Main Street kindles a generic picture and a general metaphor from New England or somewhere in the American Midwest. A family clothing store, a hardware emporium, a drugstore with soda fountain, flower shop, (locally-owned) bookstore, and a coffee/sandwich shop line the sides of Main Street. Main Street sports a branch bank or two or three, the town offices and – at one end of the commercial strip – the absolutely requisite iconic white-steepled church building, most likely UCC or still Congregational, possibly PC(USA) Presbyterian or ELCA Lutheran, but you'd better believe it's big "P" Protestant!
My Main Street metaphor is primarily a lifestyle that includes a describable type of individual. This Main Street Person [MSP] wants to belong, longs to be homogeneous yet stereotypically distinctive and noticeable; trendy and up-to-date about ideas, politics and general styles of everything like attire and apparel, vehicles, home furnishings, recreation pursuits and vacation venues without being on the cutting edge of much of anything; spiritual, but without real commitment to institutional religion or to the radical way of Jesus ... MSP is anything but counter-cultural and not remotely willing to disengage from whatever society's mainstream conventions have become for the moment, the particular moment that's (very) close at hand, with the major mall not all that far away.
I had to chuckle a little at this one since I'm now living on Main Street!
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