The First Friday March

Well, Friday night found me, Jr. V, Mrs. V and Mrs. V's mom wandering up the hill to First Friday. Jr. V and grandma went first, headed straight for the toy store and Mrs. V and I walked up 36th and turned down the hill into the Village. Just in time for some illegal parking drama with the plice on the scene. We stopped into Switch Shoes, which is now open and perused their colorful and funky collection of women's footwear and accessories with several other folks.

Then we wandered down the bloack to find out where the rest of the family was, it was no surprise to find Jr V and Grandma at Thinker Toys, we checked out the newest Playmobil stuff and then moved on out. Headed across the street to Village Beads and browsed a bit - Mrs. V was intrigues by their class schedule - since Village Beads doesn't have a website - I'm liable to post this later. For some reason I have a weakness for bead stores, as well as open aire fish markets, but there you are.

We walked back towards the main drag, headed for the candy store but ducked into Pagenwood to poke through all the antiques. Jr V found some colorful headgear....



I was thrilled to discover a full four-bottle carrier from the old Senn's Drive-In Dairy, which if you've been around long enough, you may remember. Man, my grandparents got ALL their milk from Senn's. I remember going to the one on Powell, but mostly the one out in Milwaukie on the way to Te-Bo's. They had GREAT ice cream. I may go back and buy those bottles...

Anyway, we popped back out and walked down to Sweets to get a candy or two. The Village seemed quieter than usual on First Friday, suprising really, considering that this is the first DRY First Friday we've had in who knows how long. We all selected a few candies and munched 'em up. Sweets has a great collection of hard-to-find and nostalgic stuff. For you Canadian candy fans, they've got Violet Crumbles and Coffee Crisp. For us old-schoolers there's wax lips, Necco's, etc. For the REALLY old-schoolers, they've even got horehounds, which I will NEVER understand. I think my Dad's attraction to horehounds was largely due to the fact the me and my brother wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole. I was pleased to discover maple sugar, which I crave leftover from a New England childhood.

Stopped into Topanien, and kept our shopping spree going. Yes, we were buying odds and ends the whole time.

Then Annie Bloom's where Jr. V had me read him a book that Mrs. V announced was the SAME book he had just wanted read to him the last time they were there, just a day or so before. Conveniently for him, it was on sale, and now it's upstairs.

And that was enough. Nice evening. Quiet on the streets, but that was nice too.