We walk a few steps up Tinker Street today to find Topka, a tourist oriented shop. And, 20 yards up the alley, and you will discover the Old Spokes Home, a shop run by a genuine old time Woodstock character.
Topka is the new incarnation of a shop long called Loretta Klein. The shop has barely changed in substance with the new owner. In the front room, tourists can buy knick-knacks to prove that they made the trip to Woodstock… cards, cups and trinkets. In the back room, the products of Woodstock Chimes predominate.
This is not a shop that I’ve often patronized. When the kids were young, I made an annual Christmas shopping trip to Loretta Klein to purchase the unique (and expensive) building block and construction games popular among the hippie families. Hippie theory holds that kids must be weaned from the passivity of TV and encouraged into active pursuits.
Woodstock’s do-gooder stance is on full display in Topka. Greeting cards tend toward pious pronouncements of the town’s party line on politics and the environment.
Old Spokes Home, set back from Tinker Street, is home to Mike Esposito’s bicycle repair shop. Mike has been a fixture in town since the sixties. He was one of the original disciples of Father Francis. Before he settled down to the life of a resolute hippie, Mike played in the Blues Magoos rock and roll band.
Mike’s shop is open only during the warm weather months. I have no idea how he survives financially during the winter.
Old Spokes Home is littered with old bikes in various states of repair, often with wheels or other parts missing. This shop embodies one of Woodstock’s most hallowed beliefs… the notion that consumerism plays a destructive role, and that it is better to recycle old stuff instead of running out to purchase new stuff.
I often encounter Mike as he’s bicycling around town on one of his heirloom bikes. Even in the middle of winter, you will often see him peddling along Route 212. He favors the old, fat tire, non mountain style bikes.
The clock is, of course, a bit of Mike’s wry hippie humor. The joke is that he’s barely open at all… and this is true. Whenever, I’ve deliberately set out to find him, the search has turned into an epic quest. Mike has constructed his life for the ultimate in devotion to self and contemplation.
If you are really determined to find him, it’s best to take a look in Bread Alone or Maria’s Bazaar in the early afternoon. That’s when he sits down for a long cup of coffee and, usually, a discussion about characters from Woodstock’s legendary past. So many have gone to the other side. Years and years ago, Mike’s girlfriend was Terry Buckner, a Christian/Marxist political activist. (This is not an uncommon designation in Woodstock.) Terry was, in turn, one of my first wife's closest friends. Donna and Terry are buried side by side in Woodstock Cemetery.
Comments