SEMA day 1: my trip to North Little Rock, AR

So, here I am at my second academic conference of the year, the Southeast Medieval Association's annual meeting, which is taking place this year in Little Rock, AR. I drove here yesterday from Columbus, OH, which was about 11 hours in the car. But I was able to buy gas at under $2.00 a gallon, which was a delight.

Had a fine time last evening eating and sharing beers with a batch of old friends: David Johnson, Lindy Brady, Jill Fitzgerald, and others. I was probably too serious--I always am serious about Big Ideas, I guess--but I had fun anyway.

Checking into the hotel last evening, I broke my reading glasses--the cheap kind, and I probably should have known it would happen and packed a second pair. But of course I didn't. So I went out this morning and strolled around the local neighborhood, looking for a drug store (or similar place) where I could find a replacement pair. I stumbled across the Argenta Drug Co., which (as the linked article says) is a kind of time capsule: the brick building must be about a century old, and the interior still has the classic pressed tin ceiling, painted white. The wallpaper has been updated, but not since the 1950s, I think. They literally do no make them like this place anymore.

Papers begin this afternoon.