Filed under: Life
The alarm goes off at 10am, and naturally no one bats an eye. I get up and put a Woody Woodpecker DVD in the DVD player and sit in bed watching cartoons, whilst P and N continue to slumber. Eventually, everyone wakes up, showers, dresses and we start the day off. First stop: The Book Satchell: the one and only used book store in town. I get a kick out of the name, simply because I know for a fact that half of Gen Duh couldn’t tell you what a “satchell” was if their lives depended on it. Old school!
I find a few books to read (more about that later, in an upcoming “Currently Reading”) and N and P browse as well. At one point, while I am in the Self-Help section, P is a few paces directly behind me, looking at the Non-Fiction section. In the space between us is a little bench. There are about 4 or 5 other customers milling around. N is in the Sci-Fi section, catercorner from P and I. An old man goes to sit on the aforementioned bench and proceeds to fart for what seems like 2 full minutes. It’s like a sputtering motorboat. I initially started to laugh, then I started to second guess what I’d just heard: it sounded like someone flipping a lot of pages in a very thick book. I look over at P to see if his shoulders are going up and down (laughing), but see no signs, so I just decide to walk away before I either start laughing or get overcome by the aroma. As I’m walking away (toward the Sci-Fi section, where I didn’t realize N was, until I see him emerge from around the corner with a look on his face, as if to say “WTF?!”), I see N and start laughing. I know him and he is going to say SOMETHING about what just transpired. I asked him if he’d heard, and he was like “Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me? Who DIDN’T?” I start to laugh, but try to keep it under wraps. While we’re standing there talking, the old man is accompanied by a friend, and moves to a chair at the end of a nearby bookcase. His friend says “What’re you doing?” and he replies “Oh, just trying to find a place to rest my butt.” To which N says, under his breath, “I can think of a better place.” I then burst out laughing and had to walk away.
After leaving the bookstore, I take P & N to The Black Horse for lunch. The Black Horse is a sort of “tea room” in the sense that they just serve sandwiches, salads and cake. However, this time around they had a “hot entree” (lasagna). It was tempting to give the lasagna a try, but N and I opted for the tuna salad, while P went with chicken salad. It was perfect. Afterwards, we walked down the street to Witschorke’s (a favorite antique store). Everyone had a good time looking around and I think we all found something to buy before we left.
After Witschorke’s, we walked down the street to see The Crazy Water Hotel (a local historical landmark). It’s a great old building that is now a retirement center. After looking around, we then went down the street to the Famous Mineral Water Company. The store offers 4 different kinds of mineral waters (I prefer #4), and assorted sodas, slushes, also made from the mineral water. They also had some GREAT soaps, bath salts, lotions, etc., also made with the mineral waters. I stocked up on the bath salts (they smell SO good you wanna eat ‘em!) and the patchouli soap. P got a cap, which he promptly replaced the cap he was wearing with. As sappy as it sounds, I thought it was cute that he gets such a kick out of the “tourist” stuff. I enjoy seeing him enjoying himself.
Then, it was on to the courthouse and original jailhouse (1858) in nearby Palo Pinto, Richey’s (a junk store I like to get old magazines at…among other things). I was saddened to hear that Jan, the woman whom owns/operated it, had passed away last year from Cancer. She was a really nice person whom I looked forward to talking to each time I visited. I’ll miss her. We then visited an old cemetery that I thought was interesting. We ended the day at the video store/coffee shop, where N found LOADS of laserdiscs (I found a few too; great covers that I want to frame in those LP frames) and P enjoyed another cup of coffee.
After the video store, we walked across the street to check out the Baker Hotel, yet another historic hotel, that unfortunately is going to rot before anyone does anything with it. It’s a real shame. Such a grand old building. P really got into it and I began to see it in a whole new light. I was telling them that it’s weird how you can grow up there and just kind of take it for granted…not see it…get accustomed to it. Then, when you’re older, it’s like you’re seeing it for the first time all over again.
We then went back to the hotel, exhausted, and again, took turns taking showers and lounging around watching more Fawlty Towers and some wonderfully horrible movie called The Dark Power (1985) while giving it the Mystery Science Theater treatment. It was a lot of fun. We then went to bed, where, once the lights went out, I got a case of the giggles, which was apparently contagious. A nice ending to an otherwise dreaded undertaking. We left for home the next day.
All in all, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I’d originally anticipated. And even though I was pissed about the entire contents of the house being ransacked, I opted not to dwell on it. I took the stance that it just takes way too much energy to get angry about something you can’t control. The best I can hope for is that those shady, greedy folks who think they got away with something, get what’s coming to them.
In the end, I came away with a few mementos and some good memories (with P & N), and that’s enough for me.
Tomorrow: Photos from the trip
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