ICE-NINE

It's 6:11 a.m but what time will it be this time next week??? It's raining out; forecast for the next of the week is dry with temps in the 50's and 60's. Patrick is wandering around, Junior and Stephen are downstairs watching The Recruit, and Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle was just mentioned in the film by DeNiro re Ice Nine. I've read all his classic fiction, except for the later stuff . It's probably been 25 years?? Maybe it's time to re-read.,..Starting with Slaughterhouse Five...Maybe time to reread Ayn Rnd and Jack Kerouac, too. OK, now you know my favorite authors.

I read all of Ayn Rand as a freshman in college, couldn't put it down, read for hours at a time day and night. I met Kerouac in St. Petersburg shortly before he died, and Ginzberg too, later at a reading of Howl at Tampa U. , actually at the after party. . Charles Saunders and I drove Stella (Jack's widow) to it in my old Biscayne and Stella gave me a black kitten related to Jack's cats that was a good companion to me...That was a long time ago.

WALLY WORLD

About 15 years ago, they built a Wal* Mart off the four-lane on the outskirts of our sleepy little village on some farmland. Eventually, actually quite quickly, It became the anchor of a huge complex with eateries, multiplexes, apartments, hotels, gas stations, grocery stores, banks-- a whole new town grew up around it! Lots of other stores you name it, and still growing.. Brought this little burg into the 20th Century. Downtown didn't die either. The K-Mart, about a mile away, died. But it's still there, open every day. You walk into the K-Mart--it's like a graveyard-there's nobody there. You're lucky if you see another customer.There's hardly any cars in the park. You go into Walmart--It's a bustle of activity- the car park is full. I honestly don't know how this K-Mart is surviving.

We gave the K-Mart a chance.

Every time we wanted to buy a unique item, we checked out K-Mart. They might have one model, if they had it at all. Wal*Mart generally had a variety of models at different feature levels and price levels to choose from.

Price wise, K-Mart was 15-25% higher on staples we buy every week, Dogfood, Juice, water, peanut butter, DVD's etc.

Now Wal*Mart is building s SUPERCENTER right next to the "old" store--about a hundred yards away. Don't ask me why they are not just adding on, I don't know. The plan is to tear the old store ( which is beautiful) down to expand the parking lot.. It's not a question of space--there's plenty of that..Seems like an economic mistake--but I'm not going to second guess this very sucessful retailers' business decisions...

Who the heck was George Mason? (Just kidding) Uh, He's dead , right?

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