Memoirous

Last week I introduced blog readers to the 50-word challenge—today’s blog has to do with Hippocampus. The hippocampus is the area of the brain where long-term memories reside. If you can’t recall a name on the tip of your tongue, blame your hippocampus. Hippocampus Magazine is an exclusively online publication dedicated to creative nonfiction. Each month it publishes 8-10 new CNF pieces: essays or memoir excerpts from established and emerging writers. A few years back I really enjoyed reading a winning essay by Jim Gray entitled Sweating the Sweater about a dad thrift store shopping with his daughter. This piece really resonated with me because 1) I shop Unique Thrift and had no idea it was a chain. I thought it was just in Chicago. Come to find Unique isn’t quite so unique. 2) I have a daughter and probably once a week for the first 20 years of her life we went to Unique. That’s all we had to say, Unique. It was a noun and a verb. Shopping together hasn’t been all fun. S...

I’ve blogged here before about Unique Thrift store. It has been part of my Chicago experience ever since I moved here in 1982. But, like a lot of things as we age, there are hard losses. Yesterday Unique Thrift closed its doors. The shop had recently undergone a brain-dead upgrade. I mean the whole reason people shopped there was to save money. Instead the new owners decided to make it into more of a boutique. Less choice and higher prices. Please tell me—is this good sense? In the thrift store market you need to overwhelm the customer with crap. So much of it that eventually you make money off of it. It used to be you could go into Unique on payday and come out with 3 – 4 grocery sacks of stuff and pay as little as $20. But that was a steady flow of money—until the upgrade. It was sad really, you’d go in and the aisles would be clear, the clothes arranged according to size (WTH!) not just color, and you could actually hear the musak. No more sloppy aisles with clot...

The rain drummed on the rooftop the night before; I fell asleep to the sound of rain, thinking I'm glad I'm not out in it or trying to get somewhere. My entire Kungsleden had been rain-free. I awoke on Wednesday to clear blue skies checkered with some fluffy white clouds. I expected standing water after the amount it rained the day before, but the pavement only retained a few dark traces that would soon dry up. Lotta had a plan for the day. We ate breakfast, again, little sandwiches on homemade seedy bread along with tea. Their house is situated uphill right next to a lake. Lotta said it used to be a small hotel and in fact famous writers used to stay here. It is, indeed, idyllic. She said one well-known poet is said to have stayed here who died of syphilis. I said I hope I do not have his bed. We shared a laugh. Yesterday because I was tired and at that moment the rain was merely a drizzle we went to a thrift store. That's how I look for unique items to bring home. The cas...