Driving back up to Clemson from my parent's house in Moncks Corner, I nearly missed the exit to the campus. The roads were still the same, a little wider in some places, but it seemed as though everything else was different. It thought about how it must have been for those who lived here, seeing it change so gradually and becoming accustomed to this new building or that, businesses coming and going. For me, 12 years after leaving, the change was instantaneous and remarkable and the change is still going on.
My niece, a rising sophomore, of course noticed nothing. She was seven when I was a student here and the way it is now, is the way she will remember it. I will remember spending my freshman year in Johnstone F. There is a park there now with a clear view to Death Valley. Change is no longer slow. It is like a merry-go-round and I got on once when one could still make out the faces of the people standing off to the side and the buildings were only slightly blurry. Now, things are spinning so quickly, there is no seeing the faces and to be honest, it is moving fast enough to make me dizzy.
I was vacationing, spending time on the lake and walking around, trying to get to know, once again, this place I had known so well when I saw a jewel of a place that had not changed a great deal since I was here in '99; The Riviera. It was not perfectly preserved by any means, but it did exist separate from the square and cold, buildings that had sprung up in my absence. In its lifetime, it had been a row of apartments, offices, a pool hall, and in '99 in was a restaurant owned by a lady from Turkey and turned into a restaurant. The restaurant lasted for 12 years until she went on vacation and decided not to come back. My eyes lit up when I saw the "for rent" sign.
So now we see it at a crossroads. This is a moment where many things can happen. It can be left to decay, it can be turned into a Starbucks or a Publix, or we can preserve it for something that this area really needs. We can grow it into something, somehow, that it once was. Winnie Mae's can breathe new life into it.
Our desire is simple; turn that space into a market. Make it place where farmers from this area can sell their produce daily as opposed to only at farmers markets. Create a cafe where the recipes focus on fresh and local items. Create a store where people can buy crafts and art produced right here in the upstate. Create a space where local bands can perform, where people can speak, where movies can be shown. We want to create a new Clemson tradition, based on old Clemson traditions.
The beauty of this thing, whatever it is, is that it will go forward even if we do not get the Riviera. No one has yet said it was a bad idea and everyone who passes the old Riviera believes it should be something. That is what Winnie Mae's is focused on and those are the people for whom we work, those people who look at that building and say that it should be something. The essence of that beauty lies in the fact that I have seen that it is not really about the building itself. It would be nice and it is our goal, but when all is said and done this project banks on the community that is created and brought back to life for this area. This movement is based on the needs and wants of the people in this area, from the farmer whose family has been in this area for more than a century, to the incoming freshman who has a long road to hoe, but is looking forward to every inch of that road at Clemson.
So we ask that people contribute so that we can open the doors and invest in the future by way of the past. We see a need because there is one too many Wal-Marts in the area. We see a need because there is one too many fast food places with late night drive thru. We see a need because I am not the only one who thought of this idea and people should not drive to Greenville, past farms and farmers to get to shopping centers where the food comes from a third of the way around the world, picked early and allowed to ripen en route. We see a need! Do you see a need? Contribute!
