and the wind cries Mary
and the wind cries Mary…
Will the wind ever remember the names it has blown in the past?
The Pacific Northwest I grew up in was a quainter place, once upon a time. I was driving into Seattle passing an old familiar landmark today, the Chinook Motel. It was a Mom & Pop place, built in 1952. As I recall there were 8, or maybe 10 units. The owners (in the early years) lived on site in their home which included the lobby. There use to be a lot of places like this in the area.
It was located in an area of south Seattle a couple of miles out of Renton. The area has gone through several incarnations as the economy has gone up and down over the years. I find it interesting to watch transitions. I’m curious, “when exactly was the tipping point that brought change?” When did this once thriving family business become obsolete? It’s been closed now for several years and was purchased in 2005 by an investment group.
Today my mind is more about the quaintness of such places and especially their names. The Chinook Motel, how Northwest is that? We rarely use names like that around here any more. We’re just so cosmopolitan now. Most names now ring of technology, the future, or every town everywhere.
Before chains and franchises we used names with a very local resonance. Business names were either family or often included words that conjured up images of the great outdoors like timber, river, sky, and mountain. Words like Cedar, Rainier, Snoqualmie, Green, Tahoma, Puget Sound, Pacific Northwest, Cascade, Nisqually, and Chinook were common. Words that were distinctly ours, we grew up with them. They were given to us by the indigenous peoples and the early settlers.
Even the road has had several name changes over the years. When I was a kid it was Dunlap Canyon Rd, then Sunset Highway, then State Route 900, and for the past several years, it’s known as Martin Luther King Jr. Way.
Change is change, not necessarily bad or good. “Time keeps on slippin’ slippin’ slippin’, into the future”, as Steve Miller once put it. Perhaps I’m a little sentimental this morning, yet more so, I find it interesting to think about what it was and what it became.
“Will the wind ever remember the names it has blown in the past?”*
*from the song, The Wind Cries Mary, by Jimi Hendrix
July 14, 2010
The Blackberry Chronicles
© ARFCO Media 2010
