I redeemed our beer bottles and decided to go over to one of our fine used Dollar Book Stores. That's the name of the store, literally, Dollar Book Store. But there was a book I wanted to get for my father-in-law. They didn't have it. I did pick up some things, though.
As I was leaving, directly across the street is one of the many entrances to the Long Beach Convention Center. Our Dollar Book Store lives in an old Borders establishment, which itself is housed in an New&Shiny kind of shopping complex, you know, the kind that usually crop up across the streets from large beach-side convention centers.
People were streaming out of the Center, coming and going, up and down the stairs, all dressed up in finery and plastic badges on lanyards. I'm not sure what they're here for, but I imagine them all staying in nearby hotels. Maybe some of them live in the Southland and drive home at night, only have to pay daily parking rates.
I, a local resident, out playing on my bike, am dressed in mostly clean jeans and a mostly dirty long-sleeved shirt.
They're working in a vacation atmosphere, gabbing insecurely and protecting their tablet compys and smart-phones.
I returning home with my newly purchased dollar copy of Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago.
Just a regular Friday in our riviera town.
No comments:
Post a Comment