Flux capacitor ... fluxing.

My husband & I grew up in the same small, rural town in the Rust Belt. When his parents moved the family there in 1985, they commented that it seemed as though they'd stepped 30 years back in time.

Our hometown isn't very progressive. That, in & of itself, isn't a bad thing. It's the regression & disintegration that makes me sad. In my childhood, the lovely old buildings downtown were home to lots of small businesses, shops, 24-hour restaurants, & grocery stores. I remember buying candy & Smurfs stickers at Davis Drug Store, getting school clothes at Keck's, & loitering at IGA to scope out the dreamy bag boy.

Now it's mostly bars. The most popular grocery store, one of the last remaining round-the-clock hangouts, is the Wal-Mart at the edge of town. Downtown was looking pretty rough until a couple of years ago, when an Act 47 grant paid for streetscaping & beautification in the once-charming town. Basically a cosmetic installation of bricked crosswalks & prettier street lights, it failed to cover up the vacant & dilapidated buildings.

It occurred to me that even with a facelift, our hometown looks like Hill Valley in the parallel universe 1985. There's no Biff Tannen's Pleasure Paradise, but Adam's & Headliners provide the same basics. Now we just need a time travelling DeLorean.