August 27, 2008

Hit the city today and it was cool like 70 degrees and the slight feeling of autumn in the air and kids going back to school felt exciting. I entered the street from Penn Station through going to Kay Mart underground.

I have never seen so many different types of back packs and already a floor of ghoolish halloween costumes. Such selections from medieval ball gowns to a man's full bear suit. Your great Uncle Joe used to dress like a were wolf when he was a teenager and he was so tall my father feared when he ran in the woods on the Gulf Coast in his costume someone would shoot him.

Could this NYC Kay Mart be the same Kay Mart I knew on the Mississippi Gulf Coast (which was flooded and wiped out in Katrina). When we used to visit my mother (your great grandmother) at her country home in Waveland, Mississippi, I and your mother and my other children would breeze through K mart for sale clothes and swimming supplies and just lots of beach stuff.

It was a one floor huge building and my mother decided she had to see it once since all her children and families shopped there. So she rented a wheel chair (her legs were weak) and was pushed through from start to finish and then said. "I've seen Kay Mart and I never have to go back there." Grandma liked specialty shops where people knew her name.

Many little shops and drug stores on the Gulf Coat went out of business after the first Kay Mart came there. Of course Kay Mart and then Walmart were wiped out by Katrina although they were 10 miles from the beach. Rumor says they found dead bodies floating inside.

I recall how many people Kay Mart serves in NYC and its 3 floors of choices. Just amazing. They even have 5 fitting rooms for women's lingerie.

NYC continues to astound me at the availability of so much in such a dense space. This is a walking city, Ruby, and when the weather is wonderful it is delightful.