Changes

I decided to visit my parents for a "weekend" out of the city.  I put the word weekend in quotes because days of the week don't have much meaning to me in the summer. My weekend in Stratford is Saturday night to Monday night.

Today I went out for lunch with my friend Heather.   Many times we've met up in downtown Stratford, had a nice meal, and wandered the shops. After lunch we bee-lined to our favourite Stratford bookstore: The Book Vault. Of course, we got distracted along the way and ended up at the coffee shop.  Did we miss it somehow? We turned around and spent a good five minutes being utterly confused until we realized that the accounting firm next door had expanded into our beloved bookshop, which was gone forever.

We crossed the street to the other bookstore, but it wasn't the same. Our favourite bookstore had mad deals.

As we continued shopping around, I couldn't help but notice about the changes that have happened. Yes, a lot of my fave stores that I've been shopping at since I was a kid are still there, but I couldn't help but notice that my favourite stationery, shoe and clothing stores are gone. One of my favourite restaurants has been standing empty for quite some time, as are the spaces above and below that housed the sketchy nightclubs we frequented in our late teens/early twenties.  The biggest inn in town is now a Best Western, and the coffee shop across the street where we used to recount those sketchy nightclub nights, sits deserted. At least the Dairy Queen is still in business.

As we were ending our shopping, a lady stopped us and asked if we were from here, and I responded yes. She asked us where the Royal Bank was, and it took me a little longer than I'd like to remember. I realize that after all this time living in Toronto, I'm no longer the hometown expert that I used to be. There are lots of restaurants that I've never tried, and my favourite places are disappearing.

However, my heart was warmed to see that my childhood toystore still sells gimp by the metre and stickers by the square so some things are still constant.