Just Looking For A Publisher

Yesterday, we took Maximo and Jacob to get groomed. It was overpriced as always but somebody has to do it and I just don't really want to so we pay the people at Petsmart to shave Jake and rake Max.

We decided that while they were being groomed we would drive out to Altavista, a short 20 minute drive or so from Wards Crossing and snap some photos for our new photo blog. Ward moved to Altavista when he was a Freshman in High School and lived there until he was 22. The quaint little town holds a lot of history for him and many a photo opportunity, so there we drove.

We took some interesting and not half bad shots, we took blurry deletable shots and we laughed that Roses was still opened. We used to rent movies there for $1 before we joined Blockbuster.

There is this old grocer in town, Vista Food. It was Ward's first job, as a bag boy circa 1989. I remembered they had these old registers that were so archaic seeming in the late 90s and I wanted to get a shot of them if they were still there. So we got the children out of their car seats, grabbed the enormous seeming Nikon D80 and went in to capture a little part of history.

The registers had been updated but much about the store was still the same. I decided to get a few shots anyway. Before I took any pictures I asked Ward what I should do if anyone approached me.

"Tell them you're writing a book about Altavista," Ward suggested.

OK, that'll work, I thought. It isn't like anyone is going to ask me anyways.

I didn't want to get any people in my shots. Just some interesting shots from the produce section. So I stood off to the side waiting for some people to pick their snaps and move. The people were eying me but I really didn't think anything of it. I moved to another aisle and took some photos of some archaic shelves. When I returned to produce a lady came up to me.

"Excuse me, what are you doing?" She asked.

"I am writing a book about Altavista. Blah, blah, blah, my husband used to work here, blah, blah, blah. "

"I have been the assistant manager for fourteen years," she combated.

"Well it was around 89-90," Ward chimed in.

She started to walk away, "You're fine. You're Ok. Go ahead." She said not looking back at me.

I laughed to myself, did she think I was taking pictures so that we could put together a heist and rob the joint?

I wonder if she is going to go home and tell everyone she knows that she ran into a lady taking pictures at the Vista Foods that is going to write a book about Altavista. I almost feel bad.

-june