Will: Freshplus Cashier
At Freshplus, Clarksville’s neighborhood grocery store, customers pay for the convenience of short lines and a front door parking space. Last night I arrived just before the 9 p.m. closing time.
“About to be off?” I asked the hipster cashier.
“Yeah.” She held her fingers up in a V. ”Gonna head outside for a victory cigarette.”
Long as I’ve been shopping there, this Clarksville Freshplus has consistently employed young hipsters, no telling exactly why. I guess the younger cool kids want to work there because their older friends do and that just goes on as the decades pass.
Back when I was in high school, my friend Damian Rodriguez worked at this Freshplus. Weekends he’d drive three or four of us around in his black VW bug, listening to Slayer blaring on the jambox that one of us had to hold in our lap because the stereo was always busted.
These days Damian works as a film editor and script coordinator. He did a stunning job on Martin Scorcese’s documentary, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan.
I have a feeling the current cool kid cashiers at the Clarksville Freshplus will be making their own amazing art soon enough…. And I for one, can’t wait to see it.
NOTE: Why Clarksville?
In order to understand the macrocosm of the history and culture of Texas, it’s important to understand the state on a microcosmic level as well.
That’s why I’ll be examining the past and present of my favorite Texas neighborhood, Central Austin’s Clarksville. I’ve lived in Clarksville, on-and-off, for the past 29 years.
Clarksville sits a short 25-minute walk from the Texas state capitol.
A freedman’s colony after the Civil War; a shabby, eclectic middle class neighborhood during the years of my childhood; Clarksville is now gentrified, mostly white, and full of quirky, thriving local businesses.
mary has a good eye for what’s up around town. i look forward to her articles.
can’t wait to read more — recently got myself an “hecho in clarksville” shirt from zocalo.