Beyond the South End

Sonny’s Sunshine Corner

 

I don’t remember if this is Sonny or Butchie, but in any case the stripes don’t match very well here, but they do make a good camouflage.

 

Happy New Year from your favorite blog writer, from Nanci, and from our Butchie. We hope the coming year is good to you and yours. Here’s to good health, good friends, and hopefully more prosperity.

Our boy is healing up well since we reported on his self-mutilation problem of last month. If he would just leave that one scab alone it might completely heal.

Readership for the blog is now over 59,000. Thanks, everyone.

This month we will have a few special treats for you. I’ll leave that as a surprise for now. Please continue to enjoy the popular guest blog from brother Ted and his Fish and Chips column, this month’s recipe, and the Thomaston Library News.

My left ankle operation of December 22 was a success. I’m now wearing one of those funky looking boots and will start physical therapy next week. I’ll be very glad to get two legs under me again.

Nanci was my legs yesterday as we made our annual pilgrimage to the mall calendar store to pick up our calendars for the coming year, including the cat calendar we always get; a Harry Potter daily calendar for her, and a small pocket book calendar I carry with me to write down my doctor appointments in. While we were there we spent our Christmas money from family. I got a nice long-sleeved Patriots jersey at the sports store and a nice leather jacket at Burlington.

This mall has wheelchairs for use of the invalid like me while they shop. Nanci did a wonderful job of getting me where I wanted to go. As a special treat for all her hard work, we had one of those fried dough things loaded with ice cream and whipped cream. It was delicious. We had a fun time and it was nice to be able to spend some time together.

I noted with some distress a story in The Free Press about the closing of the Reading Corner in Rockland. They have always been so nice to me and were my biggest supporters on Main Street. I had a book signing there for The South End.

Owner Warren Bodine, who has been in business on that piece of Main Street for 40 years, said that “the business has struggled to be profitable in the past 10 years due to changes in the book industry and the rise of online book retailers like Amazon.com.”

Small bookstores across the country are facing the same challenges. It’s a shame, but we could all see this coming, unfortunately. I will miss my friends at the Reading Corner and certainly hope they find a buyer who is willing to step in and try to make a go of it. Farewell my friends and good luck to you in the future.

 

I saw this cartoon in this Sunday’s comics and decided to adopt what the little girl is saying as my philosophy for the coming year.

 

Good luck to everyone for a great New Year!