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Dispatch — September 3, 2022 —Main Street, Clyde, OH

            I’m staying at the Hampton Inn in Fremont, Ohio, the next town over from Clyde. I want to get night shots of the downtown—no noise, very few cars, and the only people here are coming in and out of the Town Tavern, the place with the most prominent sign of heat-vision red neon LIQUORS. I’m visiting with my friend Bob, who was born in Fremont. He wanted to visit his family’s old home and trace a bit of his dad’s past—coincidence is never far from our lives, but at this point in my life I refuse to believe in the fatedness of anything. 

            The air is heavy and humid; my camera lens keeps fogging up as I try to capture Clyde at dark. Almost none of the same businesses are here Wilson’s is completely gone though the store was started in 1914, and set up its “permanent” shop on the corner of Main and Buckeye Streets in 1918, but closed in 2004—the building was demolished and a bland bank building put up in its place. Don Carter is gone. The Clyde Enterprise ceased publication in 2016. The bank is a coffee shop. There are a few vintage goods stores, a larger real estate company, and a candy shop—all the hair places (and some) are still open. The buildings all basically look the same. Many are different colors from my first trip, and the old town hall sits at the opposite end of Main Street from the new town hall, and new police department. Things have changed, and I wonder if these changes have made Clyde more vibrant, have made downtown a place people miss and now care about.

            I feel so connected to this little town; 50 percent because of Sherwood Anderson, but the rest is all… me. I have always been a nostalgic person, and this downtown spoke to me because of the truths Anderson revealed while he was here, and the truths that I have experienced here–the anemoia, the imagined life I have created in my own head of what I would have been like had I lived in Clyde. I want to believe I could have kept Don Carter and Wilson’s and The Clyde Enterprise in business, but that is all just a fantasy, isn’t it? All I’m doing is reaching for something that has no more place in reality than a wish, and I don’t understand the thing in me that keeps reaching out and will always reach out for…something. 

            I take photos with my Leica SL (a completely different animal from my old Pentax K-1000) of the old Don Carter building, and as I walk up towards the Town Tavern, I see Bob is talking to a woman who is unclear about what personal space is. She’s inches from his face and her arms gesticulate, reach out and pull back, as she explains something to Bob. I can make out only a few words—“How long’re you here?” “Museum” “a drink.” She seems very flirty, and not wanting to deal with her, I stay far away from them both. Bob is trying to end the conversation and walk away, but it’s obvious she doesn’t want it to end. 

            She gently touches Bob’s shoulder, walks closer in, then pulls back, only to repeat the pattern. She is doing most of the talking—she has a smile, and her face is full of hope.

            I get a little closer and see the look in Bob’s eyes—get me out of this!

            Instead, I do a loop back down Main Street to take more photos, and when I turn around, Bob has tried to follow me but was caught in front of the large, glass-windowed, chain real estate shop with the Clyde Woman still talking, reeling, reaching. Bob keeps looking over at me as I walk up to Gary’s barber shop and snap a few more photos. Bob’s look is now begging me to help end his entrapment.

            “Hey, Bob! Let’s get going,” I say as I walk towards them. 

             She quickly says good-bye—doesn’t even acknowledge me—and walks to the Town Tavern.

            Her flirting had a desperation to it, as if Bob was fresh meat—“New in town?”—and either the thrill of a stranger or the weariness of the same ol’ same ol’ in Clyde pushed her to talk to Bob for any—any—kind of connection, and it wasn’t just desperation, it was excitement, joy—the unknown. Her short skirt, low-cut blouse, perfectly did hair—she was out tonight to have fun, and good for her, but Bob is a married, faithful, polite man, and my abrupt announcement to leave was made more abrupt when the Clyde woman realized she wasn’t going to get any connection through with her conversation with Bob. 

            Bob confirms all of this.

            She confirmed that not much changes in Clyde except the businesses that inhabit it—the businesses that held a history people don’t care about anymore despite reaching out for something/anything.