Today we drove down to Petersburg and walked around the Old Town area for a little while. Poor Petersburg. Despite Mother Nature's occasional tantrums (tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, the odd fire now and then), the old commercial district has a large number of very nice structures. Most of them are unoccupied. A few antique stores cling to life, restaurants come and go. We went into a tiny bookstore that didn't stock any more books than I have at my house. On the bright side, the city has tons of free public parking because no one goes there. So few cars were even passing through that we were able to jaywalk indiscriminately.
Slightly to the east of the oldest part of the district stood an old, twentieth century, light industrial building with no roof. A sign reading "Quality" was set in the above the doorway (no door). And spray-painted on the wall beside the doorway: "Yes, we are still open." Yeah, open to the elements.
We saw lots of ghost signs too. My favorite was for Heretick Feed & Seed. (Actually the building seemed to be still occupied.) It makes me think of infidels who sound like windup alarm clocks.
198 words | July 17, 2004 08:20 PM | Real true story