Grist to the Mill

04 November, 2007

CHANCE & TIME & CONNECTING

The following passage was in the line notes of a Richard Hawley album. No need to paraphrase him. The feeling he expresses is plain:

In every city and every town there's a place.
A special place where people meet. Not a mythical place but somewhere real, a place that exists, not in the past, but now.
In my city there's a place just like that. You won't see a street sign for it and you can't find it on a map, but it's there, right under everyone's feet, thousands and thousands of feet have stood there, waiting in the warm morning sunshine or stamping bored and impatient in the freezing winter night annoyed at someone who's late or will never come.
Yeah it's there alright. I know. I've stood there.
This place in my town is called Coles Corner, in Sheffield, right in front of where the old Cole Brothers department store used to be... a long time ago.
It got knocked down in the 60s to make way for the bright new vision of the future somebody planned.
The new building's old too now... but not as old as Coles Corner.
For years, lovers, friends and families have met here on this spot.
There must be so many people that are here in Sheffield and in this world who are alive because a love bloomed after meeting here... on Coles Corner, in Sheffield, the city where I live.

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