Main Street

I have been sending out letters to shops in a three state area trying to entice them to be vendors or to advertise at the Heart of Ohio Quilters Show which is in October. I have noticed a phenomenon in their addresses. Of the approximately 75 I have entered into my file, 18 of them are on Main Street. Admittedly not the same street, but what does it mean?

Quilt shops tend to be in the heart of the town -- the original town - whether it's New Eagle, PA, or Columbus, OH. If they're not on Main Street, then the most common names are High (4) and Market (3) and any President's name (3). Admittedly, a few are way out there on State Route 2 or OhioPike #J, but if I were to drive to those places, most of them would be centered in a small town without its own post office.

I like that. There are great shops that are in bright shiny strip malls. But the character of the shop in an old building is more appealing to me. Maybe it's because my first shop was in an old Victorian house where I shared space with a quilt shop. My second site I was on my own in what was the original post office on Main Street in Hebron where I could still see where the post office boxes had been situated. My third location was a redone garage attached to a small building that had been one of the original restaurants on High Street in Hebron. Each had its flaws -- a really old behometh of a furnace that did little to heat my area of the shop in the first; really, really bad plumbing in the apartments over my head and no soundproofing when the tenants above decided to argue or get romantic in the second; and the sharing of a jack and jill bathroom with the landlord's second hand store in the third.

But my current location is great, if not historic. I am in a small shop area attached to the U-Store-It units, on North Street and still in Hebron. It is by far the cleanest and best of all the places I have been so I overlook it's lack of character in favor of flawlessly working plumbing, easily swept carpeting, and all the amenities of modern living.