Under the Cobalt Sky

Most of the country is snowed under or enduring freezing rain, but here in Santa Barbara it’s a balmy January evening with a full moon rising over the Lobero Theatre. My wife and I are walking down State Street toward the beach with no particular destination in mind, out mainly because we don’t have our kids and the evening is too lovely to spend indoors. Tourists and pods of young people pass us by, a panhandler plies his craft without much success, and a street musician strums a beat-up guitar.

We stop before a vacant storefront and struggle to recall what had occupied the space. I think it was a jewelry store but my wife remembers it as a place that sold imported bric-a-brac. Not often being in need of bric-a-brac, imported or domestic, I can’t say if she’s wrong or right. We move on, enjoying the air and the cobalt sky. The recently shuttered Borders book store looms before us, hollowed out and empty, outlines on the carpet and walls where display shelves once stood. Across the street Barnes & Noble has also closed, so except for the venerable, cozy Book Den on Anapamu Street, downtown Santa Barbara is without a bookstore. I know my wife is also contemplating the demise of downtown bookstores; over the years we spent many, many pleasurable hours browsing the stacks in Borders and Barnes & Noble and it’s hard to imagine our downtown without a major book retailer.

“Our downtown” is perhaps overstating things because, in my opinion, downtown SB hasn’t belonged to locals like us in a long time. SB was a town but has been transformed into a travel destination, hawked in glossy magazines and on the Internet in the same way advertisers sell soap or beer. Brand recognition. The American Riviera they call it. Santa Barbara Magazine makes it all look beautiful and refined, clean, safe, a charming paradise where life is fulfilling and rich, and unpleasantness has been forever banned.

I’m old enough and have lived here long enough to remember JC Penny, the White House, Lerner’s, Lou Rose, OTT’s, the lunch counter at Woolworth’s, the Earthling Bookstore and the Copper Coffee Pot – all relics of memory now. My wife reminds me of the many banks that lined State Street in our childhoods, which brings to mind Crocker Bank, where my mother once worked as a teller. How long ago did Crocker Bank close its doors? Twenty-five years at least, perhaps longer.

A hazard of living in the same place for many years is watching it change. Whether the changes are good or bad depends on one’s sensibilities. Businesses and people come and go, landmark stores and eateries close their doors, slip into memory and become fodder for conversations that start with “Do you remember…?”

We continue strolling as the moon climbs to mingle with the stars, lost in reverie and nostalgic feelings for childhood and a bygone era, and the trance holds until our senses are assaulted outside Abercrombie & Fitch by pulsing music and the overpowering smell of men’s cologne. Abercrombie, Juicy Couture, Old Navy, Macy’s, Nordstrom, GAP, Betsy Johnson, Restoration Hardware and Banana Republic, big name retailers that have displaced locally owned mom & pop stores. Some might call this progress, and they would be right, of course – cities either change or perish—but it leaves me feeling alienated from the main street of my hometown.

At Cota Street we cross to the other side of State and head back uptown, past the fountain near the Metro Theatre where a kid with matted hair and a dragon tat on his chest asks for change. He smiles politely when we decline to aid his cause; I’m sure he has no idea that Crocker Bank ever existed or that SB boasted a Woolworth’s with a lunch counter. He may not even realize how quickly the present becomes the past.

But his moment will come.