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Move on, they say. Forget the past. Get with the modern times. Well, sometimes that's easier said than done.
In the nearly 69 years living here in the Ohio Valley, I have rolled with a lot of the punches of "moving on." I watched the landscape of my hometown of Wheeling change many times over. I was part of the retail center in Wheeling for several years and witnessed its demise.
I made the trek to the Ohio Valley Mall as retailers moved one state over from downtown to St. Clairsville. The shopping mall concept was rather new to me other than an occasional trip to the South Hills Mall in Pittsburgh.
Yet it became the norm. The downtown of my youth and the early years of my career with the newspaper gradually but surely disappeared. There was no more going uptown on my lunch hour to buy a birthday gift or grab lunch at my favorite deli.
I accepted the changes along with everything else going on in the world around us. I came to believe it was the natural progression of change.
But this past week when I learned that the Fulton Dairy Queen was closing its doors for good it came with a stab at the heart of many memories. That Dairy Queen was an icon for the neighborhood. It served generations of families not to mention more ball teams than one can count.
You didn't mind standing in one of those long lines because you knew the reward would be a good one. Even before the dawn of its now famous Blizzard treat, the DQ hot fudge sundae was tops.
As kids, my siblings and I often rode our bikes to the Dairy Queen much to the dismay of our parents. We had to navigate along the busy National Road to get there but we made it all the same without incident.
I can only imagine how many teens saw their first real paychecks while working at that store. And it was an old-style ice cream business with walk-up windows and no inside seating. You often got to know the workers there because you probably went to school or church with some of them.
The end of the Fulton DQ reminds me of the many businesses that formerly lined the popular National Road in Fulton and Woodsdale. Gone but not forgotten are Dancer's, Burger Chef, Rax, KFC, drug stores, gas stations including the family run-starver's service station and many more.
Now we await what will become of the DQ and other sites along the road. In the meantime, I guess I will move on to Elm Grove or South Wheeling for a taste of the newest Blizzard or sundae.
Thanks, Fulton Dairy Queen, for some of the best years of our lives.
Heather Ziegler can be reached at hziegler@theintelligencer.net.