God bless those who are using the internet to do a noble thing: preserving images of our past. I've been thinking lately that I ought to make a concerted effort to start capturing these things for myself. I'll tell you what started this whole thing.
     A couple of days ago while on the phone with my dad, he brought to mind something that I hadn't thought of in a long time: the cafeteria in Rose's. Rose's Department Stores can still be seen once in a while, but they used to be pretty plentiful from what I understand. I'm also under the impression that at one time, most if not all of them had cafeterias. I have nothing to base this on other than my own understanding, so if I'm wrong, please shoot me down gently. By the time I entered the world, this trend of Rose's cafeterias was already past its peak, but since Hopewell, VA doesn't tend to be on the cutting edge, I got the chance to experience it for myself. Come to think of it, Rose's was pretty revolutionary. I'm pretty sure you could eat at the Woolworth's and Marshall Field's of the past, but those days were long gone. The days of Targets and Wal-Marts with their tiny in-store cafes had yet to come into vogue. At that time, the early to mid 80's, Rose's is the only department store I can think of where I could go in, try on some clothes, browse the latest toys, and then settle in for some salisbury steak and mashed potatoes. Honestly, the only time I remember eating there was when I was with my grandparents. They were real cafeteria folk. It was kind of exciting to me to actually eat there. I can still see the amber glass above the wall that separated the cafeteria from the store. In fact, that's the most vivid memory I have of the cafeteria. The rest sort of fades.
     Now, I must have a dozen of these random memories a day, and yet I don't blog them. What makes this different? I can't find anything online, not even a passing reference, to prove that Rose's cafeterias ever existed, and that just breaks my heart. OK, I found one passing reference, but if I had said that up front that would have seriously diminished the drama of that last sentence. I'm sure you understand. Truthfully, I wish I could post fabulous pictures here of Rose's cafeterias, especially in their heyday. It would do much better than my fuzzy memories of the final years of the Rose's cafeteria in Cavalier Square. In fact, I remember when they remodeled the store and took the cafeteria out. The place just never seemed the same to me after that. It was like it lost its soul. The old Rose's with it's classic eatery was a slice of Americana that held on long enough for me to take a bite and I owe it to the memory to post it here for all to read. While I'm at it, here are some other things I remember that may never be mentioned if I don't do it.
     The old Kmart right past Fort Lee. We usually only passed it if we were headed to Petersburg to go to Walnut Mall. Yes, children, people used to shop at Walnut Mall. The best thing about the Kmart was the sign by the road. It was huge and you could see it well before you got to the Kmart. Honestly, I'm not sure if there's still a Kmart there, but I know the sign is gone. All that remains are two tall poles leading to nowhere. Of honorable mention is the old Penney's at Walnut Mall that kept the 60's logo (that simply said "Penney's") until the late 80's. I loved that. It was like a piece of American pop culture that was accidentally left behind. I always felt like I was seeing something I wasn't supposed to see.
     The banana on the hill in Virginia Beach. I think they took it down when I was 6 or so, so that's all I can tell you about it. I think it was near the oceanfront and I always got excited if we were going to drive past it. I remember the day Mom read in the paper that it was coming down. She told me about it. We may have driven past it one last time for old time's sake, but I don't remember. I have found absolutely no references to this thing online. I can't believe it.
     The old Kings Dominion sign. Back in the day, the trees weren't as tall, and you could see the sign from miles away. It was much more subtle than the current sign, just a beigish background with the Kings Dominion logo in neon and a small, green display at the bottom that could fit no more text than "Open Weekends". Mom knew that if we passed it and I was sleeping, she'd better wake me up to look at it or I'd be mad. When I was a kid, there was also a billboard on top of a building in Tobacco Row for Kings Dominion that you could see from I-95. We went into Richmond a lot more than we went to Kings Dominion. I wasn't sure exactly where KD was, but I knew we must be close for them to be advertising it like that. It always got me excited. To me, KD was the happiest place on earth. As long as I'm going with the KD memories, I'll mention the big rainbow that marked the entrance to "The Happy Land of Hanna Barbera". It was very trippy, but very memorable. I was pretty sad when they "modernized" and took that thing down. Is nothing sacred?
     Stuckey's. When I was a kid, you couldn't spit out of your window on I-95 without hitting a Stuckey's. Nowadays, they've mostly been converted to other things or torn down completely. If you do see a Stuckey's, it's part of some "convenience plaza" - mostly some merchandise with Stuckey's price tags that connects a Burger King or Dairy Queen to a cash register where you pay for gas. The glory of Stuckey's was the big barn-like structures you could see from the highway that held the promise of tasty pecan logs within.
     The Lynnhaven Mall of the 80's. It had not one, but two toy stores (K&K and Kay-Bee). It also had the coolest place to buy clothes for a kid. Before The Children's Place was the upscale juvenile clothier of choice, it was The Children's Palace, complete with indoor play area to occupy the kids while the moms shopped. It had a TV for playing cartoons, a climbing area, and a slide. It also had a weird little round hole at the front of the store that a kid could crawl through to get in. I guess it was too distracting when the moms actually needed the kid to try on anything. I also remember the smoked glass barriers on the top floor with the brass on top. It actually seems odd to me that they replaced that with the metal railing. There's no chance a kid's going to get his head stuck in glass. Let's not forget the dark brick outside, the geometric signs for the mall, the Miller and Rhoads, the Greek(?) restaurant on the top floor...
     There was a Dairy Queen in the little shopping center next to the mall (I don't remember the name. They just fixed it up though. It's where they built the new Chick-fil-A.) It had a little theater in there where you could deposit some money and watch a cartoon. I've never seen anything like it before or since. It wasn't around much longer after that.
     There used to be an old Nichols store in...I think Colonial Heights. It was clearly built some time in the 60's and the exterior was never updated. I think it went out of business around 1987 or so when all the other ones did.  We used to drive by it pretty often and I remember loving it. It still had the original sign and everything. Again, it was like a moment frozen in time. I guess it's possible it's still sitting there, but I seriously doubt that huge store on that big piece of property would've been left vacant there for 20 years. I always loved seeing the places that time forgot, like a piece of the past that even I could enjoy, if only in passing. There was the old drive-in in Petersburg, the cleaners in downtown Mechanicsville, pretty much all of downtown Hopewell, a handful of oceanfront hotels in Virginia Beach, the Pepsi Free logo painted on the side of a building on Rt. 460. I'd say I could go on and on, but that's really all I can think of right now.
     So, I should probably start carrying my digital camera with me everywhere I go, ready at a moment's notice to capture a beloved piece of architecture or history that could be gone tomorrow. If I do, know that those things will at least be able to live here for years to come.

If you liked this, feel free to hang out here. That's what I've been doing for a couple of days.