untitled
ney rothier müller
In 1952 the window overlooked a bakery run by an old Italian couple, and you could probably smell the bread baking in the mornings and in the afternoons, cookies and cakes. You could probably hear the bell ring when customers entered and left. I like the sound of a bell. I bet I’d have like it here in 1952.
The bakery’s gone—who knows why? Maybe the old Italian couple retired and moved to Florida. Maybe he died, or she died, and the other just lost heart and gave up. Maybe they decided to sell the place because they didn’t like their new neighbors—who knows, who knows. Doesn’t matter—it’s gone, the bakery, and for a while it was a little store that sold cigarettes and soft drinks and aspirin and feminine hygiene products and kept men’s magazines behind the counter. Then it was a couple other things—I don’t know what; people told me but I forget; before my time. It was a used clothing store when I moved here, then a place where drug dealers bought pagers until everybody stopped using pagers, then just a place where drug dealers hung out, then it just sat there empty ’til it caught fire and the little window couldn’t keep out the oily smoke and godbless the firefighters for saving the buildings on either side.
Maybe they went back to Italy, the old couple. Maybe they did and opened a new bakery and maybe their happy, flour-fingered grandchildren are baking crisp crusty breads and there’s a bell over the door that rings in Italian to let them know when customers enter.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
