The more things change . . .

The more things change, the more they stay the same in that they constantly change.

I met a man and his wife last month, they stopped me on the street to tell me they live in North Carolina, but read the Grapevine every day. They originally were from the Grove, in fact, the man told me that his grandfather was one of the first homesteaders of the Grove. He opened the Kress 5 & 10 in 1933 and they owned and still manage buildings and stores in the Grove.

The man was telling me all about the Grove back in the day, which was well before his time, but I guess his grandfather and parents told him of the way it was. He told me that the area all near the 5 & 10, which is where Jaguar, the restaurant is now, was pine trees, he said it was all one big pine forest in that area, from the post office on down the block.

I have friends whose family has been in the Grove since 1931 and they tell me about having goats and chickens in the yard off of 32nd Avenue, which was basically farmland then.

The man who stopped to talk was a bit upset about the streetscape plan and the trees being removed and replaced he wasn't crazy about that and he enjoyed the fact that I would write against it in the Grapevine, but it made me think, didn't his grandfather have to remove the pine forest to put in the 5 & 10 store? And all those buildings he owns in the Grove, wasn't that the same? Didn't they have to take down trees to put them in?

I didn't tell him that, but it's interesting to think that the world did go on, even though his family removed that pine forest, and I guess we'll go no with the new smaller trees installed around the Grove. The guy promised to send me some old photos of the pine forest and what it looked like on Grand Avenue back in the 1930s. I hope he still does. That would be interesting to see.