No News is...

Since my head is buried in the sand most days I seem to be the last to have found out that Out of Town News in Harvard Square  - aka - "the news stand" is closing for good next month. The latest casualty in the endless stream of small and big businesses folding in this scary time. The news really hit me hard. To say that it is a Boston institution (yes, I know that it's in Cambridge but all native Bostonians secretly believe that Cambridge is part of Boston the same way we believe that we have the only good colleges, hospitals, and sports fans) is true but doesn't really cover how significant it is to me. It is the best memories of my adolescence. It is my high school friends calling each other on Saturday mornings and planning our Saturday night in Harvard Square, listening to the street performers before going to Rocky Horror, running out in time to catch the last T home...and always the conversation endedwith...Okay, so I'll meet you at the news stand at 11.  It is my mom and me eating at Grendel's Den (back when the upstairs was the restaurant and had the only decent vegetarian food available - killer salad bar) or catching a movie at the Brattle then thumbing through magazines at the news stand before heading home. In retrospect we probably should have bought some of those magazines, huh?  That was one of the great things about it though. You could stand there for hours reading and no one would think to scoot you along.

I got bitter about it for a few minutes today thinking about the "old" Harvard Square. The HS of Grendel's, the Wurst House, the news stand, etc...before the Gaps and Banana Republics moved in for the duration -  But I remembered that there is still the Brattle standing tall and narrow with its creaky seats and warm stale smell, the Coop with its overpriced Hahvahd paraphanalia and amazing textbooks, and many more holdouts of the tweed and leather elbow patch era.  Yeah, it's still Harvard Square... just with one less friend.