Countless hours spent

I can’t tell you how many hours in my life I’ve spent roaming the stacks, here. When we first moved to Gainesville when I was nine years old, I begged my dad to find me a ceramic supply shop. I didn’t want to only be able to work on ceramics when at G-ma’s house — occasionally I wanted to make something for her and didn’t want to do to that “you should leave the ROOM NOW” thing so that I could work on it not right in front of her.

Back then (shakes cane and yells at you to get offa her lawn) there was a small ceramic shop in the plaza on the corner of 13th St and 16th Ave, and that was close to our house. But way out on Williston Road was an even better place, with a … oh, I guess it’s about 60×40 warehouse. The place near what was then Gresham’s pharmacy (which was bought by Eckerd’s, then by CVS, and is now a Starbucks — and there’s your Old Skool Gainesville lesson-of-the-day)…. erm, where was I….? RIGHT. So the little place in the plaza near our house is loooooong gone, but Frazier’s is still there, and I have been a loyal customer of Juanita’s for about 32 years.

She’s like a surrogate G-ma, she really is. She’s full of knowledge; stories and information just spill, overflow out of her. You can’t have a conversation with her without learning something.

And of course I can’t go in her shop, even after all these years, without walking around and through the stacks and finding things I’d never seen before.