That Damon's

I passed the Damon's i wrote about earlier the other day. It's not off exit 110, i realized. Does that make me a little bit like James Frey? I hope not, his fictions were somehow more dishonest, maybe because they changed the fundamental meaning of the anecdote (or so i'm told).

Anyway, it's a Hall of Fame Cafe, and the building has undergone dramatic renovations/additions (several years ago, actually). I hardly even recognized it when i made a point to look at it carefully. I guess it's true what they say about leaving home: once you've left, you can never come back.

It's funny how that works. Of course, even buildings that haven't changed more than their marquee don't quite seem the same as when we used to frequent them, years later. I visited one of the elementary schools i went to not too long ago. If you've done the same, you've heard these words sung before; the halls, once unspectacular, seemed claustrophobic and low. The teaching rooms are tiny and even the gym is hardly more than a glorified garage. It's hard to stomach, but we know the building hasn't changed, we have. As Dantès might say, kings to nostalgia, right?

But i bring this up to challenge the limits of architecture's power. An architect built the school, surely, and that architecture may have influenced my education. How, i'd be hard pressed to say, but i can say things about the layout of the school that might have been different in another plan. The halls formed an H with a double crossbar, with one leg The Office. There's no courtyard in the middle though, just the gym and the cafeteria. We were lucky to have them separate in elementary school -- when i went to middle school we had to make due with our Cafe-tor-nasium.

In front of The Office was The Bench. You sat on The Bench to await your judgment from the principal, who (along with calling your parents, i suppose) would often cast down your doom, in the ancient sense of the word: more sitting on The Bench. I rarely invoked such harsh punishment, but The Bench commanded a respect no mere furniture should ever have of a small child. The parking lot was just outside the door by the principal's seat of power, but even after school we would rather stand by the door than sit and wait on The Bench. People would think you'd gotten in trouble.

I never had cause to venture across to the far side of the H, that was for the younger children, but it was a mirror image of the near side. The hallways were single loaded in a manner of speaking, since the gym and the cafeteria took up the entire other side and were accessed by the "crossbars" as i called them above. A straight shot down the hallway from The Office would bring you to the playground doors. Facing that direction down the hallway was certainly exciting.

I reminisce all this because despite all the physical memories i have of the place, none of them are memorable for themselves. They simply remind of a time past, a state of mind, a childhood friendship, an adventure braved. The architecture didn't do that for me. I don't care for this phenomenological outlook that the structure of the place invoked a chosen pattern of thought. My teachers, my friends, they structured my growth at that school.

Or am i metaphorically choosing between walking towards the office instead of the playground? Over a decade later, i hope it's not that insidious.

But damn, if that isn't convincing imagery. I think the difference is intent. We have to remember, always remember that our creations will affect the lives of untold strangers...in ways we cannot possibly hope to control. And if we can't bend our phenomenological impact to our respective wills, how can we possibly hope to be responsible about it?

I could do worse for metaphorical imagery regarding nostalgia, though. There's the whole adage about standing in the same river twice (and how you can't). Browse some forums about that one if you want to read some truly moronic web-rats that have managed to crawl away from YouTube commenting for thirteen seconds. Still, i felt a stranger upon returning to the school. It's the same physically, but it's not the place i once spent my days, not anymore. That's why i take phenomenology with a grain of salt. That Damon's, though -- it was arbitrarily chosen, once. It had no attached memories, aside from sight/site-memory. Now that it has changed appearances, it has no meaning to me anymore. No architect could have planned for that.