Sunday Funnies

I woke up very early in the dark this morning and quietly recovered my paper from the front porch.  I turned the porch light off first. I didn't want anyone to see me ala bedhead and ratty favorite nightie.  The heat is on a timer with my magical thermostat so it was still cold, not hot air time yet.  So I did something I haven't done for years, piled up the pillows, put on my glasses, and climbed back into bed to read the Sunday paper. Could have used a cup of coffee but I didn't want to stand in the cold kitchen waiting even those few minutes.  Our Sunday paper has shrunk over the last few years to less than half of what it was.  The daily is even smaller and could blow away if it wasn't rolled into a tight little chunk. 

The first thing I did was read the funnies, same as we did when I was 4 or 5, but sitting next to the oil heater in our family living room.  That was our version of central heat in 1946.  Dad would sit on the floor and read them to us.   The funnies aren't as good now.  I think our shrinking local paper gets the cheap ones.  When they first dropped (in my mind) the good ones, there was an outcry locally, I wasn't the only one.  So they published a selection of possibilities and we got to vote.  They are marginally better.  And alas for the papers, most of the funnies, good or otherwise can be viewed online.  I used to get the Seattle Times delivered but its offered here no more; it also owns the local paper, the Union Bulletin.  That means we get a lot of day old AP filler from them.

Then I read the ads.  Our local Sears has been selected for extermination and they are having a sale, as usual.  I am looking at exercise equipment.  It's a sign of the times for me and Sears, trying to get leaner.  It would be cheaper for me to pursue my exercise on a recumbent at home than belong to a gym.  The disappearing Sears store is one two stores remaining at either ends of our defunct mall, the other being ShopKo.  Add it to the list of others left the mall, JC Penney, Fashion Bug, Claires, the food court, those all left as our mall died along with many small locally owned stores.  I used to walk inside the covered mall there and have a cuppa when I was done.  Ostensibly it was to be remodeled, but that collapsed like many things and it is now mostly torn down.  On the back side are the unfinished shells of stores that were to be the new outdoor mall.  Ick, who wants an outdoor mall where it freezes and snows in the winter, and is hot and dusty in the summer?  The monolithic stores that were never built live in the overgrown former parking lots.  The buildings are at various times inhabited by a herd of deer and sometimes by the homeless.  Just for tourists there is a highway sign directing you to the Blue Mountain Mall, surprise to you when you get there.  Look closely and you could see upwards of 20 deer.  Hopefully you will go straight east on Rose Street and get to downtown, along the way you will be reminded that this is after all, a farming town.  Nice shops there and good places to eat.  We have managed to hang onto the downtown Macy's which resides in a beautiful building which was formerly the magnificent Liberty Theater.

The little double doors at the bottom right of the picture houses Liberty a tiny store with marvelous goods.

Walla Walla made it onto the NYT Travel section of best small towns to visit, wineries, Balloon Stampede, the elegantly remodeled Marcus Whitman Hotel and Restaurant and history squirting out our ears.  Another called it the friendliest to visit.  But still we are suffering that bane of downtowns, creeping empty store fronts.  Remarkably people keep starting businesses and restaurants here, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.  I digress though. 

This brings me full circle with the Sunday paper.  I discovered I can get both the Sunday Oregonian and New York Times delivered to my door here.  My friend has me pick up hers when she is out of town and I had forgotten what a major city newspaper looks like.  And the funnies, oboy, oboy!  Guess I will set my coffee pot up on Saturday nights and be ready for a big paper-fest.