(GP pictures #2)

My work meeting/training ran over and We missed out on getting popcorn. Sigh. Guess I will have to come back another day and  take more pictures!

Clicking on the pictures will enlarge them.

Don't forget the fish food.

The old cheese factory. Next to Chet's.

Alley between Hobby craft and Ace Hardware.

I can smell the hot iron from here...mmmmmm, we didn't sniff glue in my day or huff any aerosols....we sniffed that wonderful hot smell at Champions to get high.

LOL I can still here the clerks hollering at up to stop tripping the door and making it open. Loved that WOOSH it made, we used to pretend it was the bridge on the Enterprise. I would be Chekov and say "Cap'in on ze Bridge!" as my brother walked up and made it open.

Still there.

The bricks are getting really old, wonder how much longer before they must come down.

May Fair Market.

Loved to slip behind the poles.

My daughter can do it....can I?

Holysmokes!! I still fit! Notice I chose and empty store in case I got stuck, LOL, less gawkers if GP fire and rescue had to pull me out the the jaws of life.

I'm sorry little one that I can't take you and show you GP as it was when I grew up in the 60's and 70's and 80's.

To give you a sock full of change and send you off on your bike to go shopping alone down down.

This world is not as safe now.

But when I was little....it was safe. GP was so safe, when I was 6 years old I used to walk 4 blocks pushing my baby brother in his stroller and with my 5 year old brother in tow up to Pay-N-Save and buy what ever mama sent us there to get.

I lived down town buying stuff at McGregors, playing with the magic door at Mclain's till they chased us away. Visiting the animals at Chet's. Feeding the pidgeons Blind George's popcorn. Staring at the beautiful glass stuff in Brownell's window. Stopping in to get a hug from my Grandpa Gill and play on the furniture in his store.

It really was the ideal place to grow up.

Small town filled with hard working people. A quiet oasis with a magical river to whisk you off on adventures.

Silent quiet unhurried beauty.

Old voices...

Familiar friends to visit...

See those ever present price bags on the back shelf? the smallest bag is now $1.00. When I was little, the biggest one was $1.00.

NO READING!!! you know the rules!

CRAP!! the line is around the corner!! we should have come sooner!

Two please for the matinee! Hope the balcony is open!

I remember standing out side and watching the presses printing through the windows, but no one else in my family does. Wonder when they frosted the windows.

Old DQ

Doc office

Love that all the old houses have been taken care of and there magical beauty continues.

Lord, if we could package up the air in Millies we could sell it for a fortune.....it smells so good in there.

FOOD PORN at its finest...a Millie's Ham grinder.

Crushed red peppers...in their secret sauce, served with the same love as always.

and that bread.....oh yum yum yum....

 I was working at one of the nursing homes the night the old stadium burned down. Our alarm went off and on the heels of putting out that blaze the fire crew had to come to our place. They were filthy and dirty and tired as snot. That was a big fire.

No matter how tight money was, our family always got a summer pass.

The cement is warped from all of us laying there on the 15 min break frying in the sun like beached sea creatures, waiting for that whistle that sent us all running and leaping back into the water....that hothothot skin on cool cool water...instant heaven.

 They have 1/2  the pool, its no longer one its two.

 No high dives anymore....or baby pool.

25 mph...please....these are the camel hills, no one drives these under 88 mph...

going up! prepare to launch!

At this point my daughter asks what is on the other side. I replied "NOTHING!!" and gunned it. We crested the hill with screaming laughter.

Love the GP logic....one direction is allowed to 25 mph and the other direction is 30 mph.

Cross country coaches loved to have us run those hills.