Cambridge
Cambridge isn’t a destination…
at least not in the sense of packing your bags and aiming for it like a bull’s eye on a dart board.
Somewhere between where you were and where you you’re going, Cambridge is a town the highway could never quite bring itself to skip. Speed limit signs count one down from 55 to 45 to 35, until one finds themselves coasting at 25 along the main drag, taking in the dry, sweet taste of nowhere.
But there’s a moment, somewhere between the first reduced speed-limit sign and the last tap of the brakes, when you snap out of autopilot and realize you’ve been hauling ass through someone else’s backyard. As if the road itself leans in through your passenger-side window, wagging a dusty finger and muttering, “Slow down, asshole.”
You start to notice things, a kid wobbling down the sidewalk on a bike too big for him, the white-aproned butcher jawing with a farmer, flannel-tucked, belt buckle gleaming and leaning lazily against the brick wall or a woman sweeping the sidewalk in front of her store cuz she aint got nuthin’ better to do.
Highways are not always just a means to an end, a strip of asphalt between Point A and B, but rather a philosophical instrument, kicking dust into your eyes until they burn with the sting of now.
And that’s the beauty of towns like Cambridge, that they just, exist.
Established in the early 1900s as a ranching and agricultural hub, it has proudly held onto its roots and keeping that small town way of life and nowhere is that charm more evident than at Loveland's General Store, a true poster child for small-town America.
Walking through its doors instantly put me back home growing up as a kid, a virtual reality time capsule, a blast from the past boasting a full Hotwheels section, those paddles with a ball attached from a string that i never figured out how to bounce for more than maybe 5 times, old skool watermelon Laffy Taffy flavor, that had those little black candy seeds scattered throughout the green rectangular strip of taffy, cans of pork and beans the size of Nicole’s noggin and one hell of a Cambell’s soup section, where all the cans lay horizontal and when you grab the bottom one, all the cans above it loudly fall, filling the newly opened space.
