Rainy and Gritty

As much as we like to be timely at Wordplay, we have to admit to not having a clue as to the meaning of any of this week's political events. In fact, the longer I look at the political news, the more cross-eyed I get, and as to "seeing through" the week's events in a mythic sense, I'm leaving it alone. It's enough that I got caught in the thunderstorm of the year this afternoon while running errands and showed up in a government office downtown looking like a drowned llama.

The only thing I will say is that when President Obama was in his first term, I thought it ridiculous that people blamed him for not having the economy back in shape six months into his presidency. In fairness to President Trump, I'm extending the same benefit of the doubt, despite all the upheaval we're currently seeing and the fact that I disagree with many of his policies. It was such a tumultuous election that some of the dust hasn't cleared yet. I still think the archetype of a titanic struggle is the best description of the current political climate, but the faces of the giants are lost in the clouds.

And as to the thunderstorm: boy, what a doozy. I was driving east in heavy traffic when what had been a pouring rain turned into a full-on spring storm complete with dazzling lightning strikes to the southeast. I enjoyed the show, even though I was still sopping myself. I don't know why, but I seemed to see individual buildings along my route with exceptional clarity: they appeared to their best advantage in the rain, which softened everything just a little.

I realized there's something I like about the Winchester Road/New Circle Road area, even with its commercial and industrial flavor. I think it's because of the retro quality to the grittiness: the Parkette Drive-In is there, and the space-age winged roof of the Paul Miller Ford building, still extant amidst warehouses, storage companies, industrial concerns, small businesses, an Asian market, and a place advertising fresh ceviche. There's a handsome flatiron building that's been well restored on Winchester Road, a brick bakery famous for its doughnuts, and a few places that have seen better days mixed in with thriving businesses. As I passed the lighting store, I tried to remember if it was the location of the skating rink I remembered from my youth. I couldn't recall--it hadn't occurred to me to wonder in quite a while.

Maybe a sunny day shows up too much fading paint and too many harsh lines, whereas a rainy spring day gentles everything a little. There have been many changes to Lexington over the years I've been here, though some of the heavily groomed suburban areas reveal less of a timeline than Winchester Road does, with its wildly diverse mix of businesses, longer span of development, and lack of pretension.

I am not often out that way, but I used to travel it regularly, and probably it was bits of my own past I was seeing as I looked through my rain-flecked windshield and thought about the smell of peanut butter from the Jif factory, the way the campus office tower dominates the view as you approach town on U.S. 60, the futon place that is no longer around, the taste of a yeasty doughnut on a cold Saturday morning. Far from being a mere errand, it was a drive that celebrated memory.