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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday, August 28, 2000 Volume II Number 35
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FOCUS - Grand Avenue
What do you do with an old town that’s dying a slow, agonizing economic death?
Less than a year ago, a Main Street as American as apple pie that once drew weekend crowds shuts down Friday at five o’clock in the afternoon for one simple reason. There are no people. No shoppers. Not even a Looky-Lou strolling the displays along the walkway. “Sorry, We’re CLOSED,” reads the sign in every window.
What do you do? How about re-development?
Colorful banners advertise the Performing Arts Center, and they wave in the evening breeze. The newly upgraded landscaped median is bright – green grass and flowers every color of the rainbow. Some believed that the new lamps, electrical lights that look like old gas-lamps, would add just the touch of old-world charm that would bring back the crowds. Someone suggested hanging flower baskets, but the budget ran dry.
But by five-thirty Friday, the sidewalks are still disserted. The re-development didn’t work. The parking spaces are empty. The welcome mat is rolled out, but no one comes. It’s a ghost town.
No wonder the merchants locked up and closed down. Rumor has it that on Friday nights, shop-owners would go home, pop a top on a cold brew over a microwaved frozen dinner and fire up video tapes of this week’s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” just to get through the last day of a slow week.
There was a time when Grand Avenue, the main street through town, looked like a scene from American Graffiti. It was burger night. Pizza night. Movie night. Kids driving up and down in their souped up cars – revving their V-8s, the throaty sounds of glass pack mufflers, windows down, waving and hollerin’ out the window, shouting names when a familiar face popped up on the sidewalk. “Hey Pete!” “Hey Suzie!” Wolf-whistles and eight-tracks pumping out the rock and roll. Guys taking their girlfriends to the soda shop, ordering burgers and fries and vanilla malt and then payin’ the bill and leavin’ a tip.
Grand Avenue was grand. The place to be on a summertime Friday night. Long lines at the movie house. An hour wait at the really pricey eateries. Coffee shops servin’ up bad coffee in heavy ceramic mugs alongside apple and cherry and rhubarb pie – a la mode. Waitresses (that’s what they called them then) wore aprons and caps and hairnets. They’d be makin’ wisecracks and takin’ orders and writin’ on a little green pad all the while chewin’ bubble gum. Then they would tuck the pencil in over their ear.
It was a happy time. An innocent time. Grand Avenue.
But in the ebb and flow of history, Grand Avenue experienced an ebb.
The Shopping Mall came to the south end of town. The Interstate bypassed the business district. The Multiplex offered eighteen movie choices at staggered start times in little screening rooms. The Drive Through meant no more gum smacking waitresses. The Self-Serve eliminated the need for service. The dollars that once fueled Grand Avenue’s prosperity went elsewhere. Along with the crowds. The hangers on made Grand Avenue a drag strip. What was once a place to gather became a place to loiter. And watch illegal races. Cokes and malts and ice cream got upstaged by drugs and alcohol. Friendly taps on the shoulder and impromptu wrestling matches became violent clashes between warring gangs. Regular folks stayed away. Shopkeepers installed steel bars. Alarm systems. Anti-theft devices. Security guards. Mean sounding dogs snarled and barked from behind the chain link fences. NO PARKING EVER signs were posted everywhere. AND THAT MEANS YOU.
The city government ordered the police department to clean it up.
* * * * * * *
Ron McCowan is an athlete. His trophy case tells you he was a football star and a wrestler. And now he is a teacher and administrator at our local high school. Ron’s a smart guy with a college education, a master’s degree and a high school teaching credential.
Every Friday morning, we meet for breakfast at the Community Center with a group of dedicated community leaders. Every week we catch up on the news and plan events to serve some of the needs of our town. Usually, we have a speaker fill us in on some aspect of life in our neck of the woods.
The meeting started up front. Ron leaned over and whispered, “Is it hot in here?”
I looked in his direction, and I could see that on this sunny August morning, sweat dripped down his forehead and the back of his neck.
Ron lifts weights. One look at him, and you know he pumps serious iron. His arms bulge and his broad shoulders fill up his shirt and he’s got a barrel of a chest and a six-pack of an abdomen. The button down collar barely makes it around his neck, which isn’t really a neck. It’s a thick extension of his shoulders. He’s got one of those chiseled chins and wavy black hair and that Christopher Reeve Superman sort of grin. One thing you know for sure is that steroids played no role in the swelling of that muscle mass – Ron McCowan is a clean living guy. It was just plain old every day hard work.
“Yeah, it’s pretty warm today,” I said, mostly to make him feel better. Actually I was comfortable. But clearly, Ron wasn’t.
“Man, I’m burnin’ up,” he said. “I’m on fire.” Ron looked crowded in a navy blue long sleeved shirt that clung to him from the heat. “I gotta get out of here and cool off.” He excused himself and went outside.
A few minutes later he came back and sat down next to me and threw back a swig of orange juice. He wore a fresh new shirt… short sleeve and wide-open collar. “There, that’s better,” he said.
“What time did you get started this morning, Ron?” I asked.
“I left the house at four thirty.”
“Four thirty?”
“Yep. Five days a week,” he said matter of fact.
“Why?” I tried not to sound incredulous.
“Our work-outs start at five.”
“Five?” Once again attempting to disguise the disbelief.
“I work out with the kids. We’ve got football players. And golfers. And wrestlers. And water polo players. We’ve even got some non-competitive athletes who just like to be in shape. We work out for an hour before school starts,” Ron explains.
“So you worked out this morning before coming here?” I asked.
“Uh, yeah.” And then as though a light bulb turned on in his head he added, “ …guess that just might explain the sweating.”
“I guess so,” I said, nodding. “At my age, when that kind of thing happens to me, it’s generally a hot flash.” He laughed. But he’s too young to know what I’m talking about.
“So Ron, how much do you bench press?”
“Well, right now we are mainly doing reps (repetitions with less weight on the bar).” Repetitions build muscle mass and endurance. “But when I’m hitting the heavy stuff, I can get four hundred pounds up.”
“Four hundred pounds? I bet those kids are inspired!”
“Yeah, none of our high schoolers are quite there… yet.” And then he added, “but they will be.” There was confidence in his voice.
* * * * * * * *
So what do you do when Grand Avenue teeters on the brink of economic collapse?
Evening and weekends, the antique shops close up. The funky little international restaurants pull in the sidewalk tables and chairs and lock them up inside. The bakeries (French and Dutch and German and Scandinavian) clean up and shut down after lunch. The pawnshop pulls a steel curtain across the front, and padlocks it tight. The jewelers clear the velvet counters in the front window of anything valuable and secure it in the vault. The art gallery leaves a couple of sample paintings in the window, under the directional lighting. That’s about it.
So what do you do? (City officials finally gave reluctant approval to a persistent little group of promoters.)
What do you do? You put on a Friday Cruise Night.
Last Spring, after considerable
advertising all over the county, on an inaugural Friday night, the Classic
Cars started to arrive on Grand Avenue at about three thirty in the afternoon. The ground rules were set.
All parking spaces along five city blocks on Grand were reserved for
cars older than 1970 models. Any
car built after that year was banned from Grand on Friday nights.
No exceptions. You’d have to find parking the next block over.
On Valley Parkway. Or Washington. Or
Mission.
From all over the county, hobbyists and enthusiasts streamed into town, filling those empty slots up and down the street. People who had never before seen Grand Avenue revved up their custom and antique cars, muscle cars, chopped tops, lowered pre-70s pick-ups, woodies, and hot rods… all Cruisin’ Grand.
A disk jockey plugged in his megawatt sound system on the corner and played fifties rock and roll. Venders showed up, selling tee shirts. An Elvis look-a-like strolled the sidewalks greeting the crowd and signing autographs.
And what a car show it was. Proud owners set up lawn chairs beside their polished beauties. Some with painted flames burning bright from under the hood and the wheel wells. Many of the hoods popped open to display sparkling clean eight cylinder engines and multi-carburetor systems and cavernous manifolds. Most with big wide tires, and some with chrome spoked wheels. Others had original hood ornaments and hubcaps and steering wheels and gearshift knobs, just like new.
Every Friday night since then on Grand Avenue is Cruise Night. “Cruisin’ Grand” they call it.
This week, Carolyn and I walked the sidewalks of Grand Avenue on Friday night with some close friends.
After dark, we wandered past the antique shops and the One Fifty Grand (a Five Star restaurant) and just before we turned into the frozen yogurt boutique for a Heath Bar Supreme with mixed nut topping, we saw him and his young family – set up next to a classic classic car. (The double use of the word “classic” is intentional.)
The Fifty-Seven Chevy is a gleaming fire engine red. Bumper to bumper, the car is stock. A two door Bel Aire. Red seats. And original dashboard. It looks exactly like the car that was a dream machine for all my high school pals and me. It’s powered by an oversized 327 cubic inch high-performance GM monster eight, duel carbs and four on the floor. Wide rear tires. Four chrome five-spoke custom wheels all the way around. When I was seventeen, it was as good as it gets. And now at my current (undisclosed) age, it still is a heart stopping beauty that well, made me feel young again.
The owner is none other than my friend the high school teacher – Ron McCowan. The muscle man has a muscle car. On display, Cruise Night, Grand Avenue; the whole family street side enjoying the cool evening and chatting with doting admirers passing by. Ron and his pretty wife Nell Rose have three boys… a four year old, and his younger twin brothers. The older one has a matching red ’57 Chev, open top, just big enough for him to sit inside and grab the steering wheel and push against the toy casters… cruising the sidewalk and making engine noises puffing out his cheeks, sounding something like the real one parked at the curb.
We talked for a while. Made introductions. Asked about Cruise Night. Ron told us about how the whole thing has revitalized the businesses along Grand Avenue, pointing to this shop and that and how owners were ready to shut down and call it quits until the classic cars and the customers made a come-back on Friday nights.
But mostly he talked about his high school kids – and the time he spends with ‘em, and how the car draws them in. How much they enjoy his family. Nell Rose smiles and says, “Yes… we have an open home.”
From a sidewalk table, the four of us enjoyed our cool smooth yogurts and watched the cars roll by. Everyone was wavin’ and noddin’ – “NICE car!” “Yes!” “I remember THAT one.” And as the crowd thinned and people packed up to head home around nine, Ron helped Nell Rose load up the mini-van in the lot off the main street… Ron sent her and the boys and the toys off, held up his keys and rattled them in our direction and said, “Now the REAL fun begins.”
Three high school athletes got their wish. Their request had been granted. They piled into the Chevy. Ron cranked the V-8. V-room. Then turned the knob and the rock and roll beat pounded through the speakers. Ron pulled his classic away from the curb, and off they went. Friday night. With Mr. McCowan. Cruisin’ Grand.
I watched them pull away, taillights blazing red, duel exhausts rumbling, and saw the smiles. And thought.
Grand Avenue is grand once more.
* * * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader.
In this world of shopping malls the size of the State of Rhode Island, and discount warehouses the size of the Coliseum, and Interstate Highways that provide a high speed bypass around your place of business… well, you may be wondering if personal service is a thing of the past.
Take it from the merchants of Grand Avenue. People long for personal contact. They long for community. They long for a place to belong.
As a leader, you can give it to them.
And in a world where people assume that public schools are big impersonal childcare centers, where everything but education happens… remember Ron McCowan. He’s one of many dedicated and skilled and motivated teachers and administrators who really cares about kids – and who populate our public schools; an unsung, un-noticed hero who shows up without supplemental pay to pump iron early in the morning, show impressionable kids what they can do, and then takes ‘em on a ride, Cruisin’ Grand in a red ’57 Chevy on a Friday night.
May his tribe increase. 
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2000
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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