Shirt-sleeve weather – unusual in this area. It was unthinkable for us to spend the day inside so after some discussion, we decided to ride down to Napa, something we’d been talking about doing for months. We needed some maps because ours had vanished after someone rummaged through the car last night. We decided to go out to lunch and pick up some on the way.

We walked down to the Rand McNally store on Market.

An enormous revolving globe about five feet high turned slowly in the window as a clerk ran a brightly colored duster over it. Maps and globes were everywhere, but they lack the comforting thickness of books, so the inside felt pale and skimpy to me. There were a few travel books, including a beautiful picture book of Bali. Tim mentioned that once his product is released he wants to take some time off and visit New Orleans. I may have trouble getting time off unless it’s between issues, but I would love to see New Orleans again in the spring.

Perhaps inspired by the store, we went looking for a restaurant called Globus that was mentioned in The Thrifty Gourmet. We found it on the corner of Bush and Grant, just inside the Chinatown Gate, a shabby little place but with a nice atmosphere. Our table near the window looked out onto a high rise across the street, which included a palmist where a blonde woman sat in the window talking on the phone.

The waitress barely spoke English, but she got our orders right and the food was delicious. Tim had unagi-don and I had the sesame chicken. We were the only people there because, the cook told us, most of their business came from office workers and they got little custom on weekends. He was young with a ponytail, very informed and friendly.

This was the 1980s, so the woman talking on the phone in the window would have been using a landline, IOW, a stationary phone hooked up near wherever she was sitting. She was likely the palmist herself.

The Rand McNally bookstore with its enormous revolving globe in the window was a sort of landmark on Market back then. Globus, which was good but no landmark, barely even noticable in fact, is long gone.

Our plans for what we would do when “the product comes in” was Gold Rush talk. As an 80s-era software engineer, Tim was constantly working on what he and his boss hoped would be the next important product that would make tons and tons of money. Most of the time, this never panned out. Like I said — Gold Rush talk.

It was a good day for mailing. One of those gorgeous spring days that make it unthinkable to be anywhere but outside. While we checked the issues at Locus, we listened to some records – Godley and Creme, Timbukthree, etc – and afterwards I loaded my car with Trevin and Shelly and took in the airmail. It was so beautiful outside that physical labor was no hardship.  This time there were no hassles at the post office – in fact, they had someone to help us unload the cars.

Fritz called today, and asked me to read an excerpt from his book to him over the phone. He then said he would like either me or Shelly to read to him, since he’s having trouble reading his manuscript. I told him we would be delighted, and Shelly asked me to tell him she would be glad to do it, unaware that I already had. I guess he’ll get in touch when he needs someone to read for him.

Mailing always followed collating. We would drive to the Main West Oakland Post Office, the back of Charlie’s car loaded with canvas bags of labeled magazines. The main post office is a massive complex of square, blocky buildings in the concrete desert of auto shops, junkyards, overpasses and empty lots that is West Oakland. I usually saw it from a BART window overhead as I rode the line to and from the East Bay to San Francisco. On mailing days, we would pull the car over to the loading area and one of us would go in to hand over a postal money order. After that, it was a matter of tossing the heavy bags, bulky with bound squares of magazines, into a huge bin filled with other, similarly loaded bags. We were young and strong, and I remember liking the physical effort, the sense of satisfaction once it was all done and we could drive the empty car back to Charlie’s house in the Oakland Hills.