An Ode to 4th Street

Oh, 4th Street, how I miss you. Here you are as I never saw you, in the daylight, where all of your many flaws could surely be seen.

Honestly, I think this picture is the first time I've seen 4th Street in the daylight.

I don't remember the first time I went to 4th Street. In the days before 4th Street there was 3rd Street. These were dark and naive times. But, sometime after graduating from high school, my friends and I found 4th Street. 4th Street always seemed to be open. Midnight on Friday night, 3 a.m. Saturday night (Sunday morning?) and 7 p.m. Tuesday night, it didn't matter. If the sun was down, and I was hungry, I was craving 4th Street, where the cigarette smoke hung in the air as the waitstaff blared Guided By Voices out of an iPod hooked up to the speakers. On daring nights we ordered beer, but more often than not settled for soda. We smoked cigarettes and coughed and talked about things like they really mattered. And we ate. Were the swiss cheeseburgers really that good, or has nostalgia clouded my mind? Could the cheese fries really have disappeared from the communal plate as quick as they always seemed to? (I'd wax poetic about other dishes, but honestly I don't think I ordered anything else)

But alas, my poor 4th Street, now you are gone. Now you are Tony's 4th Street Grill, and you're closed by the end of lunch time(!), and I don't know what to do. I have not since filled the void your absence has left in the night. You are but a memory now, and there you shall remain; dirty and smoky and greasy and pure.