Iggy and I were walking to the post office yesterday when we passed Stam’s Drugstore, a local throwback just around the corner from the Barn offering a soda fountain and genuine small-town charm.

Robbi has fond memories of Stam’s from childhood. It was a place where one could go to spend money found in sidewalk cracks on penny candy. But yesterday, Stam’s was offering something that would have reduced Robbi to putty.

Was it the Silly Bandz advertised so alluringly in the window?

It was not. Though Alden might well have been intrigued, Robbi has recently graduated from Silly Bandz, moving on to a more fundamental enthusiasm.

If Robbi had been with me yesterday, I have a feeling we would have arrived at the post office $3.50 lighter in the wallet.

Compounding Robbi’s potential exaltation/misery, was the full tray of chocolate croissants, basking invitingly in the window of a closed shop.

Apparently, a new bakery is moving in about a 30 second walk from our front door, but it’s not going to open until September. Apparently, these croissants are just subtle advertising and will be left to grow old, never realizing their full potential of being devoured by Robbi (as a pleasant means of washing down her milkshake).

Had Robbi been here, there might have been an unpleasant scene involving broken plate glass and a call to the local constabulary. So I, for one, am relieved (for just a moment) that she remains on the tundra, blissfully unaware of all that Chestertown might have offered her yesterday.

Instead, here is what I’m guessing she’s up to right about now.

Fishing in Alaska is really nothing more than putting on the rubber pants and taking them off again.