Ruminations from a Union Avenue sidewalk

by Jack Neely

We knew it was somewhere inside there all these years, but as the mirrored glass comes off the old Miller's Building, people stop on Union Avenue and stare, as if they didn't expect to actually see it again, this sudden image of that huge dark-brick building with the tall arched windows. In spite of all the old photographs of it all around town, we'd forgotten it, and how huge it was. It seems for all the world like a new archaeological discovery, a battered temple emerging from some modernist jungle.

The last time I saw that wall I was just a kid. When I was 12 or 13 and had a free Saturday because my clients' grass wasn't growing much, I'd get on the bus in front of my house. On Gay Street, near Union, I'd pull the cord and get out. Downtown was freedom to a pre-driving kid, the only place I could come and go as I pleased.

I had a regular circuit. I'd make a pass through Kress's 5 & 10. I'd also go by the Hobby Shop, which was next door to a bar and cigar shop on Clinch, and look at some model airplanes and monsters.

And I'd go to Wall Avenue. There, among the loan sharks and cheap jewelers and the Blue Circle, there was a rare-coin shop. The proprietor was an old bald man with a long nose. He was rarely in a good mood, but he let me gawk at the Morgan dollars, liberty dimes, Indian pennies in his glass cases. I just looked, mostly, but sometimes I bought something cheap.

Once I bought an 1867 nickel at his shop for a half dollar, then got tired of it and took it back in a fresh cellophane sleeve. He said he wouldn't buy it because it was no good.

He didn't like me a bit. Once he sold me some tiny gold coins dated 1853 for about five bucks. After a few humid weeks of summer, one of the gold coins developed a bubble. It popped, and I saw it was all rust inside. He wouldn't buy that back, either.

I thought of him as a mean, crabby, dishonest old man, but I'd go in his shop every chance I got.

And I went to Miller's. I didn't go much to that modern Miller's down on Henley; there was something about that place I didn't like; somehow it reminded me of a hospital or an airport. When I remember it I mainly remember standing around waiting for somebody.

I favored the one on Gay Street. I don't recall much about what they sold. Most of the floors, as I recall, featured rows and rows and rows and rows of cloth of one sort or another, and didn't interest me. I don't remember ever buying anything at Miller's except for Hardy Boys books, which were on the mezzanine. The mezzanine was different, like a bazaar. I'd lean over and look at the shoppers on the first floor who never looked up. A mezzanine lets a 12-year-old boy feel subversive, think about water balloons.

They had a small but always fresh selection of Hardy Boys books, seemingly a different combination of the blue hardbacks every time, and usually one or two I'd never seen. I always wanted the original editions from the '20s and '30s, which I thought were better than the ones after 1950. I'd buy them for $1.50, a couple hours' worth of work on a good day. I ended up getting all 50, and nearly all the ones I bought myself I got on the Miller's mezzanine.

Downstairs in the basement there was a little diner, and it was my favorite place to eat downtown. The S&W was too popular for me, a place you went with your family and in a mood to talk loudly. With so many people, I always felt self-conscious in the cafeteria line there. Just walking in there was like entering a beauty pageant. On the other hand, I wasn't quite bold enough for the storefront sandwich shops on Market Square and up and down Gay, the dark little places that served beer.

The Miller's Grill always suited my mood perfectly. I'd say it reminded me of Hopper's "Nighthawks at the Diner"—but the truth is, the first time I saw Hopper's "Nighthawks at the Diner," it reminded me of the Miller's Grill, except the place in the painting looked a little more cheerful than Miller's Grill because at least it had a nice big window to the outside. Since it was a grill, I always got the grilled cheese, because I figured that must be the specialty. I don't know why I liked sitting there at the counter by myself, drinking a Coke and eating a grilled cheese, but I did. It was what I always looked forward to, my reward for a successful day of shopping for a Hardy Boys book or an old nickel. I'd sit there and read the first two or three chapters; my favorite part was always the interesting characters the boys met at the beginning. Then I'd pull myself away barely in time to run up to Gay Street and catch the next bus home.

I suspect Hardy Boys books had a lot to do with why I liked downtown so much. Only downtown did I get to see the sorts of characters Franklin W. Dixon wrote about: hunchbacks, shoeshine boys, blind beggars, priests, loan sharks, hoboes, foreigners, reporters, grouchy old coin collectors, tough guys who looked like maybe they were as "swarthy" as the tough guys in Hardy Boys books always were. Those folks seemed scarce at the Racquet Club or the Burger Chef. But downtown always promised some adventure around the corner, over that transom, down that alley, up on that mezzanine.

It's something, seeing those old walls again for the first time in 25 years.