Sepia Saturday 395: Labeling

Sepia Saturday

Labeling

There's much to enjoy in the Sepia photo this week—the bonhomie, the clothing, the hats. It shouts out to the viewer of a happy male bonding experience.

It's 1896 (according to the fading white ink inscription)and in Australia according to the provenance. These men have no idea how lucky they are to have been born when they were, in 1870 ( a guess) or so. If they are twenty-five years old in this photo, they would be too old for WWI, looming twenty-one years in the future. Their sons wouldn’t have such luck. My own dad was born at an unlucky, time - 1899 which made him elegible for service in both World Wars.

For this captured moment, one hundred twenty-one years ago, the men enjoyed a lovely afternoon in a fern-filled grotto, smoking their pipes, drinking beer and enjoying life.

I'm guessing someone wrote "Look" on the hat of the left-most gentleman in the photograph. The writing Looks like the same as that on the bottom of the photo declaring the year and place "...cove 1896.”

That name written on the hat reminded me of the white-inked photos in my collection.

Thankfully, my parents saved all their photos, even those with leaky-light failure. This one may be suffering from double exposure too...those faces at the bottom don't fit. I'm happy they saved it because of the creative date display. Short of dark space, Dad used the brick house next door as a blackboard. At first glance, it looks like a Facebook arithmetic quiz. 2 divided by 5 = x divided by 49 = answer

The below photo makes me laugh. It was the only time this group—Grandmother and my maiden aunts and bachelor uncle—visited our home which was less than a mile from theirs. Not "visity," they would describe themselves. How did they get to our house? My Uncle Lornie, on the left, owned a  Nash Rambler— a tiny car. Maybe he made two trips? But then it was Christmas, winter weather, and his Nash was probably up on blocks. Most everybody abandoned their cars and took the bus in the winter. It was reliable, even at -40, and walking to the bus stop was easier than shoveling out a driveway. But there was no easy bus route from their house to ours. I'm guessing they piled into a cab or two. I remember or was told about their short stay --probably half an hour.

“They didn’t even take their coats off,” said Mom, half annoyed and half-relieved. Although I never heard of a reason, there was resentment between my aunts and Mom. They talked on the phone if there was a family emergency but no chatting. All communication was through my father or through myself and my sister.

I know Dad would have poured them a drink; whiskey for Lornie and sherry for the ladies. Perhaps they had a slice of Mom’s delicious rum-soaked Christmas cake.

My grandmother, second from right, was Queen of her family and my aunts were her court. They didn't visit other people, period. They were the visited, not the visitors. That's the way it was. Not to imply that we didn’t see this group often. Alverstone Street aka “the nest of aunts” was right next to the Catholic church and my sister and I visited them every Sunday after mass.

I admire the way Dad split the dates between the figures of these grande dames dressed in their formidable fur coats. Half the year is on his mother's, Ma'am's, feet and half on his sister, Hilda's, feet. The date and month, the 4th of December, got lost in the snow between the two ladies.

I enjoy thinking about my father seated at the dining room table, the cigar box of photos in front of him, white-ink bottle open on a piece of newspaper spread over the lace tablecloth his mother crocheted for the parents as a wedding gift. A goose-necked lamp shone on the scene from over his left shoulder. Birds of Paradise wallpaper graced the walls, navy blue at that moment but the paper changed color periodically when Mom painted the spaces, the background, between the leaves, according to fashion or her mood. It was maroon when first hung, then light blue, black and navy. She painted the spaces with a very fine brush and it would take her an entire winter to complete the job.

Like our Jesus in the dining room

The Keene replacement

With the nibbed pen in his hand, Dad studied each photo and decided what and where to write. His silver-waved head would be bowed over the work while Jesus supervised from just above. We had one of those odd religious portraits of Christ hanging over the table—the kind where the blue eyes of the subject follow you everywhere. It was there for years, most of my childhood, until it was replaced by a Walter Keene portrait, one with the now famous big eyes. You can tell there were no artists with finicky taste in our household.

Dad would be wearing a holey (not holy) khaki green sweater, a deeply loved relic of his WWI uniform, and baggy trousers, not out of place now in the ghetto except Dad’s pants covered his butt. From time to time he’d check his watch, counting down the hours until he could cap the ink, put the cigar box away and head over to the legion hall to spend time with the boys, as in the Sepia prompt.

The dark photos provided the best canvas for his white ink display. Most of the inked photos were taken in 1947. Either there was a wave of white ink fashion or a very cold winter. From Weather Canada:

"Jan. 30 to Feb. 8, 1947. Massive 10-day blizzard hits the Prairies, burying towns and railways across all three provinces." 
After being shut in for a couple of days, the white ink and pen likely looked like an attractive distraction and a way to pass the time. 

The rare dark photo provided a perfect canvas for white ink writing. This must have been a tricky shot to get considering his camera at the time.

The next photo preceded the white ink period. My sister must have used a fountain pen for her labeling job. I don’t believe there were ballpoint pens in that era. You have to look closely to see "me" printed on her dark shirt. She was always a fine printer as her round, unsmudged letters testify. The photo was probably labeled years after the event when she was eight or nine. She was five in the photo.

In this shot, I like the arrangement of "Xmas" horizontally, and the year "1947" positioned vertically, on the pine tree behind. It adds motion to the tableau. Dad used the abbreviated and hated term “Xmas” in most of the photos to save room.

Time and technology marched on. By 1964, we were writing on photos with ballpoint pens. The white ink pot had dried up and been thrown out. This shot, a favorite photo of mine, captures the spirit of my sister and her little family very well. Jim was finishing his service in the Royal Canadian Navy, paying them back for his medical school tuition. I never noticed before that the photo was not taken in Esquimalt B.C. as labeled, but rather in our family home's backyard in Winnipeg. The family lived in Esquimalt but were visiting Winnipeg before leaving for California where they would settle. I’m guessing my mother’s cognitive skills were fading (something she hid well for years) when she labeled the photo.

That’s the best part about studying these images for Sepia Saturday. There are stories inside of stories inside of stories you can root out and remember. They're like the Russian Matryoshka dolls one nestled inside the other, just waiting in the photo box to be opened up and enjoyed once again

Last night

Lunapic Sketches

I'm no artist. I loosely copied a sketch I found online and made it into an old lady crook from Las Vegas.

Inspirational sketch. Character design: alisketch.tumblr.com

My sketch

I ran the sketch through a number of Lunapic filters and kind of liked this one which I used in a blog post.

This filter— "night vision" seemed to fit the spirit of the blog but it's too hard to see. Duh. I guess that's how it got the name.

 I really liked this filter in the style of Frida Kahlo. "I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality."

 Here's a collage Lunapic made of my original sketch, the Frida inspiration and my finished sketch.

Fiction

My life of crime - part 2

My take for that first unplanned criminal act netted me $368.00. It was easy money and I knew insurance would cover everything in the coffee shop blow-up. A victimless crime, but still my conscience was killing me. Would I do it again? I thought not. It was a unique opportunity, too easy to pass up. I wasn't willing to take that kind of chance again, not with my own scruples nor with the law I loved.

Another two weeks passed; two weeks closer to getting my checks. Other than Cocaine Nose, my husband, and Ginnie, my ex-partner, nobody knew of my plight. I decided it was wiser to suffer alone through my troubles without answering questions. Most importantly, I didn't want to confess to anyone in my family about how another of my marriages had gone bad.

Ginnie invited me to stay in her guest house but I'm not one who mooches. I deplore a free-loader and Ginnie wouldn't take money from me. I had an obnoxious brother-in-law, always dropping by for a "surprise" visit with nothing but a toothbrush in his shirt pocket. Not only a mooch, he was a pompous know-it-all. He liked to bloviate on any subject at any opportunity whether he knew anything about it or not. Most of my ex-in-laws I remember fondly but this one was for the birds. No, I'd have to be on the streets before I'd stoop to his tactics. I couldn't accept Ginnie's offer.

Reluctant to return to Ocean Beach on the slim chance that I might be recognized, I was walking around downtown San Diego for two hours each morning to get exercise and burn off my anxiety-generated adrenaline. On the plus side, I was getting to know the city a little better. You can drive around a town for years but you never know a place until you cover it on foot. Logan was only two blocks away from the promenade; I enjoyed walking along the water and around the outside of the convention center. Once in a while, I'd spot an unexpired entrance badge in the trash, pin it on and go inside. Energy at conventions ran high and rubbing shoulders with happy people improved my outlook. The religious articles convention was fantastic—yarmulke salesmen displaying their wares right next to the rosary manufacturers; the home show was fun—I filled out a hundred "Win this or that" forms, all with fake names and numbers.  Natural Food Expo was the best of all, where I filled a shopping bag with free energy bars, colon cleanser pills, exotic vitamins and tea bags...enough to keep both me and the roaches with clean guts and full of energy for a few weeks.

Most days, I ended up at the library for a few hours. I knew just how long I could sit there before the librarians gave me the fisheye. During all the years working the beat in Las Vegas, I didn't have enough time to read. Now, at last, I had all the time in the world. I read the periodicals: The New Yorker; The Atlantic; Granta. It's likely you didn't think I was that kind of girl, but you'd be surprised by the reading material both cops and the bad guys enjoy when nobody's watching.

Maybe you're wondering about the cancer. I was one of the lucky ones. Skin cancer on my right arm, the one I dangled out of the car window for 25 years. One day an ugly growth popped up and I went straight to the dermatologist. They took a chunk out of the arm and sent me on my way. That was three years ago and the spot was back. If you're going to have cancer, skin cancer is the best option. You can see it and the surgeon can see it, unlike most forms of the stinking disease, rotting away inside somewhere, discovered too late. No, I considered myself lucky on the cancer front.

Last Friday, I was sitting in the library in my favorite chair in a shaft of sunlight contemplating the word "bloviating". Warm and full of energy bars, I was dozing when I heard the scrape of the chair next to me being pulled back. I looked up from my magazine into the bright blue eyes of Bob Davis."How're they hanging?" asked Bob sitting down in the chair. Bob was a well known small-time hustler in Las Vegas. We'd picked him up a few times for scams. He stretched out his legs and settled himself into the chair."You're probably thinking by now you can relax after your little heist in the coffee shop.You sanctimonious cops always turn out to be the worst." he said, shaking his head. Suddenly my guts turned to water and I hustled off to the ladies.

I returned to the chair because I realized there were eyes on me and it didn't matter if I ducked out of the library - wherever I turned, they would follow. I decided to go for sympathy and dump all my woes on this guy. Things were looking bad—could I make it any worse? "Listen, Bob. The worm turned on me and I'm in bad shape—my husband sniffed our savings up his nose, I was forced into retirement and I've got cancer. Could you cut me a little slack here? I don't know what you've got in mind, but please forget it and leave me alone."

Was I surprised to see Bob here in the San Diego Library? Many of the long term hardened con guys spent winters in Vegas on the hustle, then moved operations over to San Diego to relax during the summer months. But were these guys readers? No way. I was being tailed.

Bob was low on sympathy. He laid out his latest ratty scam and let me know where I was to fit in. This one was so full of logic holes it already stunk like old cheese. But….I would make some quick cash...enough to move out of the shithole and over to a decent place in Point Loma. Maybe I could talk them into a smarter plan.

xxx

---

Fiction - Fleshy

Fleshy

I waited in the cardiologist’s small examination room stuffed with furniture and equipment used for repairing worn out and exhausted hearts. A tall medical cabinet on one side of the room was fitted with small drawers, each bearing a plastic label strip naming the contents and hinting at awful things ahead. “Gloves, mirrors, clamps,” were stored in the drawer at my eye level. I sat in the designated patient chair. A wheeled swivel stool with a black vinyl seat—the seat of authority—awaited the doctor.

The plastic labels reminded me of Nick, the man who sold us our house, described by his wife as a picky Virgo. He owned a vintage Dymo label maker a nephew had given him for Christmas in 1967. The Dymo company would never find a more enthusiastic user. He identified every drawer, cupboard, and electrical outlet in the garage. Once the garage was finished, he moved indoors where he named the light switches by sticking the labels directly onto the painted drywall. If we pulled them off, an ugly paint-stripped scar would remain. We left them and with time, became nostalgic about them. Fran, Nick’s wife, must have banned him and his device from the kitchen otherwise I’d have cabinets dotted with red strips reminding me that “large spoons, small spoons, steak knives” belonged in a particular drawer. I wonder what Nick would think today about his organized garage now heaped with stuff all willy-nilly. Over the years, just as the organization system he’d left us had gone to hell, so had hundreds of his labels lost their grip. When a drawer became jumbled, its label would curl up and unstick as if embarrassed to be proclaiming order where only confusion reigned. When we swept, the dried-up red plastic strips looked like discarded cocoons.

The doctor’s assistant, a perky blond, entered the room, her ponytail swinging. As she recorded my vitals on a clipboard, I noticed her eyes were the same dreamy blue as her uniform, the eye color that ran through the Irish side of my family, but skipped me.

My eyes were the reason I was visiting the cardiologist. When my optometrist checked my vision a month before, he commented the rings around my eyes—he called them cholesterol rings—were increasing in size. A corona of watery, yellowish-blue stuff, circled my brown irises and gave me a vacant look. “No one’s home,” they seemed to announce when I checked my face in the mirror. Everybody in my family had the cholesterol rings. Every one of them died of a heart attack.

The assistant pushed the stool aside as she left the room. The seat did a solo pirouette, like a figure skater, and wound down just as the doctor entered. He lowered himself onto it and pushed himself from the cabinet to me. Arms crossed, he asked me a few questions, then used his foot to glide back to the cabinet where he made notes on the clipboard. I guessed he was jotting reminders next to my name . . . “likes to travel, has a cat.” My friend who worked for a Korean veterinarian told me the vet stuck a star on the corner of the pet’s chart if the owner was an “ashhole” as the Korean pronounced it. I hoped I wasn’t getting a poor grade. The doctor wheeled back with a muted flourish. You could tell he enjoyed the short rides.

As he scribbled, I looked over at the examination table. Menacing clamps adorned the sides; wires coiled out from beneath into black boxes covered with knobs and dials. What were those headphone things? It looked like the scene for a lobotomy. I began to sweat.

“Fleshy.” I heard the cardiologist mumble as he made another note.

“What?” I asked. “Was I supposed to hear that?”

“Well,” said the doctor, doing a half-twirl toward me and looking at his clipboard. “You have . . . fat, around your middle that I don’t like.”

“Well, I don’t like it either,” I added. “But fleshy? Is that a medical term?”

The cardiologist explained that I was turning into an apple—the worst shape and highest risk for heart attack. “Less fleshy would be better.” he said with a straight face. Whatever name you want to use, I was entering the dark side. Ahead lay a whole new set of euphemisms to explore for my fleshy stomach roll: belly, gut, paunch, spare tire and the most naively optimistic of all, love handles.

I called my slim husband and told him I was walking home and why. “It’s only ten miles,” I said. He reminded me that walking one mile burned sixty-five calories. I’d burn up only six hundred and fifty calories for all the risks on the road. “It’s not the end of the world,” he said. “Do you want to chance getting hit by a car for the caloric equivalent of a loaded baked potato?”

“Hmmm . . . not something I’d want on my tombstone,” I replied.

I got into the car and thought about resurrecting Nick’s Dymo marker to make reminder labels for my freezer and refrigerator. FLESHY— the red strips would warn. 

Gaining Weight

On The Road

Fiction: A Storm

   

I knew John was flirting with a woman seated behind me without looking back to check her out. When he reached up for his glasses, he revealed his intent. Removing them slowly, he unhooked one side then the other, like a stripper lowering her bra straps. Uncovered by the thick glasses, his naked blue eyes were his most appealing feature. He looked past me to the woman, aware of the effect of his practiced gesture. I knew it well. His routine opening salvo, I’d fallen for it myself years before. “Hello there!” he was communicating to her with eye-to-eye hubris. “Look at me. I’m looking at you.”

I expected his next move. He’d lean toward me, feigning interest, so the woman would see he was a nice guy, the sort who listens to his wife—a bitch, he’d tell the woman later, who doesn’t understand me. I sighed and wiped my forehead. Our Costa Rican get-away to save the relationship wasn’t working. And now rain was in the forecast—lots of rain.

The air in the restaurant was sultry and still. We’d climbed over a sandbag barrier stacked at the front door. Workers were installing sheets of plywood over the large windows. Waiters were lighting candles.

John continued his blatant preening as I clutched the menu. I hoped the woman behind wasn’t falling for his tawdry come-on. Oblivious to my awareness, he turned sideways to present his best profile. He pushed up his sleeves and flexed, swaggering though still seated. Glancing her way again, he stretched himself to his fullest height in his chair. A glass of wine arrived. I gulped it down to dull my embarrassment and anger.

The woman must have paid her bill and left because John put his glasses back on, slouched in his chair and stopped pretending an interest in our conversation about the weather. I made a few sarcastic remarks about his conceit and his dangerous over-confidence. He shrugged. Back to normal, our relationship was gasping its last. The lights went out in the restaurant.

We ran back to our hotel room as the rain shifted from torrent to deluge. Dirty water seeped under our door and despite using towels and the bedspread as a dam, we couldn’t hold it back. Our bed became an island, water creeping up the legs. Like Zombies we lay side by side on it, afraid to sleep, carping about each other’s mistakes.

At daybreak, we couldn’t open the door blocked by a wall of mud. We climbed out the window and wallowed through slippery muck to the hotel lobby where we joined a crowd of marooned guests and staff. Mud-spattered and sleep-deprived, everyone waited for rescue. I turned to speak to John. He looked past me to someone behind and undaunted by the disaster, began his ocular strip-tease. I heard a distant peacock crowing.

Eleven inches of rain fell in eight hours. The banana crop, backbone of the economy, was destroyed. Bridges collapsed; roads washed out. I flew home alone.

Ruffles to Ripples

The prompt photo this week features an exceptionally beautiful garment. The ruffles are lovely, cascading down the bosom and over the shoulders of the attractive subject. For my eye, all the other elements of the photograph faded away. I mentally jumped from ruffles to reflections and tried out an effect available from the on-line photo editing site, Lunapic, which I like very much. Exceptionally easy to use, it enables me to be a little creative and turn my ordinary photographs into more interesting images. The ruffles turn into ripples.

I searched through my photo stash and could find nothing that could even come close to the featured gorgeous garment. I did find a photo of my Aunt Nita wearing a dress with a draped collar. My best match. 

Nita was married to my mother's brother, Louis. She and my mother were good friends before Nita and Louis married. Their family—Nita, Louis and their five children—lived in Kenora, Ontario in Canada where my Uncle managed the Kenricia Hotel for many years. Here's Nita and her reflection.

I

Nita was born in 1911 and died in 1978. Her maiden name was Sharpe. Her father was Howard Sharpe and he was the CPR Telegrapher in Kenora when she was born. I have fond memories of Nita, in particular, she and my mother singing Whispering Hope together. 

Here she is with her sisters. All three must have had their hair "marcelled" into waves, or you could view them as ripples for the sake of matching today's theme. 

From Wikipedia: Marcelling is a hair styling technique in which hot curling tongs are used to induce a curl into the hair. Its appearance was similar to that of a finger wave, but made by a quite different means.

I overdid the reflections, I know. I find them mesmerizing.

 For more interpretations of today's theme, meander over to Sepia Saturday.

  .

Tune Up

Tune-up time. Plagued by unpredictable bouts of tachycardia for many years, my cardiologist suggested I have an electrophysiological evaluation and cardiac ablation, if necessary.

The procedure was done last Wednesday and while not painful, was uncomfortable. It took a couple of hours while I was under the influence of a nice mixture of drugs which kept me in a dreamy condition, but aware of what was happening and able to answer questions. I wish I could have seen them, on the screen, actually ablate the tissue in my heart but I was prone and fixed in place.

I felt good right away and as soon as the anesthetic effect wore off the next day, I walked my usual four miles. It's probably imagination but my heart feels better, steadier.

We were both well treated at Tri-Cities. The nurses who prepped me and guided me through everything were great. They kept up a steady chatter with me over the prep time which is quite long as you are virtually wrapped from neck to ankle with electrical monitors. I was as distracted and relaxed as I could be under the circumstances.





Richard's waiting experience was pleasant and he was kept well informed. My doctor spoke with him immediately after the procedure, while I was recovering. The nurses called him to come in and help me get dressed to go home.

All I have as battle scars are two little slits in my neck and three in my thigh where the catheters went in.

We had an Acoustic Neuroma support group meeting on Saturday at UCSD. The two foremost AN surgeons in the world are now located in San Diego and establishing an Acoustic Neuroma center there. They've generously offered us space for support group meetings on the medical campus. Most of my efforts for these group meetings involves finding free space to hold the meetings. That problem is now history.

We arrived for the meeting arms full of materials—these two unpretentious doctors met us in the lobby and helped us get a meeting room ready. Instead of a formal meeting they stayed for two hours and answered everyone's questions. We're so lucky to have them in San Diego.

Rick Friedman and Marc Schwartz to Lead Acoustic Neuroma Center

August 11, 2017 | Lindsay Morgan

Building on a strong interdisciplinary tradition in Neurotology and Skull Base Neurological Surgery, UC San Diego's Department of Surgery is excited to announce the recruitment of Dr. Rick Friedman, MD, PhD, and Dr. Marc Schwartz, MD, to UC San Diego. Together with teams from the Division of Otolaryngology and the Department of Neurological Surgery, Drs. Friedman and Schwartz will build a world-class Acoustic Neuroma Center to provide destination care in the new Jacobs Medical Center. This program will feature use of a state-of-the-art imaging center, operating rooms, and surgical equipment.

Drs. Schwartz and Friedman will begin November 1, 2017 and practice on the La Jolla campus.

Dr. Friedman was an Associate at the prestigious House Ear Clinic for 15 years and Head of the Section of Hereditary Disorders of the Ear at House Ear Institute. During that time, he became one of the most well-known acoustic neuroma surgeons in the world. Four years ago, he was recruited to the USC Keck School of Medicine to be the Chief of Otology/Neurotology and continued to perform complicated skull base surgery. Today he has one of the largest Acoustic Neuroma practices in the United States. The Division of Otolaryngology is proud to claim Dr. Friedman as one of its own residents and gratified to have him back home.  

This program is further fortunate to reunite Dr. Friedman with Dr. Marc Schwartz, who is currently the senior Neurosurgical Associate at the House Ear Clinic.  Dr. Schwartz has practiced at the House Clinic for 15 years and expects to perform his 2,000th acoustic neuroma resection during the first few months after his arrival at UCSD. In addition to his acoustic neuroma experience, Dr. Schwartz has developed an international reputation in the treatment of patients with Neurofibromatosis Type 2 and in surgery for implantation of Auditory Brainstem Implants.

This reunited team will immediately establish UCSD as a leading national and international presence in the field of acoustic neuroma and lateral skull base surgery.  This stellar team has spent many years together refining acoustic neuroma and skull base tumor surgery. In addition, they will establish Auditory Brainstem Implant and Neurofibromatosis Type 2 programs. These multidisciplinary programs will incorporate other specialists from within the University.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

A few photos from the meeting.....

A trip to Walmart

Cakebox Tales

From the Road: A Trip to Walmart

When my globe-trotting husband and I first met, I was surprised to learn that he’d never been to WallyWorld, aka Walmart. In disbelief, I wondered how you could reside in America and have missed visiting the world's biggest and most successful retailer. He’d been to Harrods; the notorious “wet” markets in Asia; chaotic fish auctions in Tokyo, and the Huaxi Street Market aka Snake Alley in Taiwan . . . but he’d never been to the Walmart store, fifteen miles away in Temecula.

“Where do you buy cat food, fizzy drinks, pool chemicals, Campbell’s soup and wine?” I asked. He shrugged, shot his cuffs and smoothed his hair. His retail needs had been met by Home Depot, Major Market, Joe's hardware, Costco, and a yearly visit to Macy’s menswear in the mall for clothes. Tolerating my enthusiasm (we were still dating), for what he clearly considered a second-rate experience, he agreed to give the store a try.

I began planning his virgin trip. For this excursion, the shopping list had to be carefully planned. I wanted to make sure we’d be visiting all the highlights and that he’d be seeing them in the best possible order—in a crescendo.

For example, would you take a first-timer to Rome and begin with the Vatican? No! You’d likely get in the mood at the Spanish steps, follow with a walk in a funky neighborhood, do a tour of the Colosseum, and end up at the Vatican with all its splendor.

Thus, we would begin our WallyWorld tour with the garden department, progress to men's wear (underwear and socks), customer service (wire money to France, get an advance on a paycheck or an income tax refund, buy stock), and the grand finale—the grocery department—where you could buy frozen herbs from Israel, inexpensive unsalted butter and the cheapest name-brand bacon in the county.  

“Think of it as visiting a foreign country,” I said.

I planned to have my tires rotated so he could get a whiff of WW testosterone and enjoy the sweet sound of air guns and tools clinking against metal, every gearhead's dream.

It was a bright sunny day when we climbed into his shiny black BMW and drove the twisty roads from De Luz to Temecula. Once a backwater, now you can get anything you want in T-town: Learn to speak Russian, go to a jazz concert, catch a wine tasting or gamble in a casino. We parked at the back of the lot to be sure his car wouldn’t get dinged.

         A big smile from the official Walmart greeter launched our exploration. A paunchy man, he heaved himself out of his chair and adjusted his ball cap. We could see his five-year pin glinting. While we breathed in the comforting aroma of french fries from the McDonalds just inside the door, he rolled a mammoth cart in our direction. Puffing from the exertion, he passed the cart to Richard. 

          “Welcome to Walmart folks. Have a good day."

Richard laughed at the size. “Not subtle,” he murmured.

I had to remind myself that this was his first time. “You’ll see...we’ll need it.”

We pushed the cart together over to the gardening section where I pointed out the many sights including the generic brand pool salt stacked two bays high.

“Notice the price,” I said, swinging a forty-pound sack into the cart. “And the bags have handles.” Left unspoken was the comparison to the name-brand product he regularly purchased at Home Depot, slippery and awkward to move around. He raised an eyebrow at my grandstand move. In our courtship phase, as we were, this could have been a serious strategic error. "I get the point," he said. I moved us along briskly to the pet food section.

Richard’s Somali cat, Baci (Italian for kiss) ate well and preferred an expensive brand of cat food. Pleased at the low prices, we filled our cart with cans, added a couple of cat toys and a bowl. The display of branded pet fashions left us both open-mouthed.

“Dolman sleeves?” Richard asked, rolling up his own, suddenly aware of his conservative blue button-down shirt. We resisted buying Baci a Dodger’s jacket and matching cap.

The rest of the sections held their own delights, including the garage where a skeptical Richard agreed the staff was polite and efficient. “I’d come here for some things,” he admitted, reading the price list for oil changes and tire rotation. I was excising the snob right out of him, pulling it out of his persona via his calf-skin wallet—a gift from a former girl-friend who shopped at Nordstrom and Whole Foods.  

He continued to walk the aisles for the rest of the trip, hands clasped behind his back, Prince Charles-like, stopping occasionally to shake his head in wonder. His single biggest find was a loaf of Pumpernickel bread, a bit of bakery exotica rarely spotted in Fallbrook. “Who would have guessed?” he said with a grin as he tossed a loaf into the cart.

It was mid-afternoon when we checked out; we were whisked through a little too fast for shopping tourists. There wasn’t sufficient time to look over the As seen on TV items; to appreciate the vast array of electrical charging devices, or to scan the lurid magazine headlines (Ted Kennedy’s Alien Love Child Confesses); nor did we spot any of the WalMart shoppers made famous on the internet. Despite searching up and down the aisles, not a single sight of the freakish species Walmart Gigantopolis occurred. It was regrettable but as it turned out, Richard became a convert and has exotic sightings since on his monthly excursions. I enjoy his return home, arms laden with bags, smiling and ready to report.

“You wouldn’t believe what I saw at WW today!”

Walmart Temecula: 32225 Temecula Pkwy, Temecula, CA 92592

Nearest hotel: Ramada Temecula Old Town

Nearest airport: San Diego