EDITORIAL: We don't know what we've got till it's gone
Jul. 21—"Don't make it a sob story, because it's not," Joshua Michaud, co-owner of the now-shuttered Big G's Deli in Winslow, told a Morning Sentinel reporter covering the beloved sandwich shop's closure last week after 38 years.
It was a tall order for the reporter in question, faced with balancing the request against the memories and tributes of hundreds of heartbroken customers, some of whom said they wished they'd known about the closure in advance ... allowing them time for just one last sandwich.
It's a story, sob or otherwise, we're all very familiar with. Big G's joins a long line of stalwart businesses that, upon closing, are loudly mourned by the seeming legions of patrons they leave behind.
People will say they miss the food or the wares, they miss the atmosphere, the workers, the familiarity and, above all, the sense of community on offer.
What we've chosen to remark on, this midsummer Sunday, is not some new trend. Change happens and so it must. Places close and new places open.
Is it not the case, though, that in today's atomized, individualized, polarized world, the local spots where we enjoy going together and being together are more valuable to us than ever? Aren't we right to be more concerned by, or upset by, treasured places dying out?
We're not talking about the philosophical or conceptual "culture" or "character" of a place, something (often abstract) that tends to be brandished by people resistant to new development or redevelopment. We're talking about real-life antidotes to social isolation and the increasing homogeneity of our towns and cities.
Political division and discord has reached a chilling high in our country — you don't need us to tell you that. The COVID-19 pandemic, creating a cruel world in which to be separate was to be safe, drove people apart with ramifications that haunt us still. Technology, meanwhile, continues to facilitate connection of a kind — we all know what it means to be disconnected from our lives and surroundings while we are connected to our devices.
The vaunted "third place" is, tragically, an endangered species. The fora for the simple day-to-day interactions and meetings that make life worth living are getting smaller in number.
The third place — neither home nor work or school — can take many shapes: movie theater, library, soccer field, neighborhood Starbucks, peeling bar stool, park bench, sandwich shop counter.
Unity and consensus can feel thin on the ground these days. Even then, most of us can reach robust agreement about the value of a decent sandwich — and thank goodness for that.
Big G's cited years of financial hardship and staffing shortages as leading to its final weeks. If the shop had sounded some form of klaxon, would the one-last-sandwich crowd have rallied around in numbers sufficient to save it?
We saw something along these lines happen elsewhere in Maine earlier this year, when, upon announcing its imminent closure, Pizza Joint — with shops in Portland and South Portland — was inundated with sentimental customers in search of pies.
Asked whether the flood of eleventh-hour customers had given her pause about the fate of the business, and whether — freshly on people's minds — it had a chance of survival, South Portland manager Patty Young was reflective. "It certainly did cross my mind," she said. "If even 10% of the people who came out had been coming in on a regular basis, maybe."
Dennis Fogg, who made the decision in 2020 to close Uncle Andy's Diner in South Portland after 66 years in business, struck a similar note as he considered the spike in visitors and outpouring of love from diner patrons that came at the very end.
"If it was everybody's favorite place," Fogg asked, "why did we fall off so much?'"
The experience of these establishments, and the stinging sense of loss we all experience when a place we love and enjoy going to ceases to exist, reminds us to try to give to the places that give back to us. Their importance is pronounced right now. Don't make it a sob story.
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