Letters from Steve

I just finished reading the book Letters From Steven: Stories from the first solo walk around the World. I found it to be good reading.

Mind you, the events written about happened in the mid 1980s, and the book was published in 1987, so I'm only a quarter of a century behind-times, but that's another story.

Steve Newman was a neighbor of ours, growing up. Well, he was mostly what we considered grown up, no matter how old (young) we were. He was older than even me, and I was the oldest junior person I knew. My sisters were friends (or friendly) with his sisters; some of my brothers with some of his brothers. I knew vaguely that he had aspirations of being a writer.

He fully fulfilled that dream of his, just as he did his WorldWalk.

I found the book to be amazing. The letters themselves (written to readers of Capper's Weekly) are well written and the tone is friendly and casual. The education in the letters is unsurpassed in any textbook. The descriptions -- well, let me tell you. I have looked back through the book for a couple of photographs to show my family. Only problem -- there were no photographs. The pictures were painted with words.

I am so envious.

Black Friday

Watching the craziness on the news last night reminded me, as it often does, of the early days of the event. Back when only a few stores had early bird sales -- my mom and my sister and I hurtling through the dark night down miles of highway and into unknown areas of the relatively unknown city. One favorite was the Gold Circle store. (Do they still have those anywhere?) I don't remember which location we went to. Somewhere in Cincinnati. And it seems, not unreasonably, that the store was up on a hill. I could be wrong about that. It was cold, it was dark, it was fun. The secrets of Christmas seemed to ooze through the air, out of all that hurrying darkness.

Another tradition, swallowed up by the malls and the push to grab the sales, was the Day after Thanksgiving at McAlpins. We went to the one at Cherry Grove Plaza. (It was called a shopping center then; nowadays it would be a strip mall. The only thing new is the words.) There were early bird sales there, too, but they were later -- at least for us! We would have had to go home and get the rest of the family. The big deal at McAlpins that day was the parade and FREE Santa Claus pictures. Not free until noon, not free for the first two hundred customers -- FREE. All day long.

I'm not sure when the McAlpins thing started, but it continued until my own children were old enough to be taken for the free pictures. By then we were into the 90s and malls were taking over the shopping world. They weren't a new idea -- Beechmont Mall had already been around for ages, or so it seemed. But it was an idea that was taking over, and the shopping centers (strip malls of the day) were hurting. McAlpins decided to move into the newly built Eastgate Mall as one of the anchor stores. Eastgate Mall was on different roads and in a different part of the county, and a long way to go for many of the Cherry Grove people.
The first Christmas there, they did have the parade and the free pictures. One of my cherished memories is that of Santa Claus saying to my girls, "I'm glad to see you. You're here every year."
But that was to be the last year. The parade was too difficult for traffic flow, and my god, they couldn't give away free pictures! The mall's Santa would lose business, god forbid!

Now, Santa comes out of hiding before the Halloween costumes are marked down and hidden away. The malls are suffering and closing and losing their anchor stores -- the cost is too high. The sales are too low.
Shopping Centers have returned in their new guise with their new name, and they seem to be thriving. Or at least surviving.

I can't help but wonder if there isn't a connection between the sales troubles and the Santa Clauses. No mall Santa that I know of ever recognized the families that come year after year. Can it be that in troubled times, people would rather shop where they are seen as people instead of so many dollars worth of sales?

Thanksgiving Day

It's been a gray and rainy day -- unusual in November, unusual in its intensity. Rain, yes. And Gray days are the rule for late November. But all-day all-night rain like this is -- boring. I don't care for it.

Other than that, it has been a quiet and peaceful day around here. Neither of our girls  graced us with their presence -- Tam had to work and whoknowswhat with Tracy. Rex's daughter called. But when she asked what time was dinner and when were we having it, and Rex replied none and never, she said: Well, I'm going to someone else's house than, so I can eat.

Rex and I have, so far, enjoyed a nice huge baked potato for our dinner. And I'm not complaining. We are truly thankful to have had that much. And, even though I was the cook, I have to say -- very yummy indeed. That oven did exactly what I wanted it to! So I'm thankful for the oven, too. There have been times when I haven't had that amenity.

A roof over our heads to keep the rain out, fire in the furnace to keep the damp out, food to cook, and something to cook it in. Yeah, we've got a lot more than you'd think.