Thursday Threesome

Onesome: Serendipity:-- Do you believe in destiny?

No, unless by that you mean people make their own destinies.

Twosome: Making fortunate discoveries-- What is your greatest "find"? Is it an antique you discovered tucked away at a garage sale? Or maybe something as simple as the great sale on khakis or lawn mowers at your favorite store?

:-) Our Christmas tree is named Serendipity, which may tell you how she was found. That very first copy of St. Nicholas magazine I picked up at Oxford Too and the very first bound volume I found at Brattle Books probably count.

Threesome: by accident-- Have you ever discovered a place entirely by accident and it's become a favourite place to go now? A hidden grove in the city park, a wonderful little coffee shop or restaurant, a treasure trove of a shop?

Oh, gosh, several places. There is at least one place at Roger Williams Park where you can walk down to the edge of the lake during the summer and because of the thick leaves on the maples and oaks not be able to see the road, or the cars, just the water and the boathouse, which looks exactly as it did 100 years ago when it was first built. If you could truly loose the fabric of time, as in Jack Finney's Time and Again and step through, this would be a great place to do so.

And there used to be this little restaurant in a couple of the malls, Lincoln and Swansea, called "the Roast House." They had real roast turkey, not turkey breast or processed turkey breast, but cut right off the bones. Their "turkey sandwich special" was utterly exquisite: a cup of hot savory turkey soup, a big turkey sandwich on a kaiser roll with the top of the roll dipped in turkey gravy, a side of chips, and a big 32-ounce drink for one small price: I'd always get a glass of coffee milk. It was satisfying and filling and delicious.

(Of course it all went downhill. First they quit having the turkey soup, then they started using only breast meat [gag], then it closed.)

Then there was this lovely used bookstore in the basement of the Wilcox Building on Weybosset Street. It was called Dana's and they had really old books, volumes that I know now were bound issues of St. Nicholas and other old magazines like Harpers and Scribner's, copies of Lucy Fitch Perkins' "Twins" books, etc.

One night in 1974 the art store or whatever it was upstairs in the Wilcox building caught fire. The fire department was able to save the building, which was due to be restored for historical purposes, but, although they were untouched by fire, water drenched all the books downstairs at Dana's. I walked by a week or so after the fire and peered down the stairway; the door was open and the books were literally smeared all over the floor. I started to cry and could never walk by there afterwards. It was like seeing a dead friend.

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