All roight. First of all I keep hearing this strange “eeeeeeeeee” noise. Not “eek”, not “eep”, “eeeeeeeeee”. It seems to have stopped now. I hope it was coming from the radio.

On my most recent pilgrimage to Petoskey, I took a nostalgic little walk while the Twinz of Terror were in the Boot Store. I walked past Toad Hall and found it to be empty! Except for a desk with a real estate agent behind it. For lease. If you walk down the street a couple blocks in the direction those vee-hickles are pointing, you will be looking out over the Little Traverse Bay on Lake Michigan.

I remember *before* this building was Toad Hall. Before this building was Toad Hall, it was called Saks Fifth Avenue. Sound familiar? Petoskey is an odd little city compared to many of the other small cities in the northern reaches of the Great Lakes State (although there are a few other similar cities). It is a gorgeous town and an easy drive for many of Those Folks to come and shop whenever they need Pappagallo shoes (google that). Those Folks? Oh, you know the ones. Those who have second homes in beeyootful spots in the Great White North and probably were born with more money than you will make in your entire life.

When I was a teenager and young adult, my family made annual summer pilgrimages to Petoskey. The Commander and Radical Betty were the main organizers of these trips and we had SO MUCH FUN! Back in the day, Petoskey had many stores that catered to a much wealthier bunch of folks than the bunch of folks I grew up with. Saks Fifth Avenue was one of those stores and I once managed to buy one article of clothing there — ON SALE — in my entire life. It was a longish off-white cardigan sweater. I wore it to death. I loved that I owned an article of clothing from Saks. It’s long gone and it was ugly by the time I got rid of it and I do NOT wear anything off-white nowadays because that color is ugly on me nowadays. Saks closed a long time ago and the building became Toad Hall, a big junk emporium full of the kind of tchotchkes we are all flinging these days.

I still love to go to Petoskey and I made the Twinz of Terror go there with me last weekend. One of our fave places to shop nowadays is actually the Ace Hardware Store. It’s right across the street from the Mitchell Street Pub, which is our nowadays goto place for lunch. I’m trying to remember the name of the hippy-type store down the street from the pub. We had one of those stores in downtown Planet Ann Arbor too back in the day. I bought all kinds of clothes and stuff from that store for the beach urchins. It is GONE NOW! What was its name? I do not remember!

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