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Humor
The Grail of St. Anachronism
Every man has his price
It was summer, sometime in the late 1980s. My best friend, Pete, and I were in my hometown while on break from Hendrix College. As a general principle, Pete and I, along with many of our classmates spent a lot of time at thrift stores, junk shops and flea markets. We also spent a lot of time doing stupid stuff that probably should have gotten us killed.
On the less dangerous side of the equation, we would go to “the ‘will” a.k.a. the Goodwill Store on Oak Street in Conway, where the school was located. It was a veritable cornucopia of society’s still useable detritus. We dragged home a bunch of crazy stuff. There was the year-round Christmas tree that we festooned with flip-top cans of pork-n-beans, cigarettes, tampons, and toy soldiers. Martha Stewart has yet to call. Prude. (Pete has just reminded me that we also had a Yoda tree-topper and some strings of dry macaroni — good scholarship resides in the details).
We also bought a lot of clothes. It wasn’t like JC Penney was going to have that Darrin Stephens-cut sharkskin suit from the 1960s. We were Mad Men way before it was cool. Perhaps too long before it was cool. Neither did JC Penney carry that Texas prison inmate death mask, pre-worn army boots or many other fine goods of interest to discerning gentlemen. Suffices…
