Goodbye to all that: The New Haven Coliseum falls

Deep pangs of sadness and regret filled my heart this morning, when I discovered that the New Haven Coliseum had been imploded yesterday morning - and I wasn't there.

When I used to go visit Betty in the 'Have, I think it was on Dwight Street (?) - she had a neighbor across the street named Jay, a graduate student and intellectual goofball who shared with Betty and myself an obsession with the impending implosion. We talked about all making sure we would go together - Jay was keeping tabs, waiting for the announcement with great glee and anticipation - but for whatever reason, it kept getting put off.

When Betty finally moved from New Haven after six years or so there, and at least a couple of years after we first began awaiting the implosion, it didn't even occur to me that my ears on the ground in town were no longer there. We all lost touch with Jay along the way - for one thing, he stopped dating Betty's roommate - and life went on.

But waking to the news of the implosion today, seventeen marvelous seconds that I have missed forever, brought a tinge of happiness amidst the regret. My memories of the Elm City - Pepe's Pizza, Betty's music shows, walks around the city and up to East Rock, that crazy poet woman, making fun of and patronizing the bookstore/cafe that sold sandwiches like the "Ernest Ham-ingway" - came rushing back.

And of course, let us not forget the Dairy Queen in Hamden, Connecticut, an important landmark of our halting transition to adulthood and responsibility - we drove ourselves there, and chose our own indulgence, and we weren't too old for a cone dipped in fake chocolate.

Goodbye, Coliseum. Goodbye to all that.