I’ve been in and out of health food stores for almost twenty years and seen so many people come and go they’d probably fill Key Arena. I could look around this arena and easily not remember more than half of them.
Of the ones I do remember, there was Kitty, and Squanch, and a self-described ’30 something virgin’ named Elderberry (who we called Eldercherry). There was a guy whose name I don’t remember but who answered the phone “Hello sir or ma’am, thank you for calling Perelandra.”
I saw that it was 4:55 am; I never let the alarm wake me up. It’s not that I didn’t set it, I did; I just always seemed to wake myself up right before. It’d been that way for years, and had become part of my morning ritual. Like shaving in the shower, or downing a cup and half of coffee on my way out the door (even though I invariably brewed a whole pot).
It was still dark out, with a few glimmers of light, as I left my house at 5:45 am and clambered into my Ford Focus. The days were quite long here this time of year, and I had plans for later, so that was good. For the Yankees were in town, and there was a night game (which would be played mostly in daylight here in Seattle).
Seattle’s a great place to go if you want to access your inner hippie. If you think you know a lot of things but want to give it a test and need a proving ground, I recommend you try the fertile volcanic soil of the Great Northwest. That’s what I did. I’d worked at a little Natural Foods store in New York for four years and thought I was a hotshot, a real Granola. But I got schooled in Seatown, that’s for sure.