God I miss this place… It feels as good as ever to be up here. There are some places that I just feel right
in. The DC area isn’t one of them, but Ithaca sure is. This trip has
started the whole “There has to be something I can do here for a
living” thought process again. SIGH, as usual, there doesn’t really
seem to be anything up here for me, maybe if I looked harder…
The place has gone through some changes. Rt. 13 is
unrecognizable it is so built up. There is now a Walmart, a super
Kmart, Lowe’s, Bed bath and Beyond, Barnes and Noble, etc strung all
along Rt. 13 from Wegman’s an North. Speaking of Wegman’s, it’s moved.
Remember how it used to be right next to Topps? Well, there is now a
Barnes and Noble and Bed bath, etc there where Wegman’s used to be.
This completely freaked me out when I first looked for W’s. They have
moved a little bit further away into a massive new store. There is no
more Rogan’s. I about cried when I heard this, but there is now a place
called King’s subs and Franco’s Italian resturant where Rogan’s used to
be, the pizza is the same (thank God), but I don’t know about the rest
of the food… Both Joe’s and Little Joe’s are gone. Rt. 13 south of
Wegman’s is now separated into one way streets. The Woolworth’s
building has been torn down and something else is going up…
Surprisingly, I had no problem getting around town.
Those of you who suffered through me driving you around back then will
not believe this, but I have not gotten turned around once, even with
the new traffic patterns. I have even got Cornell and collegetown
mostly figured out, and I rarely went up there when I was going to
school here…
Binghamton is mostly the same, although I’m not sure
if it has become noticably more run down or I’m just not used to it any
more. They tore down my wharehouse. It was the old Lander’s cosmetic
wharehouse, and I loved the inside of it dearly… I’m happy to report
that the buildings on the other side of the tracks from the old
Lander’s buildings are now being used. I went to both Sharkey’s and the
Little venice, and I plan on going back to the Little Venice on my way
out of town… I scored a Jascha Heifetz album with some digging at the big thrift store in Owego. It’s a bach album, both the Sonata No. 1 and the Partita No. 2 (a personal favorite of mine) are on there. Like all thrift store albums, this one needs a little scrubbing, but it looks like it’s in good shape other than that. My main place for buying old records is gone. It was a little purple shack in Johnson City run by a dirty old man. He sold both used records and old copies of Hustler, Penthouse, etc. 10 years ago, that was a viable business. Nowadays the used market for LPs has dried up and people that want dirty pictures go to the internet…Tomorrow will be my last day up here, Sob…. Beth has
classes tomorrow, so i won’t be able to spend as much time with her as
I have been these last couple of days, it’s been great seeing her.
Since she doesn’t have a car, she rarely gets off campus. It was great
to show her the various falls and local haunts off of the Cornell
campus. It’s going to be tough going back to work…
Isaac