That's No Moon, it's a M U N I C I P A L E L E V A T O R

   Yesterday, I went with my thrifting friend way the hell out to Oregon City. We rode the

 O R E G O N  C I T Y  M U N I C I P A L  E L E V A T O R, 

which I still can't believe is a thing, up and down at least four times trying to find an antique mall that no longer exists.  Instead we wound up going into a 'hobby and coin' shop right by the entrance to the MUNICIPAL ELEVATOR, which looked kind of dumb from the outside, but my friend had been in years before and promised great things.

    Now, normally coin and hobby shops are not so great if you don't care about coins and hobbies, but this place was insane. They had the standard coin collecting and industry standard model railroad supplies, but they also had an incredible mishmash of random old (ooooold) ephemera, postcards, books, militaria, bottles and packaging, comic books, toys, tin lunch boxes, actual junk,  anything you could possibly think of.

    When we first walked in, there was several racks of vintage to antique postcards and other paper ephemera. The very first one that caught my eye featured the Eureka Inn! Weird! I can't escape it! And, since it was only a dollar, I bought it!

Postmarked 1934 in San Jose

    The Eureka Inn was (and still is, though I'm not sure if it's in use again. For a while it'd been shut down) a very grand Tudor style hotel near downtown Eureka. I've never stayed there, but when I was younger, they used to have a christmas tree put up every year and I think we went on a few field trips to visit it in elementary school.

1922, Humboldt County Historical Society

    The store had such a small town-Cohen Brothers oddness to it. There were several people in the store, but aside from the two obvious employees, I couldn't tell if people were working there or just hanging out.  Some of the stuff that was in this store was just incredible.  The whole overall feeling of the store was like a three way mix between traditional hobby store, estate sale and flea market.  New and vintage model train tracks mixed with completely random bits and pieces of everyday life that you never see anymore, like a curling iron from the 60s with the original box, aspirin tins from the 40s, Portland General Electric pamphlets from the 40s, music score sheets from the turn of the century.  My friend found an old wooden box that Kraft government cheese used to come it.  Past several rows of truly old boardgames and toys, I found the true reason for this post: a corner and several shelves crammed with old-ass Star Wars crap.


    I managed to keep my shit together for about six seconds until my friend came over and I perhaps revealed too much of the depth of my shameful nerdiness when I proceeded to identify all the characters in several boxes of 12 inch action figure dolls. They had everyone. Humans, droids, whatever the fuck Ponda Baba was.  There was even two like, two and  a half foot tall  Taun Tauns that I almost bought. It was close. And did I mention, they were CHEAP. My friend nabbed a $5 Lando Calrissian and I walked away with this gem:

DO I NEED THIS?
NO.
IS IT THE BEST THING I'VE SPENT MONEY ON IN RECENT MEMORY?
YES.

Every reader should be proud of my restraint and the fact that I didn't walk out of the store with all four boxes plus the taun tauns in tow.