Fire at Von's

I thought many of you out-of-town Eddys would be interested in this bit of local news. There was a serious fire at Von's yesterday, up in the apartments above the store. Here's a link to the story in the Journal and Courier. Apparently the upper level was pretty much a total loss and I heard on the radio that their inventory was all water damaged. (Though the bookstore has nothing above it, so I don't know why it would have been affected all that much.) The place has probably been a firetrap for a long time.

What's worrisome is that Von has been making noise about retiring lately; he's spending a lot of time in Colorado, in fact that's where he was yesterday (establishing his abibi, no doubt). I hope this doesn't create the occasion for him to bail out. Then we'd have nothing lft but the "big box" national chains. It'd sure be a loss for those of us who depended on Von's to have the books and records we needed growing up.