I realized the other day I have been passing this same fountain since I was a child.  I don’t know why it struck me on this particular evening.  It is wild to think of how much has changed since I was a very little girl.  I can still remember cash registers that would “ching” when they popped open, and riding backwards with no seat belt in the station wagon.  I have very vague memories of 8-track tapes and nurses who wore dresses and pointed hats.  I remember when there were no plastic bags, and television only had three major channels.  Washaterias were prevalent, as were phone booths.  I imagine a time lapse film in front of this fountain, with people wearing polyester in the ’70’s, then big hair in the ’80’s, to grunge in the ’90’s.  The new millennium has ushered in all sorts of change, particularly people with their heads looking down at their cell phones, which can do everything from starting cars to ordering food.  My father was a painter and when I was little there was a paint store around here.  I would often accompany him when he picked up custom mixed buckets of color for people’s homes and also churches.  When I was barely a teenager I had to see a foot doctor that was right at the top of the stairs.  And when I was in my early twenties one of my very best dates was at the restaurant you see in the background, only then it was a small European restaurant.  Now there is a grocery store to the right and so we pass the fountain often.  On this night it was raining and my little one marveled at the raindrops she could see falling in it.  We always find ourselves pausing to appreciate something about it.  In the summer the grackles like to bathe in it, much to our delight.  Times have changed but this fountain has remained.  In Spain I loved seeing these types of fountains, only much more grand, in the town squares.  The great American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.”  I wonder what changes this fountain will see as my little one grows.  And I wonder what memories it will carry for her; perhaps buying her school uniforms, picking out Valentines, or eating at our favorite Tex-Mex restaurant.  I just know I look forward to all the times we continue to return to the fountain.