Dear Editor/ Mr. Larry Favinger, Staff Columnist,
I am afraid, sirs, that I must take some grave exception to Mr. Favinger's article in volume 7, issue number 35 (Friday, September 2, 2011 edition) of the Weekly Sentinel, entitled "York Hospital Celebrates Groundbreaking in Kittery". Now, generally, in most respects, the article is largely correct...but it is correct only in the PRESENT, in it's cataloging and reporting of the present circumstances that grip that once-vacant lot.
It is in it's reporting of the past that the article errs-and errs rather significantly. I, being a former Kittery resident-having lived there for 13 years and been schooled there for ten; from 1985-1998; and 1988-1998, respectively-know all too well how gravely Mr. Favinger has erred in that portion of his article.
Therefore, I intend to enlighten you as to what stood, once upon a time, thirteen years ago and more, on that once-sullied spot.
I, ............ (for such is my name), wrote a memoir/essay/article in June of 2010 exactly about what was, albeit briefly and incorrectly, slightly touched upon in Mr. Favinger's wonderfully well-researched article. Before I append that article to this missive, I intend to just briefly and without much detail tell you about what once occupied that spot: I, unfortunately, do not happen to know what was there before 1993-98, but during that period (though perhaps it was longer or shorter) a place called The Sparkle Spot stood there. It was, as the article in question (Mr. Favinger's) reported, a "long-gone car wash" but, especially as I remember it, it was so much more than that. Principally, it was a convenience store, which may have had the same name as the mini-plaza entire, and it was to that portion of it (though it was multi-chambered and housed different stores, including a laundromat...of that I am sure) that I as a lad so often repaired.
Now, having dispensed so formally with that slight synopsis, let me here include and append my original essay/memoir/article of June 4, 2010 (culled from my online blog), entitled " A Short Description and Vicarious History of What Remains: An Outline of the History of The Sparkle Spot in Kittery".
Without further introduction or ado, here it is:
"A Short Description and Vicarious History of What Remains: An Outline of the History of Sparkle Spot in Kittery
(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 like Kittery 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 100 cars, conjecturally 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."
So, there you have it, sirs: My article that, to the best and fullest extent of my knowledge, describes and details what I know about the prehistory of the lot on which now will stand some York Hospital outpost (one of what is already far too many, spread like parasitic spores throughout our fair county of York), of the Stonehenge that once occupied that plot of once-retail land.
Well, sirs, I thank you very much for your time and if you should ever like to print and publish either this letter or the quoted article (mine) within it, you have my due and express permission to do so, gladly. If you should, for whatever reason, like to contact me, for the time being, on here is best, so do so at: ................... Thank you once again and goodbye.
~.........
