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| East Main Street, Rochester.(Photo by Douglas Perot) |
It’s just ten days until my move to Maine, and it’s a pretty ragged time. The Volunteers of America truck will be here tomorrow, my house looks like the aftermath of urban rioting, and I figure I’m about three weeks behind on my to-do list. Everything, in short, has been going as well as can be expected.
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| Rochester, struggling? Yeah, that’s one reason. (Photo courtesy of Ivan Ramos.) |
Then a series of cascading events hit yesterday:
- My Prius was hit by a flying traffic cone, shattering the front bumper;
- Our Civic needed $500 worth of brake work to pass inspection;
- I dropped my mobile and shattered the screen;
- An hour after the Civic got new brakes, it blew its muffler.
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| Rochester. (Photo courtesy of Ivan Ramos.) |
Of course, all these things needed attention before I leave town. The only solution was to throw money at the cars, but after dropping a thousand dollars on them, I wasn’t keen to spend more on a new phone.
I’ve enjoyed my weeks of packing and sorting, oddly enough, and didn’t want my good mood to fizzle. “Lord, don’t let this steal my enjoyment of this day,” I prayed.
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| Rochester. (Photo courtesy of Ivan Ramos.) |
I called Verizon; they wanted $180 to fix the screen. A used replacement was about $200, only marginally less than a new one. We watched a Youtube video on fixing it ourselves, but the replacement parts were $33 plus tax with two-day shipping, and when and how I’d do it remained up in the air.
Just to tell myself I’d checked off every option, I called an independent repair shop. Run by two nice young men, the Wireless Wizard fixed my screen for $70 including tax. The young man who helped me told me he’d worked at Rochester General Hospital before he and his brother rehabbed their first office space on East Main Street two years ago and opened for business. They moved across the street two months ago, and have just added a nail salon next door to their shop.
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| Once a star in Rochester’s firmament, East High now graduates about 39% of its students. (Photo courtesy of Ivan Ramos.) |
My last studio was almost across the street from their shop, so I know the neighborhood well. There are parts of Main Street that are almost genteel, but that block is struggling. Any new enterprise that moves in is a triumph of hope over experience.
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| At N. Winton Village, East Main becomes almost genteel. (Photo courtesy of Ivan Ramos.) |
Seeing a new business succeeding in Rochester cheered me up a great deal. Having my phone fixed at a decent price cheered me up even more. The day was redeemed.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in August 2015. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.