sundays make me think

of newsstands and newspapers....neither what they used to be...

there is only 1 of the 3 or so old newsstands left on Main St. that I remember as a kid

William Price Fox and The Great Southern Poet (most likely both drunk, signing at Capitol Newstand) Capitol Newsstand 12/30/05

....very often after Sunday lunch at my grandparents, me and my dad, and whoever else would head to one of these newstands...usually so dad could look at car, boating, fishing, camping, electronics, or whatever he happened to be into at the moment magazines...

that left us kids to our own devices...my brothers would head to the comic books if they were there, but I always went to look at the papers first....my god there were other cities in other states and even other countries....all publishing their own newspapers with articles about stuff happening where they were - amazing..

I think this was also the beginnings of my realization that South Carolina is neither the center of the universe nor it's own sovereign state no matter what I heard in school...

once I got older and could hang get there on my own, I would go by myself and ponder the papers for hours...usually I'd buy a couple from places I thought I might like to live....take them home and read every page, look at each advertisement, wonder about the people in the stories in these foreign towns and just daydream about escaping...

now the internet and technology are making the newspaper and the newsstand obsolete...and that's okay, times are different, the need for information is different, and somebody has to sell the porn but I miss the smelly old places with the magic newspapers a bunch....

and I realize this doesn't even start to describe the magazines, LOL