128 Hubbard
Check the back door,
it's locked.
Flip the light switches,
darken the various rooms.
Look back over my shoulder
one last time,
at what once was a successful business,
now an empty building bulging with memories.
My father, my four children and I
worked here, grew up here
amongst the racks of wrenches, belts and mufflers.
The kids came home from college on summer and winter breaks
to help out and earn some money.
One daughter stayed on after college too,
as I took my father's place, she took mine.
My first two granddaughters were brought here as newborns.
They slept and cooed quietly in a crib in the office
until they were old enough
to ride tricycles through aisles,
fill a little plastic shopping cart
with whatever merchandise they could reach,
and draw pictures for me to cover the walls of my office with.
Customers came,
ordering parts for a do-it-yourself repair
or bringing vehicles into the shop for service.
Then they went,
out of town to the chain stores
for a cheaper price and inferior service.
No one supports the Mom and Pop places like us anymore.
We had a mascot,
an old black dog, named pepper,
who sat in the front window.
Day after day
she would bark at the customers making returns
and ingnore the rest.
If I had a penny for everytime someone joked,
How much is that doggy in the window?
things would be different,
but they are not.
I turn the key.
The store is closed,
not just for the night, for good.
I saved all the pictures and memories,
even though I couldn't save the business.
Closing some sixty odd years after opening,
my father would be disappointed.
He is not here to see this,
thankfully.
This store was as much his child as I am.
I am disappointed with this ending, too.
This building,
my building,
will be turned into other things,
a bookstore, maybe a realtor's office
but it will always smell
of dusty car parts and grease
in my memory.