Sadly, one of my extended family members has recently undergone some extensive health issues, and she has been in the hospital. I've been driving Melissa to and from for her visits, and this place is in the southern part of Gainesville, with me passing by the University of Florida. This afternoon I seriously considered, on the way back after dropping her off, stopping at the nearby Krispy Kreme donut shop about three blocks north of campus...but changed my mind considering that rush hour was soon on the way and I didn't want to get caught in heavy city traffic. So instead I'm sitting here in my nearby Dunkin Donuts writing this, remembering that Krispy Kreme from my past. Back in the early 1980s I was single with a very modest income and a pretty frugal existence. Still, I enjoyed going to coffee shops and studying...being out in public tended to rivet my attention on what I was trying to focus on. That Krispy Kreme store was open 24/7, and they never gave me any trouble if I chose to sit there for a while. I think doing this helped me to come to some level of inner peace about interacting in public settings while enabling me to adopt a lifelong discipline of learning. Back then, I lived in the southwest area of town and would ride my bicycle back and forth, largely down Archer Road and across the UF campus, between Krispy Kreme and my apartment. The early eighties was a time in my life of "no running", but I was still pretty fit with my extensive bike riding. Nowadays, though, I'm frankly a little afraid of getting on a bicycle and riding through the motor traffic around me...there's too much going on in cars now to distract drivers from my presence on the road. One of the subjects I remember studying back then was a romanized Japanese language grammar book, which I have sadly misplaced somewhere in the deep recesses of my home. But my son Will, who tragically passed away last July, was himself a student of Japanese, and one of the books he left to us was an impressive Japanese grammar. So although it remains to be seen, I just might be inserting some Japanese studying again into my daily routine. Hey, I'm retired and this should be fun. And although I'm no longer a regular customer of Krispy Kreme, I'm glad it's still standing there in the midst of the excessive construction and congestion that's recently taken place in that part of Gainesville...
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Back in the mid-70's Laurie and I lived in the student ghetto and I was a bartender at the ABC just on the other side of 13th Street. The owner of that particular franchise was a man named Charlie Gass and he was a regular at the bar. I used to go in there every morning for a cup of coffee and a donut and Charlie would let me just walk back to the work area and pick a donut right off the assembly line, piping hot and covered with the sugar glaze. I had such a sense of belonging when I lived in that little neighborhood, something that I have seldom felt since.
ReplyDeleteI remember Gass...he was there until the mid-80s when the North Carolina corporate office took over and redesigned the store's front, bringing in new management...I think Frank Monaco was the new manager..
DeleteOh, and that ABC is now a Cannabis store.
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