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138

There were two school supply stores serving Lincoln School, one across from the school whose name I can't remember but it was neat, and the other, Miller's, a shabby, sort of shantylike store at the foot of the hill en route home. A tempting feature of both stores was the candy counter, glassed in, where they had many trays of various kinds of loose candy, so many for a penny, and as you ordered, the clerk put the candy in a small paper bag which you'd carry into school, put in your desk, and eat surreptitiously during the session. That was 60 or more years ago and they had Tootsie Rolls then, a penny apiece, about 2 1/2" long and a half inch in diameter. Necco wafers, especially chocolate, were favorites of mine but they came in nickel packages 6" long and about 1 1/2" in diameter with maybe 50 wafers in it. My other favorite purchase at these stores, as I've mentioned, was paper in all sizes of pads. I always loved paper.

As I've noted, two of my favorite books as a boy, were "Rolf in the Woods" and "Two Little Savages" by Ernest Thompson Seton. Recently I found both of them in the Public Library here and took them out -- but I soon found they'd lost their charm. (I guess this should be in the Developments Section of this addendum.) The tastes of a 12-year-old and a 70-year-old are quite different and the writing sounded awfully childish now -- but what could I expect? I believe I liked them in boyhood because I wasn't an outdoors boy but secretly wished I were and became one vicariously by reading these two fine books.

Once or twice I enjoyed the great thrill of visiting the projection booth of the Park Theater with the operator, "Blumey", and looking in awe at the two big Simplex projectors. Really it was a rather ratty place but the reaction on me was that I had penetrated to the interior mysteries of the movie entertainment world and viewed something few are priveleged to gaze upon. 

Another thing I used to waste my hard-earned money on was comic books such as a book full of Mutt and Jeff cartoon strips, and I'd use these to sharpen up my own cartooning by copying the general style. This was very valuable in producing the "films" on adding machine paper covered previously.

There was a guide at Selkirk who had an artificial arm with a hook for a hand and it was miraculous how he could handle eels with one hand and the hook. We kids would watch this performance in open-mouthed amazement when he'd come in with a mess of big eels in the bottom of his rowboat and proceed to unload them. Eels and eel meat have repulsed me ever since. As I remember them they must have been three feet or more long and three inches in diameter just like a bunch of black snakes writhing around in the bilge of his boat. It still makes my stomach flip to think about it.