Apr. 29, 2007 - 17:56 MDT

MOTH TO CANDLE

Lights, long before people got completely sated and abhorred "light pollution," I was at my tender age a delighted observer of that grand show.

Once in a while my Dad would take us to an evening movie "down town." It was a super prelude to a good movie and a pipe organ interlude, was that beloved trip to town.

He would go north on Logan Street to 8th Avenue, cut west on 8th and go to Broadway and then turn north toward town.

In those days electric signs were everywhere, and those lighted signs with bubs lighting and going off in a circle I found in later life were controlled by stepping relays which could be configured in many ways and which they were for many signs. Such movement fascinated me.

As we proceeded to "down town" those huge electric signs began to show ahead, massive they were some about 2 1/2 stories high, all mounted to be seen from the street. Before we got to them, above Broadway the spotlit golden dome of our State Capitol made its grand statement. One sign by Colfax Avenue and Broadway featured the Burlinton Zephyr Engine moving across the sign.

I guess most any company that was solvent had a sign up, as big, high and in a prominent place as they could get.

Of course colored lights played on that stage too. But, most were white in various forms of display. I remember the Public Service building in its glory, being the supplier of electricity in our town, its building was studded with electric light bulbs from the base of the second story up the facade of the building.

Later along with the hurry scurry of moving lights NEON bean to glow and show the way to modernity, they seemed to be seductive to spending money, at least they were to me.

The area where the east-west drag crossed Colfax Avenue was loaded with signs from the ground up, all saying, "Look at me, look at me," and on down 16th Street toward the Depot there were an infinity of them, large and small, colored and white, the street had them all -- throbbing, pulsing and twittering in their lightning way.

Even though we were just window shopping in the big department store-lit windows at the sidewalk, all those lights seemed to give purpose and a glorious sense of ongoing vibrant life to me.

Then in my adulthood on the outskirts of town came the shopping malls with massive parking areas, stores all under one roof as well -- so many stores. Downtown as I once knew it began to die as a place for one to go -- despite efforts to pump new life into it. Then the advent of TV seemed to be the death knell of drive-in theaters and caused the flight of downtown shows too. Most of those buildings left are "events centers."

The push to tear down signs along highways because they blocked folks from seeing scenery was a good thing I think, but took fire and with contagion spurred the outlawing of city signs.

What happened to my beloved town ?

The place where everything one wanted was nicely grouped on well lit streets with trolley cars plying their way ? One answer to the turn of events was parking, most everyone drove to town as time went on, there was a shortage of places to park, and the price to park kept rising.

Now I must criss-cross the Metro Area, mall to mall, shopping center to shopping center, walking in the rain or snow and sometimes slush -- oh hush old man, you had your share of rain and slushy snow when waiting in the weather for a trolley car. Yeah I know, but things are different in a way I can't fathom and really don't like very much. It is as peoople seem to want it to be, so be it.

Those gentle youthful days are long gone, though not forgotten, remembered with much love, the way they used to be. Still, I am like a MOTH TO CANDLE . . . . . . . . . . . .

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