I fell in love with the bulletin board back in the 20th century. These fountains of information dotted the landscape of my college, the colleges nearby, and the businesses nearby. Young, wide-eyed and eager to be involved in something, I always stopped to look at the announcements of movies on campus, guest speakers, divestment discussions, World Hunger Day, all of it. Someone had taped, stapled or tacked each of these flyers in the hopes that others would come along and care. I wanted to know whatever these unknown other people thought I should know. There was so much going on around, it seemed; I tried to soak it all in. If I wasn’t out there doing stuff, at least I’d know about it. Maybe I’d find that one thing that would be the right thing for me.
The great Hungry Mind bookstore at Grand and Macalester was a short walk from my home in those days. The high wall on the left side of the Mind’s entryway had been given over to the community, and was always papered with notices of movie screenings, band appearances, poetry readings, political events. I made a point of at least scanning them all. And it wasn’t a complete waste of time! The Hungry Mind wall is where, as an 18-year-old, I learned the word “camerata” (on a poster for a chamber music group). When I was looking for a place to rent a few years later, the wall came through.
These days every little group can have a website and every start-up band can promote itself on a Facebook page or Twitter. There’s email for spreading the word and Craig’s List for the selling of furniture and the subletting of apartments. Isn’t it amazing that these community bulletin boards still exist? I don’t know how much impact they really have, but there they are still.
Yes, the public bulletin board lives and it’s one of my favorites things to find around town. A public bulletin board on the wall of a coffee shop, hardware store or dry cleaner is a welcome sight. Each haphazardly attached poster and flyer has been put there in a spirit of optimism, with faith that unknown others will see, read and maybe even care. I like to look for differences in content from board to board, and think about what they say about the neighborhood or the clientele. I love the messiness, the cockeyed angles of the postings. Somehow they combine to make a friendly whole.
I prefer a café or store that make space for a bulletin board. It’s a kind of a test. It’s a sign of a business that’s down-to-earth, individual, and of the neighborhood—or at least a business that wants to be seen as down-to-earth, individual, and of the neighborhood (like Whole Foods). Sometimes, but not always, the locally-owned business has a bulletin board while the chain store does not.
Here begins a campaign to celebrate the bulletin boards, hail them, promote them, find the beauty in them. Trotters at Marshall and Cleveland in Saint Paul is an appropriate first choice for this series as it is such a great example of the casual neighborhood place of business. Hardwood floors, local artists’ work on the walls, screen door open on comfortable days. It’s no surprise that they have a small bulletin board near the door. Unfortunately it is at child height and easily missed by many adults. But the material did not disappoint on a recent visit: There were notices for a documentary series celebrating local food; bike routes; grassroots campaign jobs with Amnesty International; The Buddha Prince, a walking play about the Dali Lama at Powderhorn Park, and more. Ya gotta love it!
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