I never seem to head to southern Illinois in my travels. I have been to Robinson before but not since 2013. I headed down and got my work done after lunch and by about 4:30pm, I was free. I headed right back up the road to a thrift store I had spotted on the way in – it looked like a real dump! My kind of place.
Jed’s was indeed a dump, dirty and disorganized. I found the records way in the back end of the place. I slid those huge boxes of tapes out of the way and got my torso all up inside the magazine rack and dug and dug. Nothing but junk.
I poked around for just another minute or two, already content that I would find nothing. But about 20′ away there it was – even more records, this time jammed into a bookcase in a manner which renders them totally unnavigable. I was in no mood to dig through that crap so I took a glance and headed out.
I was about half way into my truck when I took a closer look at the antique store adjacent to Jed’s. I decided to roll the dice.
I found a record rack about 20 seconds after entering. The pile on the floor was 100% Christmas albums – smart marketing. The records inside the shelf were an absurdly accurate who’s who of smooth easy listening vocals of years past.
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| A closer look revealed the usual suspects. |
Like many others, I left this short jaunt (maybe 15 minutes total, between both stores) without anything to show for it but the pictures, the story and the memory are often enough for me. They had better be!