffered the same fate as most buildings in downtown Rome — “modernization.”

When we walked into the restaurant, I recognized the long, white hair belonging to Bob, one of a pair of twins who went to Darlington School one year ahead of me and two years behind my brother Henry. He’s now Leah’s eye doctor.

We sat right behind him, but none of us bothered him. When we were almost finished, Bob got up and Sheila patted him on the back and said, “You don’t remember me, but I used to cut your hair all the time.” Bob insisted that he did remember her. They spoke for a  minute and then Bob turned to us. Leah introduced herself, and Bob seemed to kind of remember her, but probably mainly her brother.

I told him my name, and after a short pause, he threw his hands into the air and said, “Soccer!” I said, “No, you’re thinking of my brother,” who played soccer. In my freshman year I spent a lot of time in our car waiting for Henry to finish soccer practice. Henry played soccer  and ran track and cross country. I never played soccer, or any other sport.

After we left, Leah and I meandered up Broad, where I took the previous picture, and then this one.

“Psycho kitty” has been in this blog before. He’s a book store mascot.

When we got to the car, I thought about Bob mistaking me for Henry, and remembering that Henry had played soccer 53 years ago.

I thought, “I need to tell Henry about that.”