Election day. For some reason, all elections in my memory arer cold and cloudy, raw and rainy. The voting is always done in the same place: the Wokest Church in the World. More RuPaul than St. Paul amirite. I have many warm memories of the place, reaching alllll the way back to Early Childhood Education Program classes I took when Natalie was Gnat. I don't know why I went, except that it was one of those things you did, I guess. Learn important new skills! I was the only man there, 10 Moms, but after a few weeks it was apparent that I hadn't ruined it for everyone. The old lifelong arrangement: make them laugh and they will like you. I suppose it didn't hurt that I was, you know, a local celebrity. Then, anyway. Define local in terms of blocks, probably.

After lunch we went to vote, having gone through the guides to figure out who was merely daft and who was barking mad. We took the dog, since he likes to get out, the excitement of getting in the car is sometimes sufficient to gladden his day if it doesn't end up at the Vet. For all I know he's eligible to cast a ballot. There's none of that digging-in-your-pocket-and-fishing-out-an-ID nonsense here - you tell them the first three letters of your name, then your first name and address, and well, only a real registered legitimate voter would know that.

I was very, very happy not to vote for a guy who used to be a reporter at the paper, and called my work "verbal diarrhea" when I wrote about an old Jeno's Pizza matchbook and discussed the history of local frozen pizza pioneers. One of those Humorless Bike Dicks, if I made shade into uncharacteristic crudness. Perhaps he had some good ideas in his campaign statement for the voter's guide, but I got bored after two sentences and stopped reading.

Birch was happy to see us return, and more than happy to walk home. Usually he has an anxiety episode when Wife hoves out of but this time he couldn't care less, because - - I'm guessing - someone had dropped a turkey sandwich in the alleyway six weeks ago, and he had to investigate. Then back through the woods. Our second walk by the creek today. Not a long jaunt from the church. The compactness of my life is one those things I will miss.

The Creek today:

Almost 60. Just perfect, all day. Mood? Well. I have noticed that the Emotion Knob has three settings: Numb resignation, Bottom of the Marianas Trench, and Hope. They rotate in different combinations, sometimes all on the same day. During Resignation, I add kitchen and household items to my Hip New Pad Amazon shopping list. Here's a delightful retro toaster! That will assuage the aching vacancy! Look, three settings!

To be honest, our current toaster has 9. NINE TOAST SETTINGS. It's built into the microwave, my favorite appliance ever, but it's not the best toaster in the word. One through three gets you "warm." Four through 7 get you "slight crunch, minimal browning." Eight? You hit that because surely Nine will burn the half of the English Muffin, unless you halved it imperfectly, and the segment you stick in the toaster is more like 5/7th instead of a half. Bagels are Nine all the way, with another round of 2. i

I love that toaster. It will not follow me to the Hip New Pad or Final Resting Place. Everything must go. (Banner image from a trip to study flatware.) A few coffee cups and pieces of drinkware, but that's it. Furniture? I don't know. I don't know how this works, really. The whole selling-a-house-and-buying-another thing. Have to do one before doing the other, I gather. Like there's a day when you sell your house and instantly rush out and find another one. I know, I know, sale on contingency or whatever. But what if the buyer is likely contingent? And the buyer of the buyer's house also contingent? A year ago I thought I'd die here and now I'm thinking "a week in the car, won't be that bad, it'll be spring."

Forgive my ignorance but I haven't done this in a quarter century, and whatever piece of know-how I gained back then was put into the trash bin. Won't be needing that!

Anyway, that's chapter 23 of Let's Not and Say We Did, I suppose. Hope it is an actual laff riot.

Another deathless installment of . . .

This could be called the world’s first shopping mall.

A very brief pull-out:

The building's bio:

Burlington Arcade is a covered shopping arcade in the City of Westminster, England, United Kingdom. It is a precursor to the mid-19th-century European shopping gallery and the world's first modern shopping mall.

It’s old by American standards.

The arcade was built in 1818 to the order of George Cavendish, 1st Earl of Burlington, on what had been the side garden of the adjacent Burlington House. His older brother, William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, who had inherited of the house, was reputed to prevent passers-by throwing oyster shells and other rubbish over the wall of his home.

If that's unclear, consult the Londonist:

Unofficially, the reason for the arcade's existence was said to be for use as a buffer zone as the Cavendishes were at their wits' end with the poorer folk who kept throwing rubbish — particularly oyster shells — onto their property.

Particularly oyster shells. Slimy heads of rotten cabbage is one thing, but bivalve detritus is quite another. Anyway:

Burlington Arcade was built "for the sale of jewellery and fancy articles of fashionable demand, for the gratification of the public.” However, it was also said to have been built so the Lord's wife could shop safely amongst other genteel ladies and gentlemen away from London's busy, dirty, and crime-ridden open streets.

Possibly. What neither article discusses was the alteration of the facade, which we will cover in a bit. Here’s what I loved:

In 1964, a Jaguar Mark X charged down the arcade, scattering pedestrians, and six masked men leapt out, smashed the windows of the Goldsmiths and Silversmiths Association shop, and stole jewellery valued at £35,000. They were never caught. Gates were installed to prevent this from happening again.

Well now. To the Newspaper archives! We see it had a different modernistic facade, now removed.

From the paper:

As the car skidded to a halt 50 yards inside the pedestrians-only shopping centre the raiders leaped out and shattered two of the shop's windows with sledge-hammers.

As they grabbed their loot they were bombarded with chairs, ashtrays and vases of flowers from a shop across the arcade.

The men who tried to stop the gang were Mr. Peter Boraston, a director of Richard Ogden's, another jewel shop, Mr. Peter Hubble and Mr. Ralph Hubbard. They were at a first-floor window when the gang's car stopped outside.

Said Mr. Boraston: " We threw everything we'd got at them. I hit one of the gang with a cast-iron swivel chair and saw it break over his head. I caught another on the neck with an onyx ashtray."

That's the spirit.

It’s 1911.

The newspaper has two pages. Printed both sides, one sheet.

TOP STORY:

There are so many nostrum ads in this thing you suspect that they covered most of the bills. Most are junk, except for one for Dr. Mill’s Anti-Pain Pill. Which was aspirin.

Who knew it had the Lazarus effect!

Nervine was different from the Anti-Pain pill. It was a sedative - well, a bromide, a mild calming agent - so it seems counterintuitive that it would raise you from the grave. Unless you were in the grave, alive, twitching, beside yourself with anxiety, waiting for the first shovel of dirt to end your anxieties.

Brevities. The town was so small they were reduced to describing people stepping outside the house then going back inside. Well, not really, but there’s not much. Easton was small.

Say, if you’re heading over to Wells, remember to swing by the bank and pay your taxes. There’s something we forgot. No one goes to the bank to pay taxes anymore.

Hmm.

A blind item? An insinuation? Did “Chris” think I know what they mean and I know where I was and is this going to come out? Or was “Chris” missing from church, and they wanted him or her to know that everyone noted the absence?

I mean, that’s the most enduring mystery of the 20th century, right there. It’s literally unsolvable.

At the bottom of the page (of the next edition - there’s so little in any edition I had to find another date) you see a story a good editor would’ve inflated and bumped up to the top.

Human flight? Eh. Not everyone cares.

Say, what’s this - a bag, full of sand, on the ground, ripped open?

You know he immediately looked up, as if it still might be there.

A mad moment of uncontrolled descent? A gust of wind? And no one ever saw the balloon?

It’s at the bank now, and people are talking about it! Should we wander over and get some quotes and observations? One could fill half the page with it!

No, what’s the point of that. In other news, J. W. Adams left town to visit his sister in Artesia.

That will do. Getting close to the end of this year's update on Chain Store Age magazine ads, and I know, I know: that suggests there will beupdates for that site next year.

There will.