Four Quarters Volume 202 Number 2 Four Quarters (Second Series): Fall 1988 Article 1 Vol. 2, No. 2 9-1988 Four Quarters (Second Series): Fall 1988 Vol. 2, No. 2 Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/fourquarters Recommended Citation (1988) "Four Quarters (Second Series): Fall 1988 Vol. 2, No. 2," Four Quarters: Vol. 202 : No. 2 , Article 1. Available at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/fourquarters/vol202/iss2/1 This Complete Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the University Publications at La Salle University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Four Quarters by an authorized editor of La Salle University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. VOL. 2, NO. 2 |€)|€|0|0| Second Series FALL, 1988 Quarter^ Four Dollars ''-^'' Jiy- •{ a.-*' •'//Toj;_4->,fvV,^j^__ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/fourquarters221988unse €)|€|G|0| ^^t/.r^ Quarter^ VOLUME 2, NUMBER 2, SECOND SERIES FALL, 1 988 Table of Contents QUARTER NOTES John Keenan, The Boutiquing ofMain Street 3 Barrie Maguire, Mac 5 John Overmyer, Mac (drawing) 5 Joyce Carol Oates, Mystery (short story) 9 Barbara C. Millard, Talking WithJoyce Carol Oates 17 Daniel Burke, FSC, "Christmas Cards" 23 Daniel James Sundahl, "A Change of Climate" 24 David Shields, The War on Poverty (short story) 25 John Rodden, The Separate Worlds of George Orwell 34 Bill Wine, P.S. (a. one-act play) 41 Karen Bennett,"! would like all effort to cease" 43 Claude Koch, "The Hidden" 44 Joseph Firebaugh, The Two Tenses ofJean Stafford 45 P. Sreenivasa Rao, 'To J.—With Thanks" 54 BOOKMARKS Harold Hinton, review of Paul Kennedy, The Rise and 55 Fall of the Great Powers John Keenan, review of Samuel Hynes, Flights ofPassage 57 Charles Edward Eaton, "The Pistol" 58 SO THEY SAY Bernard Norling, The World According to Blue Books 59 and Marsupials (drawing) 60 Raymond J. Pentzell, Mind CONTRIBUTORS 61 INDEX TO VOLUMES 1 AND 2, SECOND SERIES 63 COVER: David McShane, 'Joyce Carol Oates," original drawing for Four Quarters, 1988. Editor JOHN J. KEENAN Associate Editor JOHN P. ROSSI Editorial Assistant Eugene J, Halus, Jr. Desktop Publishing Specialist Jerry MacLean Editorial Board John S. Baky Richard Lautz Joseph Meredith Glenn Morocco Margaret Ellen Wall Zane Robinson Wolf Four Quarters (ISSN-0015-9107) is published semiannually in Spring and Fall by the faculty ofLa- Salle University, Philadelphia, PA 19141. Four dollars a copy. Subscriptions: $8.00 annually, $13.00 for two years. Copyright © 1 988 La Salle University. Unsolicited manuscripts must be accompanied by a SASE. Available in Microform from Xerox University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Indexed in American Humanities Index and Index ofAmerican Periodical Verse. — €)|C|0|0 Quarter Notes JOHN KEENAN by the physical setting itself. You can see this picturesque quality in the landscape paint- ings of Walter Stuempfig, the American artist whose landscapes caught the beauty of The Boutiquing ofMain Street Manayunk when seen from the hills across the river. Something's happening to Main Street have you noticed? Since Sinclair Lewis is no Main Street was not a landscape painter's longer around to keep you posted, I guess it's dream when I first knew it in the '40's. It was up to me. the bottom of the hill in more ways than one, pockmarked with peeling paint and decaying The street which used to contain the drug second-hand stores. store, the movie house, the mom-and-pop store, and the corner taproom now consists Yet it was a real main street, a place where the of boutiques, gift shops, and fern-festooned community came to work at the factories and restaurants. I know this because I drive down mills, and to eat and drink at bars that had Main Street every day, and it is being trans- names like Bucko's and Mom's and res- formed into a brave new world before my un- taurants like Thelma's. believing eyes. The firemen (not yet known as fire fighters) You may have seen my Main Street if you sat outside the fire house that appeared to be watched the U.S. championship bike races on taken into life from a children's book. The television. The racers plunged past, building men in their blue work shirts played check- momentum to climb the hill known as The ers, putting their thumbs behind their green Wall. The Main Street I'm talking about isn't suspenders as they pondered each move. in the American heartland, it's in a venerable They may have had a Dalmatian who sat on section of Philadelphia called Manayunk. the truck, but I do not remember. Main Street parallels the Schuylkill River; a There was a neighborhood movie called the century ago it had a barge canal adjoining the Bijou (naturally) and a barber shop that river and a series of mills and factories along bragged in the window about its longevity the river banks. Main Street is the only flat (est. 1924). You came to Main Street for a part of Manayunk. The rest of it consists of pizza or a cheesesteak. You came to Main hills that rise sharply from the river to the Street to mail a letter, to get a haircut, to down Ridge. a beer with the guys, to grab breakfast or a sandwich at Thelma's. If you get the idea that The factory owners built their Victorian man- Main Street was the main street in Manayunk, sions at the top of the Ridge and called their you get Uie idea. place Roxborough (an aristocratic and British name); Manayunk (an Indian Main Street, which used to be functional and nam^e)was for the workers. Their row houses even a litde seedy, is transforming itself to perched on the sides of the hills on tiny mirror the changing American urban scene. streets that had a faintly European flavor, con- The developers have landed. The place is get- tributed not only by its ethnic inhabitants but «l€00 Quarter Notes ting quaint It is becoming the latest plaything porium. Bucko's Bar has gone the way of for the beautiful people, who need new "in- Mom's Bar. Lefty Grove's Third Base Tavern places" continually. (est 1934) is still there but the sign announces that its name is now Third Base. This is not to with the Now I have nothing against cleaner streets and 1934 and you have got change painted buildings and new businesses open- times, and who was Lefty Grove anyway. ing. But I sense that what is happening to my main street is happening to America. Real life The specialty bakery is called Edible Adven- has moved to the shopping mall. What is left tures and features a life-size cutout of a baker on the main streets are the trendy restaurants at curbside. The car dealer epitomizes the and the even more trendy shops. spirit of the new Main Street. The distin- guished facade of the building virtually dis- The new Main Street is a place for consumers, guises the identity of the business and absolute- not for the every day needs of a community. In ly conceals the brands of cars sold there. The Manayunk, the new restaurants came first, window's gold lettering announces "fine cars" trailing their ferns and flashing their design with austere dignity befitting its name: "The "concepts" at the tired old factories across the Automobile Bank." street. Now the boutiques and specialty stores and galleries are opening weekly, each with a The barber shop is closed. name cuter than the other. "Something Different" has arrived. That shop The names tell the story of changing Main is appreciated by the one next door, which is Street You can still eat at Thelma's, if you can named "Aaah!" The antique shops are aging fmd it (The sign blew down about 20 years ago overnight . "Antiques and So Forth, Ltd." has but Thelma's never replaced it; the name joined "Almost Antiques." A few beer dis- didn't matter much.) But the new restaurants tributors and plumbing supply houses hang on have names like Jamey's (in neon) ; Canal View from the old days of Main Street, but they too Inn (which offers no view of the outside world are not immune to the chi-chi names. A sign at all); and Jake's—which features a tromp proclaims "Olde Time Plumbing and Heating" d'oeil of a table and a wine bottle on its brick (I suppose we should be grateful for the front restraint that saved us from Olde Tyme.) Miller's Plumbing and Heating is farther down There is the U.S. Hotel, which of course isn't a the street If Miller goes with the times, his hotel but a bar and grill restored to 19th cen- place will soon be known as "The Plumber's tury picturesque stature by a former mayor and Helper." congressman. It features a raw bar; I wonder what the owner's grandfather would have Main Street is now a nice place to visit and thought of a raw bar. spend money. But it's no longer a main street If Sinclair Lewis were writing today, he might After the restaurants came the shops (or want to call his novel "On the Mall." maybe these are shoppes): Best Friends, Turtle Dove, Latitudes, Ranger and Blondie, the oooo Arizona Trading Company, and The Em- DCOO Quarter Notes BARRIE MAGUIRE old, he owned an accounting business, he'd been married three times, he wanted to be a writer, and he wanted to hire me to help him Mac with his writing.