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You shall not Pez!

Some puns can’t be helped, really. This is in a bookstore, a shopping genre I haven’t visited in a while, but I had a few minutes to kill between errands today, and so I found myself wandering around the tomes, making sure books that have my photographs in them are displayed face-front, rather than by the easy-to-miss spine. I’d re-work the shelves so that they are all at eye level, but that earns you hard looks from the people that work there.

And they’ve got it bad enough already.

Don’t get me wrong, one of my late-in-life ambitions is to work a few days a week in a sleepy little used bookstore and sit behind the counter reading everything there that happens to interest me at the time. Run a few bucks through the machine, smile at the occasional visitor, direct them to the romance section or whatever else they’re looking for, like the romance section, and go back to my book. This is a grand idea.

But to be at the big chains these days feels exactly like the video rental stores felt a decade ago. There’s a general sense of impending — and that isn’t because you’re standing in the reference section looking up words in dictionaries — mixed with the coming odor of doom. Which is found, of course in the fantasy and sci fi sections, but really all over the place these days.

I also saw one of my colleagues recent books, though, and I made sure her book was covering everything remotely interesting around it. These are the little things, small efforts in random bookstores which will, no doubt, be undone by the niece of some author who’ll come in behind me in four days making sure the Art of Pickling is prominently displayed in every section of the store. You never know when the Mason jar set will come in to best your efforts. Bookstores are one by the zealous, and the preserves people are ruthless.

I saw this in the regional section, in one of those sepia toned books. “Vintage Birmingham Signs” is full of ancient pictures from the Images of America picture series. I love this stuff:

There’s never been a cooler Shoney’s sign in the world, I’m fairly certain of it. And they were advertising the strawberry pie, which was one of the eternal treats of Shoney’s. They were happy nights when we went there after the sporting event of the night and got that hard-crusted, whipped cream covered treat. The only thing better was the breakfast bar, and then only sometimes. (Sometimes it was bad, but you had to go back and try again because other times it was incredible.) The strawberry pie, though, was always perfect.

I think Shoney’s was the last place I saw a cigarette machine, stowed and careful stocked by the restrooms. The last time I was in that area that particular store had become an eerily un-busy Chinese restaurant.

Saw this, too:

The caption places this in the late 50s at a place that would later become Eastwood Mall. That mall started dying in 1989 and was demolished in 2006. Now a Walmart is there. Neither offered an improvement over that HoJo sign.

I sent that to James Lileks, the nationally renowned columnist and author, because of his affinity for signage in general and his love of old HoJo in particular. He wrote back almost immediately.

“Looks like the kid is in a military graveyard, what with the cross.”

Beware the pancakes I guess, then.

I only have vague recollections of Howard Johnson. They were more places that we didn’t go than did, for whatever reason, and they always looked a bit tattered and frayed by the time I came along. I know I visited one once, but it is now a Hampton Inn.

I did not know HoJo had 28 flavors of ice cream. That must have seemed like an embarrassment of riches to parents, and nirvana to their kids. I suppose it set the standard for the day? And then along came Baskin Robbins to win by a field goal. These days there aren’t even any of those around any more, which is really off the point.

The point was the Pez. Gollum has a Yoda-ish quality to him. But, really, why do toys and promotional items like these never really get the image right? This becomes even a larger problem with hi-definition, 3D and IMAX when we really want to see every pore in Ian McKellen’s face, but also just to distinguish between the hobbits. As candy dispensers, though, that matters little. The little discs of sugar are the important part. And the accuracy of the bottom of their chin and jaw. You’ll trust the sweet, delicious treat that looks like it came from the real Aragorn, but a Pez molding based on the likeness of Scott Stapp just won’t get it done for LOTR fans.

Anyway.

Tonight the students are putting together the final issue of this year’s Samford Crimson. I buy them snacks this last night of the year, and am always impressed by how few of them know about the goodness of Roly Poly — their site’s title says “Rolled Sandwiches, Soups, Salads” and I’d really like to see how they roll a soup.

So this is the last night. There are many jokes and some hugs and a sleepy section editor on the second day of consecutive all-nighters. There will be misspellings. And then, somewhere early this morning it will all end again. The editor this year helped nurse the paper from a broadsheet into a tab-sized format and, less directly, oversaw a brand new website launch. He’s also been writing for the USA Today Collegiate Correspondent Program. He’s going to prove himself capable of many things. He worked with two outstanding broadcasting, film production students, a varsity athlete, a history major and two other journalism/mass comm majors to put the paper together this year. It could have been better, but it could always be better. It was a year-long exercise for them, though, and they learned a great deal. Some things they don’t even recognize yet, but one day they will.

Someone tonight was scoffing at a poorly written sentence, and that person wouldn’t have done that at the beginning of the year. Others have proven themselves capable managers, all perfected their time management, because none of these kids do just one thing.

Personally I think it should be an almost full-time job working on this paper, but that’s more narrow than you can ever ask a student to really be. You can ask them to learn, and demand their full attention and dedication. And if you get that, you get something worth bragging about, just a little.

Next year’s news staff will be younger, and we’re going to focus evermore on the online side of things. This is where we start to tinker with changing the workflow and the culture of a news outlet. Brainwash them early, I say. Make what they are doing here more conceptually match what they’ll be doing in the working world. They might start off shaky, just as this crew did, but they’ll grow right in front of our eyes and probably do some really cool things along the way. That’s just the way the students here are.

Now, if you’ll excuse me. Someone has dozed off and we must make fun of them.