Dead Man’s Town

By the time you read this I’ll be gone. Yes, I am leaving you and taking the dog with me. We are just too different, you and I. I should have known it from the beginning, but I really hoped that you were more than your buttoned up corporate façade. Thought that you would have more to offer, that you would care about things that were important to me, but I was wrong. So this is it.

Wilmington, I am breaking up with you.

Oh, we had our moments, its true, and I will remember them fondly: Chocolates from Govatos’, the salsa from the Riverfront Market, the Greek and Italian Festivals. Finding treasures at the Resettlers, discovering Bellefonte. Bringing the dog to the park to play and the yummy sandwiches at Pure Bread afterwards. Listening to WVUD. Yes, there were some good times, but not enough to make me stay.

My friends tried to warn me, but I would not listen. They would mime picking up the ubiquitous free entertainment paper and flipping through it, only to find on every page “nothing…nothing…nothing”. Silly, I thought, it will be different once I get to know you. Oh, how wrong was I! My life depends upon the success of original live music, and what do you do? Hang out at the Kahuna or Dewey listening to cover bands and DJs, not caring a whit when the Barn Door closes. You were too afraid to go downtown after dark anyways, preferring the safety and homogeneity of Route 202.

I have realized in these past two years that it would be useless to try to change you. It would be like you trying your best to convince me I could find happiness in front of the giant screen TV that I paid for by selling my soul for credit cards and chemicals. That farmland looks better when it is dotted with McMansions, and that Rehoboth is so much nicer now that all of that junky old stuff has been replaced by townhouses.

So I am off. I have found somewhere else. Somewhere where I can walk to the one screen movie house and see an independent film any day of the week. I can check out the live original music at the locally owned and operated coffeehouse next door. In the spring I can walk to the farmer’s market and there will actually be farmers there selling vegetables and cheeses, not flea market trinkets and tee shirts. Heck, even the diner there is a real diner, not a cinderblock building pretending to be one. See? I told you we liked different things.

So this is goodbye, Wilmington. Oh, I am sure we’ll see you around sometime, when we’re back visiting friends or something. I hope your revitalization happens someday, and you become the vibrant and interesting place you could be. I just can’t hold my breath that long.

mod*betty