23 January, 2010

Not Homesick Right Now

Once in a while, I miss my old hometown.  Earlier this week, in fact, I was waxing nostalgic over Arizona.  Sometimes, I even think that, when John McCain is no longer plaguing the state, and the populace has become sensible enough to elect a decent governor, and I've seen all I want to see in Washington State, I might just move back.

Tonight, however, I have changed my mind.  This is what Wayne Ranney, my favorite author in Arizona, is dealing with:



Four fucking feet of snow.

And it's still snowing.

It's snowing so much that roofs are collapsing.  The old Safeway on Cedar Street didn't make it.  Neither, alas, did Bookman's:



This, to me, is a tragedy - Bookman's is one of my favorite places on the entire face of the earth, and one of the main reasons I get homesick.  We don't have any used bookstores as good as this up here.

Wayne reports that the fiction section suffered the worst of it.  I hope it was concentrated around Romance. 

Other roofs I recall have also succumbed - the ice rink, where a friend and I suffered an ego-deflation courtesy of a small child; Dillard's, where I found the first pair of jeans that ever fit me right; Planet Nissan, where I first fell in love with the Sentra...

This is pretty intense for Flagstaff.  But at least I guess it means they won't have to worry much about the forest burning down this summer.  It'll be too soggy.

Good luck digging out, my Flagstaff friends.

1 comment:

Chris said...

I've been to a butt load of used book stores, from San Diego to New York. But the best one I've ever been in is Haslam's in St. Petersburg, FL. The last time I was there was over 40 years ago - but I can still remember a full day spent rummaging around in it. Out of curiosity, I checked, found they are still going strong and even have a web site. If you ever get within a hundred miles of that place - do make the trip.