The city of Chicopee in Massachusetts is a special place.
With a population of just over 54,000, I have been coming to this New England
town since I was a child to visit my grandma and grandpa. Chicopee is
officially, and unofficially, known for many things. It is known for; its
Polish food and residents, the difficulty in finding someone under the age of
55, the Chicopee Falls dam, the excessive number of Dunkin Donuts, the large
abandoned industrial buildings, and the birthplace of Edward Bellamy, author of
the utopian novel Looking Backward.
In fact, if you Wikipedia the city of Chicopee, the
headlining picture featured is a building that is no longer even in use (a
picture of the Former Chicopee High School where my mother went in the 70s).
However, despite the time machine you have to step in to get to this place, I
have always felt welcome and closer to my grandma here (who passed away years
ago when I was in college).
While venturing out (loose use of “venturing”), I found a
mangled dime on the ground outside of one of Chicopee’s newest establishments
(didn’t even know they had new things). The Spruce Salon on Front Street is
very cute and quaint hair salon that offers a variety of services and products.
Outside of the usual services of a salon, they also have a very friendly staff
of 9 to 11 workers and very comfy chairs to sit in while you get your hair
done.
The salon opened in 2006 in a small building that used to
sell medical equipment. Coming to Chicopee every year since I was born, I had
never seen a single person enter the darkened, cramped medical equipment store.
Since remodeling the inside, Spruce salon now makes approximately $500,000 to
$1million a year, and has brightened up the slightly business-abandoned road
section of Front Street.
In blog news, this post brings me over $1.00! It does pay
to look down sometimes.
Total Change Found: $1.02
As a final crazy grandpa note: ever since this salon has opened, my grandfather swears that they make "thousands of dollars" a day and that all people should open salons. He even offered my sister, a current editor at a DC magazine, $5,000 to quit her job and open a salon. Oh the charm (and harm) of Chicopee Mass!
