Post 3481 - Friday

About 10:45.

I am in the Valley tonight. I drove up this afternoon. I paid the fine gentleman who plows the driveway down here. I ran a couple of errands. And tonight I am just kicking back and relaxing. I had a beer. Shh. Don't tell anyone.

We had a good day in the city. Patricia had a Pilates class in a Robie Street place. I stayed in the car for a little while and decided to walk a bit on Almon. There had been a thrift store up that way and wanted to know what had happened to it. On the window it stated they had moved up the street, so I found the new location.

Inside, I went to the section where they had books. My eyes alighted on a book that is long since out of print, and which I have stated will never be published again. It is worth a good 30 or 40 dollars because of its subject matter and the ongoing interest in the case. It cost me 50 cents. It is "On South Mountain: The Dark Secret of the Goler Clan".

I have written about the Golers before. It is a story of incest and poverty and how the upper crust in the Valley just wanted to ignore what was happening up there on South Mountain. When the story hit the news in 1984, it was a huge narrative, but then swept under the rug. In 1997, two people tracked down the Goler kids and wrote this book. I had a couple copies over the years. A year ago I exchanged my second copy of the book for breakfast with a friend, a regular reader of this blog. Hello, Ken. And, now, I have two copies again. Not sure what I will do with it, but it has found a good home.

They had other books there. I got a true crime compendium book by Max Haines, a tiresome writer of the genre whose appeal is lost on me. I got a second copy of Butter Box Babies by Bette Cahill. A 1980 issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. A Harry Bosch novel by Michael Connelly. A book about weird stories of World War II. That book cost me a dollar because it was hard cover. The paperbacks were all 50 cents each.

After her class, I took Patricia to the store. She got a couple soup bowls for 25 cents each. Anne Frank's diary. One or two other things. I got another book, about Bruce Curtis, the 1980's teenager from around here who, along with a friend of his, killed his friend's parents. Another big story at the time. Do you remember it? As far as I know, Curtis still lives in Halifax, after his time in the New Jersey prison where he served quite a few years.

We drove through Fairview. Went into the Meteghan Frenchy's. Patricia got a couple blouses for two dollars each. I got a book about retirement living and how frigging awesome it is. That set me back nearly 4 dollars, which is a bit dear for a Frenchy's store to charge.

After that we returned home. We watched the pilot of Riverdale. It is so full of teenage angst that I am not sure if I will ever recover from it. One more episode and we are done. Should have known better. People were dreading this crime aspect of the Archie universe. I tried to have an open mind, but when I learned that the dreaded Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa was the executive producer and would write some episodes, my heart sank. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa was the guy who, probably 15 years ago now, was the inaugural writer on a second Fantastic Four comic book series. Overwrought, pretentious, monotonous twaddle. Now, for some reason, he has crawled up the patooties of the brain trust behind Archie comics. 

After that, I loaded the car with my overnight bag and left the house. Patricia remains behind. As things stand I will go back to the city Saturday afternoon. 

I think I will turn in. Been a long day. More fun times tomorrow.

See you then.

Bevboy