By David Lindeman
Contributing columnist
I’m sure there are advantages to getting older. If I ever discover one, I’ll let you know.
In the meantime, at least getting older gives you a longer view of things. I discovered this the other night when I was going over some recent finances.
Some people have told me I’m a tightwad. They think this is true because I still wear a couple pair of shoes I bought 35 years ago. Or maybe it’s because I dress like I’m in high school – jeans and T-shirts, which I get free when I order stuff for our business. Then again, it may be because I am still using the same software to record finances that I started with 20 years ago. No updates. It worked fine then, it works fine now.
So, I was going over some finances and hit a wrong key or something and wound up looking at 2007. It surprised me that so many places I did business with in the not-so-distant past are now parts of history.
This is particularly true with restaurants. Friendly’s, Tin Roof, Night Sky, Max and Erma’s, Tipp of the Town, Ruby Tuesday, the Pastry Kitchen – they all got some of my money at one time. I guess they didn’t get enough of it. All gone now.
Then there was CJ Highmarks – remember them? One food poisoning incident and it’s all over. Way back, I used to go to Jersey Mike’s to get subs. Then they went out of business. Now they’re back! Live long enough and good things can happen.
If you go way back to my childhood, places like the Helen of Troy and the Gables and Ording’s were places to go. I used to get ice cream at the Foss Way ice cream store. Pizza at Donaleeo’s. Hamburgers at Burger Man or the Hojo Junction. Now they’re all gone. Makes you appreciate K’s.
By now, you might be thinking that over the years I spent all my money on food. This is not true, at least not once I got by being a teenager. There are lots of others places on my credit card list that also have disappeared.
I used to get flowers at Forest Hill Gardens. Yes, I remember when Radio Shack was the height of technology. There was a time when Dayton Power and Light supplied everything to keep your house running. DP&L is now somebody else and I don’t even pay whoever that is but I pay someone else who can give me a cheaper rate event though they don’t produce a single kilowatt of electricity. I don’t understand how all that works, but I pay the bills anyway.
Family Video – or any video, for that matter, is a thing of the past. A once-thriving industry sunk by better technology.
The list goes on and on. Some places went on to better things – the Troy Meat Shop, for instance, morphed into Haren’s. But if you look at a list of stores in Troy that haven’t made it, you’ll find there are a lot more than those that have made it. I don’t have a lot of them in my check register because I never spent money there, which I guess is one reason why they’re no longer around.
So, it looks like there is one consolation to getting older – I’m outliving a lot of places where I’ve spent cash over the years (and even more where I haven’t). I expect if I last much longer, the list will continue to grow – except for K’s. It will outlast us all.
David Lindeman is a Troy resident and former editor at the Troy Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected].
