A Description In Short of What Remains: Being just that, a Literary Description of a Landmark
Where once the Sparkle Spot stood, now there stands nothing. Just an abandoned lot, with a few cars occasionally sitting there, and a gigantic hill of gray dirt and gravel. The sun often shines down too viciously on both, and bakes the area, turning it into something that even more so resembles and defines a desert than anything else. Yet, greenness in all it's verdant, vernal glory grows in abundance all around it...even in the lot itself, for some few green weeds poke their heads somewhat tentatively through the crumbling asphalt, and amongst the grand, rocky leavings of the gravel itself. But here, in the midst of downtown Kittery, where mostly all is alive and verdurous, there is this barren, empty spot. Where once was the Sparkle Spot. And just what was the Sparkle Spot, you say? Well, I'll tell you: Besides being a major landmark and even haunt and harbor of my childhood in Kittery, it was a building, a complex, a shop, a store. It was some kind of modern equivalent to the local corner drug store (not to say that we didn't have at least one of those in the Kittery of that time, and indeed even in the Kittery of now; even if it is a pharmacy that is quite different from the large, exciting, cavernous, multidepartmental Osco's Drug of my youth), but it was more than that, and yet less than that, for it did not sell any sort of pharmaceuticals-at least, not that I can remember. It sat rather close to the road yet in the center somehow, of the lot...and who knows what stood in that lot before the Sparkle Spot came to town? It was a strange, almost hexagonal building, that was squat but rambling, probably consisting of only one story, though it loomed large in the mind of the child that I was then. It was tan or at least it had tan siding, with white trim, but the tan was more of a motley yellow than a true tan...but at least that white, that was real, that was white. Yet it was the segment of the building that was a convenience store (one that I think also sold and made fresh sandwiches and pizzas and such...but I can't really remember all that clearly) that I was most interested in, and that was the portion of Sparkle Spot that I went to the most. Unless of course you count the time when I accompanied my parents down to the Sparkle Spot while they washed it in one of the three or four garagelike carwash bays that were the main feature and reason for being of Sparkle Spot: for it was, first and foremost, though most people used the convenience store part of it more, a car wash, and I believe, also, a laundromat. It was a little tiny plaza that had almost everything a small city, big town could want. Yet, though I was not exactly ever a fat or unfit child, I went there primarily for the treats that one could obtain from the convenience store, Hostess brand cakes like Twinkies and Ring Dings and such. Of course, I didn't often have enough money to go down there and buy them, so I often abstained (somewhat against my will) from that store and those treats. And now, it doesn't matter. About at least ten or twelve years ago, it was torn down, and in an infinite insult, replaced by nothing. It is not even blessed with the dignity and prestige of being Kittery's one public parking lot..and if it is was one, too, it would be one of tremendous size, able to fit at least 150 cars, easily. For the lot is gargantuan, at least by Kittery standards, where most parking lots and lots are small, cramped, and narrow. This one, however, has great breadth and size and covers at least, I would say four or five acres if not significantly more. Since it was torn down, long ago, I have not been to the site of the Sparkle Spot much, for I, as a very curious and exploratory child, whose adventures took him all around Kittery at one time or another, have been to gravel pits and back lots before. I have seen them and stepped over their massive, hilly piles of gravel. I have picked my way across the ridges and slopes of great gravel hills. Indeed, there is a large gravel pit not far from that place, on whose mountainous sides I once trod. I could tell you all more about that, but it is not the subject of this entry, so I will save it for another time. Let it suffice to say that sadly, the Sparkle Spot is no more. It was once an oasis that has since been turned into an urban desert, where things grow in truest profusion only on the fringe. It is ringed with greenery, with trees, fields, hills, grass. But in the center of that ring, that oddly shaped ring, is nothing but gray dirt and loose stones, with grayish dust often blowing in between and settling on them, like infinitesimal gravelly dandruff or microcosmic debris and sandstorms. It is deserted, except for a few cars in the northern half of it, it is a desert. A desert.
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