Watched a little bit of Super Password, then called Uber. It only took them six minutes to pull up by the curb. A pleasant older gentleman dodged noon rush hour traffic as he took the back roads into Woodbury Heights. It was past 12:30 when he finally pulled up at the Woodbury Goodwill.
They were surprisingly busy for a Thursday afternoon. I guess a lot of people were shopping on their lunch break. My main interest here was finding a black sweater for my cat costume, in case it's cold on Halloween. I found that, two children's records, and a CD. The CD the original soundtrack for the Disney Pocahontas. The records were:
The Donald Duck-themed Disney kids' album Going Quackers!
Reading of six Christmas Golden Books. We had three, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Night Before Christmas, and Jingle Bells, as kids in the 1980's.
It was too lovely of a day to not walk down Broad Street to downtown Woodbury. The area around Goodwill is all car dealerships, fast-food restaurants, and drug dispensaries, but it's not a long walk, only about ten minutes or so. I was a little disappointed to note that the Spirit Halloween that was in the abandoned drug store last year hadn't returned. I guess they didn't do well enough in that location.
My second stop of the day was On the Record, a small record store two blocks from the abandoned pharmacy building. Unlike the record stores in Camden County, they have a big collection of CDs and concert DVDs along with the albums. Trouble is, their wares tend to be more expensive than the stores in Camden County, too, with no dollar or two dollar bins. I mostly picked up CDs for Lauren and her parents, but I did get one CD and two records for myself. The one CD I got for myself is:
The Platters - Christmas With the Platters
The two records were:
The Moody Blues - To Our Children's Children Children
Oh Kay!, a collection of songs from the 1926 Gershwin-Gertrude Lawrence show cobbled together by the Smithsonian to be the closest thing to an original cast album it ever got.
After I left the record store, I went right next door to the big thrift shop. It's a rabbit warren of rooms, rooms, and more rooms filled with everything from old china to recent clothes and DVDs. No records here, but I did find a CD for Lauren's parents, a vintage blank notebook covered in a pretty yellow, red, and purple flower fabric, two small but beautifully detailed resin pilgrim figures, and a soft girl pilgrim and native for Thanksgiving.
Next up was Woodbury Antiques across the street. It's basically the same idea, but with far fancier and more expensive wares. After I dug up a gift for Lauren near the desk, I knew exactly where else to go, right in the back where all the records are. Trouble is, like with On the Record, their albums tend to be expensive above the norm for a local store. I wanted five records, but I only ended up with three and a CD. The CD was:
Chicago - The Very Best of Chicago: Only the Beginning
The three records (two of them two-disc sets) were:
The Rolling Stones - Hot Rocks: The Rolling Stones '64-'71 and More Hot Rocks (Big Hits and Fazed Cookies)
Elton John - Jump Up!
It was late by then, past 3:30, and I hadn't had lunch yet. Ended up on the next block over from Woodbury Antiques at LC's Family Style Restaurant. They were a pretty basic series of rooms with vinyl booths and a counter that showed off their wares, but at least they were impeccably clean. They claimed to sell Dominican food, but it seemed to be more of a mix of Hispanic and the usual pasta and burgers. I ended up with a salmon sandwich, fries, and a very sweet green tea (that I believe came from an Arizona can). The sandwich was amazing, two huge slabs of salmon perfectly seasoned with greens and chipolte mayo. It was such a mess, and they slathered on so much mayo, I ended up eating half of it off the bun. The wavy fries were perfectly crispy and salty.
(I do wish the service had been a bit better. They were nice, but exceedingly slow. I suspect this is a family business in more than name. The kid who served me couldn't have been out of high school, and I know I saw at least one young boy there playing video games. The owners and chefs may have been watching their children out of school and were trying to focus on that and cooking.)
Went for a much longer stroll down Broad Street, past beautiful old buildings dating to the American Revolution and tip-toeing daintily around the closed sidewalk over the river. It was an absolutely perfect day for a long walk. The sun was out, the sky was a searing cerulean, and it was windy and cool but not too cold, in the mid-60's.
I wanted to check out their huge CVS in the lot behind the McDonald's. Last year, I saw bags of Halloween toys and games intended for trick-or-treaters. I knew they'd be perfect for the Mystery Bags, but I already had plenty for them then. I grabbed two bags of random small toys like tops and rubber spiders, a bag of mini-Slinkys, and a Cherry Coke Zero.
Continued down Broad Street, stopping to read the headstones I could see at an ancient cemetery. There were tombstones with engravings that went as far back as the 1820's. Too bad the cemetery was fenced off. I would have loved to read the rest.
The other reason I kept going was to find a better place to pick up Uber. The CVS isn't visible enough from the street for drivers to find me. I ultimately called them next to the parking lot at the Town Market. Not only did they take 20 minutes to arrive, but for some reason, they ended up parking in the dentist's lot next to the Town Market. At least I found them, and we got home with no trouble besides some traffic on the highway.
Went straight into Daydream Believers: The Monkees Story after I got home and put everything away. I go further into this VH1 biopic on the famous boy band who broke free of their TV handlers and became a band for real at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.
Switched to Match Game '77 while eating a late dinner, then finished the night with more new record acquisitions. The Dave Clark Five were considered serious rivals to the Beatles in 1965, but despite Clark being an ambitious songwriter and producer not far removed from Mike Nesmith, they faded out at least three years before the Beatles did. They did produce some still fairly well-remembered hits, including "Catch Us If You Can," "Glad All Over," "Because," and "Bits and Pieces."
The Moody Blues were a far different animal. Far from Dave Clark's typical pop, they produced dreamy rock pieces that often revolved around a theme. On To Our Children's Children Children, it's space and galactic exploration, inspired by the 1969 moon landing happening around the time this album was developed. "Higher and Higher" and the moody "Eyes of a Child" are my favorites of this dreamy, often overly elaborate album.
Jefferson Airplane had reformed into Jefferson Starship by the time of Red October in 1975. It would be by far their biggest hit under this banner, with their biggest single, "Miracles." "Play On Love" was the other big single. I also like "Sweeter Than Honey" and "I Want to See Another World."
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