Memories Of An Old Haunt

There was a time when I used to go to certain stores just to hang out in them and pick up on the particular vibe they seemed to give off.

One such store was an old thrift shop in the San Diego enclave of North Park near 30th & Adams, not too far from Golden State Comics (this was a long, long time ago). The #2 bus let me off on a corner about halfway between the two stores, so every time I would go to Golden State Comics I'd also pay a visit to this particular thrift shop.

If it was open, that is. The store kept irregular hours and I'd wager that a third of the time I walked over to the store it was closed.

This particular thrift store was not like most thrift stores I'd been too in my quest for either old comic books or old paperback books - back then I had a jones for any of the 1960's Lancer Conan paperbacks that featured Frazetta covers, and any of the old Ace paperbacks that featured Roy Krenkel's artwork  - so I scoured thrift stores looking for them.

No, this particular thrift shop was small, and musty, and crammed with old gadgets - vintage radios and electronic devices - inventory I'm sure modern collectors would probably sacrifice body parts for the opportunity to root through now. 

There were a lot of very old small kitchen appliances and lamps too, as well as what had to be Victorian era furniture.

But it wasn't an antique store and it wasn't a curiosity shop. It was more of a hoarders attic, with no attempt made to display any item to it's best advantage or to clean anything up.

In the far back of the shop there were a couple of shelves full of books, both hardbacks and paperbacks. 

The selection was always changing, and there was absolutely no order to how the books were placed on the shelves - no mystery or science fiction sections, and not even one shelf devoted to hardbacks and one shelf devoted to paperbacks - all the books were just placed on the shelves in random order, which meant looking at the spines of every single last book in the search for what I regarded as treasure.

I did occasionally find some nuggets on those shelves, and if they were paperback they were 15 cents each - 25 cents for hardbacks.

The man who ran the place was probably in his late sixties or early seventies, and he was the stereotype of a sweet old curmudgeon. 

He never greeted anyone when they walked in with more than a nod of his head, and the counter where the register sat was covered in handwritten signs that stated things like "No Refunds Or Exchanges", "Cash Only", "Shoplifters Will Be Prosecuted", and the like.

However, despite (or in spite of) the disordered and disheveled nature of the place, and the grizzled personality of the old man, the place had an inexplicable feeling of comfort to it.

A good vibe.

I believe it was due to two factors, one being the random way in which items were displayed, which for some unfathomable reason just appealed to me, and two being how I never felt like I was an unwanted visitor to the store. 

The old man never glared at me or watched over me like a hawk as so many other people working at so many other stores did back in those days. I could wander through the shop for an hour and he'd just sit up at the front counter reading the paper or helping other customers out.

Oh, and the musty smell was no doubt a factor, too. It wasn't an old dirty musty smell, it was an old sweater musty smell.

An oddly comforting musty smell