I’ve been meaning to stop at Meier’s House of Clocks at 3730 South M Street for ages and when I heard that they were closing their doors for the last time today I stopped by. There were a bunch of great clocks, as could be expected, but my favorite was the cuckoo clocks. Meier’s has been open since 1953 and at this location for four years. There is a good article on the store here http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/01/30/2455345/longtime-tacoma-store-meiers-house.html?storylink=fb#disqus_thread
The Lucky 3 Food Store at 3601 South 12th Street, Tacoma is one of hundreds of convenience stores in Pierce Co.Just driving from Point A to Point B, on South 12th Street I passed four of them, though one was permanently closed. While I tend to think of 7-11 when I think of convenience stores, the truth is that most of them are mom and pop stores.
I stopped at IBEW Local 76 at 3049 S 36th Street, Tacoma, WA 98409 this afternoon to do some phone banking for the school bond. The union formed by lineman in Tacoma in 1890. Their website is here http://ibew76.org/
The Never Never Land figures that I saw on November 24, 2012 are now for sale at Broadway’s Best Antiques, 742 Broadway, Tacoma in the Antique Row area of Downtown. Of the 85 figures available, 43 have sold in the three weeks they have been available. The most expensive was the Big Bad Wolf at $2,000 and I noticed a coupe of small figures for a couple of hundred. My understanding is that some of these figures are from Tacoma’s Never Never Land and some from a different children’s park in Canada, but that the figures were often switched around for maintenance. Nobody is really sure which ones came from where.
I really enjoyed the store, it was full of some great stuff, not the knick knacks I’ve seen in some other stores.
http://www.broadwaysbestantiques.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Broadways-Best-Antiques/100537730018321
The Theme of the ALA Midwinter is “The conversation starts here”. ALA takes place this weekend in the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle. I went up for the day to visit the zillion vendors (more or less) The first person I ran into was somebody that I know! Really there were a bunch of friends there and one long time Facebook, AAUW friend that I got to meet face to face 🙂 And while there were a plethora of phones and tablets, there was also a great deal of discussion. And the vendors were friendly and had excellent freebies! I was particularly interested in learning that Gaylord was promoting Little Free Libraries “Libraries Big & Small We <3 Them All!” I put my name in to win a premade little library structure. While there I also snapped a photo of some of the art, the view and the ALA poster that my daughter (via phone) insisted I purchase.
When I went to visit my last Little Free Library in November 2012, there were two in Tacoma, this one in the alley between South Anderson Street and South Oakes north of South 19th Street (#666) and the one pictured here http://blog.firsttries.com/little-free-library-tacoma/.
Now Tacoma has a total of four Little Libraries, so they are gaining popularity. Today’s Little Free Library is really more of a midsized free library with three freestanding shelving units and a several shelves towards the top of an outbuilding. Everything is covered with heavy plastic to protect the books from the Northwest rains.
There were a bunch of books in this collection that I’ve read and enjoyed. I picked out two, Ghosts Stores of Washington State and a dog identification book. The dog book I’m giving to a young friend who wants to be a vet when he grows up. In exchange I left a Lemony Snicket blank book for a budding writer. I’ll drop off another title soon (heaven knows I have a couple of books!). Per the Wikipedia article, there are currently over 200 of these libraries. There are building plans to create the containers or participate may design their own. Each of the libraries is registered and can be located by their GPS coordinates. Per the website:
Details about the Library Project can be found here: http://www.littlefreelibrary.org/.
DeLong Elementary School is a neighborhood school located at 4901 South 14th Street, Tacoma. There mascot is a Dragon and their motto is “Preparing all students for a bright and productive future” .There are about 400 students enrolled.
If the most recent school bond passes DeLong will receive some upgrades, which can be seen here http://www.tacoma.k12.wa.us/information/2013%20Bond%20Issue%20Materials/SchoolPoster-INFO%28side1%29-Delong.pdf
The Xipe Totec Mask is from the Mexican culture and represents the god of spring and growing seed. The Sun Mask image is from the Native American-Kwakiuti culture from Vancouver Island.
Mad Hat Tea at 1130 Commerce Street in Tacoma has more teas available to brew then I have ever seen in one place. I had seen packets of Mad Hat Tea loose tea available for purchase around town and it is of course there is also a large selection available here. I bought a bag of orange peel and another bag of butter cookie, which I have discovered at home, go well together. Mad Tea has a no cell phone policy, which is refreshing and the customers were visiting with one another and the employees. Altogether a great atmosphere, thought it would have been nice of there had been something to snack on.
The way cool Hat ‘n Boots Roadside American Art is located in Oxbow Park in the Georgetown Neighborhood of Seattle. Oxbow Park was created in 2003 and at the end of that month, Hat ‘n Boots were installed there. The art was fully installed by the middle of 2005. The art was originally part of a cowboy themed gas station, “Premium Tex”, that was built in 1954. The hat was over the gas station office and the boots were the restrooms (black for the guys and blue for the girls). The station closed in 1988 and fell into disrepair.
The park also includes a community garden, a children’s play area, some nice artistic touches and grassy picnic areas. It was pretty busy on this cold and foggy Saturday.
Update 2/13 there is a model of the Hat ‘N Boots at Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry. 