Another One Bites the Dust

The Spindale Restaurant is closed now, and I shan't cry for the loss of its cuisine. A rather pedestrian menu with mediocre dishes, the Spindale Restaurant was not a hot destination spot for even the basest of gourmands.

An unassuming place, the Spindale Restaurant would never be confused for a bistro, cafe, brasserie, coffeehouse, grill or brew pub. It was what its name said it was. A restaurant in the town of Spindale.

Its location was interesting to me. Set back from Main Street in a small plaza that housed a few businesses, it was a throwback to a different time when all the well-known restaurant chains hadn't yet populated the sides of the four-lane highway just down below town. Spindale Restaurant wasn't a large eatery, but it wasn't a hole in the wall either. It could seat probably 30-50 people.

It seemed particularly popular with diners beyond fifty years of age. I assume that its better days were when the textile mills across the street were running at capacity.

Everything has its time. And with its time comes its eventual end.

I should be used to that by now.

I guess I am because the news of something closing or someone passing doesn't shock me like it used to. The older one gets, the more commonplace this sort of news becomes. We are, after all, creatures of adaptation.

My wife and I never ate at the Spindale Restaurant by ourselves. No, the events that led us there always included some sort of family gathering. The last time was in 2009 when we had assembled for my mother-in-law's funeral. The Spindale Restaurant was where we congregated for a meal, and I have pictures of it.

And that's the crux of this message.

Little by little, the past is getting wiped out as if some sort of dream from which I am awakening.

I suppose I would like everything I once knew to become static, to morph into a museum piece that I can always go back and look at for a while. The fluidity of life won't allow that, though, and knowing this doesn't change anything.

Acceptance is a long time coming.

But it's coming.