Today was a found day. Call it an extra day of summer, found on this first week of November. The sky was bright, the sun was out and the temperature was 70-plus. I've been in my shorts all day. Today's goodness was forecast. A woman at work yesterday asked what we did to deserve this. I said it was payback for the poor summer we had.This morning we made the usual weekend circuit to the downtown of our village: mail letters, return books to the library and buy a pound of Breakfast Blend whole beans (no grind, no bag, thank you). My wife, dog and I had a 1.5 mile roundtrip walk.
Because of the mild weather, we were determined to eat lunch outside. We drove to the shopping center, intending to eat at Potbelly's. The line was practically out the door. Moreover, the restaurant had removed its outdoor tables and chairs. So we walked over to Meat Heads, a new hamburger joint. It had outdoor seating, but the line inside was equally long. Distressed, we walked away, then saw tables on the sidewalk ahead. It turned out to be Starbucks.We went inside to see if they serve lunch foods; we found sandwiches and took them outside. Then I walked back to Meat Heads for fresh-cut fries. I ordered the cucumber-wasabi sauce, which was outstanding.
We got back in the car and drove to the grocery store. On the way home, we turned on the radio. My Northwestern Wildcats beat Iowa in Iowa. That made me more excited than this gorgeous November weather. I raked a few leaves and then read some magazines outside.
Now, about Archie. This is an in-joke my brothers, sister and I share. We've laughed about this for 40 or more years. This cover is from the 1960s. All we have to do is ask, "What's your favorite season?" and we immediately know the answer.
I don't know why we find this amusing. Maybe because it's so cheesy. The first time we saw this (as teens and 'tweens) I think we knew it was cheesy. My younger brother found a site showing hundreds of Archie covers. It's called Cover Browser. The site promotes links to 450,000 covers of other comic books and more. There's always "and more."
We had a stack of comic books in the basement, mostly Archies and Mad magazine, with a smattering of Classics Illustrated. I remember a Huck Finn in which he hides butter under his hat. Of course it melts and runs down his cheeks and someone thinks he has brain fever.

As with most families, I assume, Mom threw away all the comics when we were in college. A good project for an economist would be to tote up the value of all the collectibles, including baseball cards, beer cans and Beanie Babies, thrown out by mothers across the United States. The value of assets destroyed would total in the trillions of dollars.









