Well, that would be some years ago. I was driving up Highway 5 yesterday through Centerville and saw two of my favorite birthday spots. We went there SEVERAL years. The Sawmeal Restaurant was one. We would go there and have chili and saltine crackers. Great stuff. Thankfully, the Sawmeal is still there. The other, the most wonderful place in all the world, the best place to find anything, was the Army-Navy store pictured below. Anything you could imagine would be there. Well, if you could, as any healthy young boy would, imagine only things in camoflauge or knife-like. Mama took me some years. Aunt Gladys and Uncle Edward took me several times (once after Mama was convinced that Uncle Edward wasn’t the world’s greatest driver anymore). Mama and Papa, Mama and some assortment of my wonderful sisters. It was a great ritual. I still have some of the things I got for my birthday. I suspect the old WWI gas mask is somewhere in Octagon still.
Sadly, the store is no longer around. A Mexican restaurant now, no less. I imagine that the original owners drive by and feel the same sadness.
Bummer about the Army-Navy store.
But yay for the Sawmeal! I see it whenever I drive to Faunsdale.