"I can't believe it," a buddy said the other day. He's in his 50s, like me. "I'm driving down Rodney Parham and see this track hoe in the middle of the McDonald's on Rodney Parham.
"In the middle of it. It's tearing the thing down."
"I heard about that," I replied calmly.
"They have no respect for my childhood," he continued in an accusatory tone. "GroupMe caused this."
The McDonald's on Rodney Parham was a hangout for kids living in burgeoning west Little Rock in the 1980s. Back then, west Little Rock was the middle-class Colony West, Echo Valley, and Sturbridge neighborhoods, among a few others. Pleasant Valley was where the big houses stood.
We didn't count Walton Heights because that neighborhood was basically the country it was so far west.
In that era, the city's growth sat contained in a handful of these neighborhoods near Interstate 430, all dotted with neighborhood swimming pools and anchored by the Breckenridge Village shopping center.
In the middle of it was the McDonald's on Rodney Parham.
"I'm not following you," I said. "GroupMe did this?" Why would he blame a social media app that allows large groups of people to have running text conversations?
"You remember going to McDonald's back then?"
"Of course, I do." I lived in Colony West, a stereotypical suburb that could have been the setting for the retro comic horror show "Stranger Things." As kids, we'd ride bikes to McDonald's, buy a Coke, and walk over to Star Systems, the fancy arcade in Breckenridge Village.
Even after we started driving, we'd meet first at McDonald's and then venture to the car wash on Cantrell, Reservoir Park, or the deck in Riverdale once the night sky fully cloaked the city in darkness.
"Then you remember why we went there," my friend continued. "We went there to talk to people. That's how you did it back then. Now, it's GroupMe, or Snapchat, or whatever else they use. You don't have to go to McDonald's to visit anymore; you can just let your thumbs do the talking. These kids don't even know what they're missing."
He had a point.
"But they're building a new McDonald's in the same spot," I offered.
"The new McDonald's design is to make sure you don't stay long. You barely even talk to a live person when ordering. They figure you're on the move so it's all about speed and get out of the next person's way."
I finally drove by the spot where the old McDonald's stood. As I looked to the rubble, I saw myself as a new teenager, meeting friends there, hanging out. I once wrecked my family station wagon in its parking lot on the way to take the PSAT.
A lot of memories lie in that pile.
Then I read that Breckenridge Village is being renovated, information that made me nod my head. The past visits once again, this time designed for a new generation.
Maybe, if we're lucky, Star Systems will reopen.
Steve Straessle is the principal of Little Rock Catholic High School for Boys. You can reach him at sstraessle@lrchs.org. Find him on Twitter @steve_straessle. "Oh, Little Rock" appears every other Monday.