Oh, Des Moines...

And you're probably thinking, "What? Des Moines? What's that got to do with EUROPE?!" Well, believe it or not, the name "Des Moines" is becoming more and more popular all over this great continent thanks to the author Bill Bryson, writer of travel memoirs and former resident of the great Iowan capital. There have been three different instances since I've been here in which I said where I was from and the European I was speaking to said "Oh, isn't that where Bill Bryson is from?" He's a great writer. And he's an Iowan! It really doesn't get much better. Oh, except he's also lived in Europe and has pretty much led my dream life of traveling around the world and getting to write about it. *Sigh.
Anyway, I just finished reading one of his latest memoirs called The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid which describes his experiences of growing up in Des Moines in the 1950's. It was hilarious, of course, and especially meaningful since I recognized some of the locations he refers to (Ashworth Pool, Grand Avenue, Iowa State Fair, Governor's Mansion, Roosevelt High School). And though most of the book either had me laughing or reminiscing, the end of the book left an enormous ache in my heart. The last chapter listed all of the locations referred to in his book and what has become of them since he left Des Moines. And the overwhelming outcome for almost every single location: renovation. or complete destruction. I was left feeling bitter that I would never be able to see the diners or parks or the theaters or some of the stores in which Bryson spent much of his childhood. He referred to the Younkers located downtown that only just closed the summer of 2005, which I remember happening, but only felt the impact of it just by reading Bryson's account of his time spent there. I know renovation has to happen to public places, but why does that often mean replacing character and originality with dull architecture or corporately owned identical chains? We are comforted by being able to go to another state and know we will find the same restaurants and stores. And I'm not saying that I didn't get excited when I found out that there was a Subway in Brussels, but what I am saying is that we become so reliant on these chains that the locally owned mom-and-pop shop that sold our grandparents candy for a penny a piece will go out of business and slowly all cities start to look identical as far as goods that are offered. And maybe this doesn't bother some people. But I want to be able to go to a city or town and have someone say to me "Oh, for the best apple pie in town you best be going to Mabel's around the corner" or "Need to get rid of those split ends? Lola owns her own beauty parlor and can get rid of those in a jiffy!" Not "Oh, try the Applebee's across the road" or "Yeah, there's a Cost Cutters right next to the Kum and Go." Maybe that's why I'm so taken with Brussels. The whole chain mentality still hasn't caught on yet (or at least to the extent that it has in America). I love that there isn't a Starbuck's here. I love that I could never dream of sampling all of the cafes or restaurants or pubs even just in my commune because there are so many and none of them are the same.
And maybe someday far off in the future once every store and every restaurant and every gas station is owned by Walmart or Donald Trump or some other corporate tycoon, someone will perk up and say, "I wonder what would happen if I opened up my own (fill in the blank)." And it will be a novel idea, that little (fill in the blank) down the street that no one has heard of yet because there isn't another one with the same name. As Bryson describes it:

Imagine those palatial downtown movie theaters with their vast screens and Egyptian decor...Imagine having all of public life - offices, stores, restaurants, entertainments - conveniently clustered in the heart of the city and experiencing fresh air and daylight each time you moved from one to another...Imagine having a city full of things that no other city had. What a wonderful world that would be. What a wonderful world it was [the 1950's]. We won't see its ilke again, I'm afraid.

And I would say, "Oh, but you were wrong, Bill. I knew somebody would catch on."