Dave Hall responds:

Hasn't been anything much (other than the Fed's Public Debt Building) in
"downtown" Parkersburg since the Mall opened in Vienna in the early 1970's.I
remember as a kid my mom actually taking all us kids downtown to0 do our
Christmas shopping. Sears, G.C Murphys, local department stores, etc. Those
lasted about a month after the Mall opened.

True. Downtown really consists of a few bars, a couple lunch spots and
government offices of one kind or another. That's it, except for some funeral
homes and lawyers offices in old Victorian houses.

Don't look for G.C. Murphy for your Christmas shopping, but Sears and a couple
semi-local department stores (at least I never heard of them until I got here)
are in the mall, and a potful of stores selling doofus caps and similar
doodads.

For those who don't know what a doofus cap is, it's a long brimmed cap that
used to be associated with basebal. Curl the brim just right and your head
looks like a bullet and your eyes appear to close together even if they're set
in the sides of your head right next to your ears. Put the bill on the back and
your brains run down the underside of the bill. Put the bill on the side and
you prove you didn't have any brains to start with.

Charlie Self
"Character is much easier kept than recovered." Thomas Paine

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