Poem for passing through Springfield

01/28/2010 10:36 EST

Poem for passing through Springfield

Malaise or Evolution?

Driving through Springfield just off 95, where we lived 30, no 40, years ago when Dad was transferred here from VietNam, I noticed a few little changes.

What a surprise to see Mickey Dee’s now a Saigon City selling pho and an orange neon sign saying, OPEN. Gone are those golden arches touting how many billions sold. Where is that idealist on the bus on the way to Lee High School dividing the Earth’s population and wondering how many days McDonald’s could feed us all?

And Pizza Hut is now Kabul Kabob. (I imagine Paul Simon’s “My Little Town” song floating through my multi-media mind…) Do we invade countries then adopt the cuisine of their refugees?

My old Little League field is now an office complex that has my destination, a coin counting machine so that cup full of $64.04 minus a few wheat pennies and silver dimes, will keep things from bouncing. (And Joni Mitchell’s “Pave Paradise, Put Up A Parking Lot is enervating cells in my auditory cortex…)


We’re just doing the best we can. Or are we? Depression era Marine Corps parents had flabby kids who woke up too slowly to join the struggle. (And Jackson Browne’s “struggle for the legal tender..)