Last Friday I went to town. Ordinarily, that is hardly earth shaking news, given that I work downtown these days and trudge off to catch the bus every morning about this time.
The difference this time is that I went there voluntarily to enjoy the Figgy Pudding Contest and a little shopping at Macys. That’s right, on when I telecommute I decided after work to fight the traffic and head to town, just like I do the other days of the week.
Madness? Yes! But hard to resist? An equal yes.
The simple truth of the matter is, Seattle is just a hop and a skip to get to these days. By the odometer, it’s 11 miles away. By the clock, about 30 minutes heading down Aurora Avenue.
In Florida, the closest “big city” was always 90 minutes away. It was the same when I lived on the Kitsap Peninsula. I haven’t lived so close to a big city for a very long time; perhaps 15 years.
There was a time when I believed Seattle was far, far away. No, not in a Shrek Far Far Away kind of way, but mentally. I blame my mother for this. Growing up, we didn’t go to Seattle much, Oh sure, we skirted it, driving to Beacon Hill nearly every day when my father was in the VA hospital there. But into Seattle proper? That took a lot of planning.
I remember my mom saying, “Maybe we’ll go to Seattle next month,” like it took an act of God and a passport to go there. I grew up thinking Seattle was very far away, largely because of the way my mom referred to it. When the appointed day would finally arrive, we would board the bus and ride to Seattle. Back then, the bus went from Renton up Rainier Avenue. It was a long bus ride, but if you live here then you know what a cast of characters would ride this particular bus. For a kid of 10 or 11, it was an amazing journey.
It wasn’t until I went off to college that I found out that Seattle was a lot closer than my mother let on. I had to go to the University of Washington for school, so that was a bus ride from Renton to downtown Seattle, then a second bus up to the UW.
Any place doesn’t seem so far, far away when you need to go there every day, and through the magic of commuting, Renton and Seattle became increasingly closer to one another. What was magical in my youth had become routine.
Eventually, I moved to Seattle proper. By then I was working downtown at the bank on Fifth & Pike. Now I was commuting in-city. Everything was so close that going to and from downtown was not only a daily occurrence in the day, but at night as well as I enjoyed the nightlife there in my relative youth. Let’s see, this would have been 20 or so years ago. I was in my mid 30s then… a great age to enjoy everything that Seattle and its environs offered.
I say environs because downtown Seattle wasn’t exactly a place you wanted to hang out after dark. It was a seedy place and you could get rolled if you didn’t pay attention. Few restaurants stayed open past 7 or so, and the bars were equally seedy, such as the Gibson House, still one of my favorite places for debauchery and hijinks. Sadly, it was razed as downtown reinvented it’s image as a place to live, work and play morning, noon and night.
In a touching piece of irony, my latest bus ride drops me off right in front of my old workplace, what was then the Pacific First Centre and is now U.S. Bank. That alone is a major trip, since it feels sometimes as if I stepped right back into my life 22 years ago. I am still waiting for the day that I simply forget where I work and head up to the 13th floor of this building rather than heading north another five blocks to the Westin Tower.
I admit that I tend to go downtown in part for the shear novelty as well as the Janmeister. Being new to the area, I wanted her to experience some of the fun things that happen this time of year, so I have already taken her to the Macy’s Holiday Parade and the annual tree lighting and fireworks in Westlake Center. I even convinced her to go ice skating for the first time in years at the Seattle Center.
This has been the first time I’ve holiday shopped in the big city since, uh, let’s see, uh… O.K., I can’t even remember. It certainly never happened in Florida. Even when I lived near Orlando I didn’t shop downtown, largely because there really isn’t a downtown Orlando. Well, at least not like a downtown Seattle. Shopping there meant a trip to the Mall at Millenia or Florida Mall. No one went “downtown” in Orlando because it simply wasn’t there.
If you’re wondering if we took the bus, the answer is no. Sure, I could go full “Waltons” and take a nostalgic bus trip downtown and come back loaded with packages and holiday cheer. But that would mean taking the Crazy Bus and we all know how that turns out. True, it’s filled with a cast of characters like the bus of my youth, but without my nervous mother seated next to me, it just isn’t the same.
So now you’re free to laugh. The curmudgeon is doing the full on holiday feel deal in the big city. Lights and Christmas music, crowded streets, Santa, big balloons and hopefully, a little Christmas cheer to keep the wet and cold and bay and keep me from socking someone trying to score the same item on sale I have my greedy little mitts and eyes on.
In the Emerald City, filled(?) with holiday cheer,
– Robb