Recessionizing

The other morning, I was rattling along McAllister on the #5 line, heading to work. Yes, rattling along, as that early in the morning I am nothing more than a hyper-intelligent bag of potatoes, bouncing and jostling along the road, not talking to people on the bus (hyper-intelligent for a bag of potatoes, I mean). I usually wake up after visiting a market to get a bagel and an orange juice and ignore the young teenagers casually walking through the empty check stands on their way in, stuffing small objects in their pocket as they go--I'm not turning a blind eye to young people sticking it to a corporation, mind you; I just really dislike teenagers and would rather ignore them.

But my morning routine was shaken when I saw that Cafe Neon was gone. All of a sudden, the windows papered over in that brown butcher's paper decor that seems to mark storefronts more and more these days. One day here, the next day gone like a pot of coffee gone cold and stale and thrown out.

I used to go to Cafe Neon a lot; it was handy to Vaughn's apartment, so we would meet there after work before watching a ball game on TV. They did good french toast, I remember, from a year and a half ago.

I guess that is the nature of a recession. After seeing Cafe Neon was gone, I started noticing more and more empty store fronts along my usual walking/busriding routes.

The weird thing was, I couldn't even remember what some of the empty store fronts once contained--which probably explains why they are now empty, but still, it bothered me that I couldn't remember.

They say the recession is ending. The stock numbers are starting to trend upwards, for whatever that is worth. But I question that, because of my observation of these emptying stores.

I can think of three possible explanations for the discrepancy:

1) I'm not nearly as observant as I would like to think I am, and just haven't noticed all the failed stores until now that it has been brought home so thoroughly with the demise of Cafe Neon;

2) the recession is ending, but there are some lingering aftershocks that are catching up to some businesses that have been desperately holding on;

or 3) the recession continues, and any talk of it ending is premature, or at least not yet relevant on the ground.

I'm going to discard possibility 1 out of hand, because that would make me feel so much better. As for the latter options, I'm not qualified to answer. What do you all think?