Susan Rushton commentary: Change has its drawbacks

August 2033 I didn't think I'd be gone so long. I grew up in Auburn. And then when I sailed off to college, I met someone from another state and – well, we settled in still another state. Not to say I've never come back to visit. I had friends in Auburn, and it was always just fine to visit my parents. When we had the time to come back, I mostly paid attention to my mom and dad. The rest of Auburn wasn't on my mind. But of course things would change. I just didn't think about it. And so as we raised our kids, we got used to what we were used to. That place became our home. Just like Auburn used to be – well, you know. Yeah, I grew up in Auburn. I was convinced it would always look familiar. Finally, on a business trip in 2033, I found myself in Northern California, fairly close to what I remembered as "the Endurance Capital of the World." So I meandered up to I-80 and Highway 49. Eager to see the old place. I still shudder at what I found. This wasn't the cozy town I remembered, the cozy town with welcoming mom-and-pop stores and the comfortable road meandering along Auburn Ravine. And the proud Old Town Auburn, home to historic buildings, a perfect place for Christmas and summer events. Or the downtown that was a perfect place for parades, music corners and perfect for high school kids looking for a good, quick lunch. Not anymore. I found four-lane roads everywhere, even downtown. It never occurred to me Auburn would end up with more than two six-floor parking garages. And those businesses downtown? Not one was individually owned – all of them were franchises or other gigantic companies. Yes, a couple of them might have been small, but most of the buildings rose so high plants couldn't grow along the sidewalks ... no sun. And that was just downtown. I remembered a few large businesses in the northern part of town. I found them all right, but they were tiny compared to what appeared while I was gone. What I saw instead broke my heart. Once that gigantic wholesale place got its way at DeWitt, clearly no space was safe in Auburn. I guess that big echoing hardware store encouraged giant store owners. Now that wholesale place looks like a one-room school. Amazon built a similarly mammoth warehouse – or maybe it was a distribution center? – right next to it. As I gaped, I couldn't tell which used up more space, the building or the parking lot. No, it isn't as vast as the 3.6 million square-foot warehouse in Tennessee. But it's big enough. Too big for Auburn, in my opinion. But maybe not anymore. Plus, you know that grocery store even more popular than the wholesale giant? The one that kills the smaller groceries? I saw it along the eight-lane Bell Road between 80 and Highway 49. No, it isn't the biggest one in the country. But so what? Sick of all these changes, I wondered about the friends I once had – the ones who, like me, had grown up here. I tried to find them, but I only found one. He was at the post office, changing his address to one in another county. He was moving. He recognized me and we chatted briefly about what we were doing. He said he was the last one here of his good pals, all of whom, including him, had worked hard to try to stop this ugliness. "We can't fight them," he sighed as we gazed at the Ikea that had taken the place of the nursery, E.V. Cain and the Auburn Library. "They have more money than we do. They know what they want, and they know how to get it." "And what they want?" I asked. "They want a different Auburn," he said. "They want it to be an ultra-modern city. They want bigness. They want money. They want a gigantic population, modern-ness and more money." He shook his head. "You know that all the wineries have been bought out? There's this multi-money group that wants – oh, I'm not sure. It's either a Disney-like amusement park or a government organization that wants to build a prison. I don't remember. Either way, it's hundreds of acres." He sighed. "Plus, there's this massive group that wants to eliminate the idea of Auburn having anything to do with being the 'Endurance Capital.' They're going to get their way, too, because ..." "... Because nobody remembers the way it was," I shrugged. "But you know ..." He nodded. "Yes. Reminds me of that comment about 'Nothing's certain except death and taxes.' Except –" Yeah. We both knew. There's another thing that's certain: Change. Change, regardless of what people want. Sigh. I miss the Auburn I remember. Susan Rushton's opinion column appears regularly in the Auburn Journal. Her email is goldcountrydenizens@gmail.com.