Are there still any real general stores left in America (aside from Wal-Mart, which shouldn’t count)? In Boone, the Mast General Store hasn’t been a real general store in my entire lifetime–like the Port Gamble general store, it’s about 95% touristy stuff: college sweatshirts and “mountain folk art” one suspects was made in Mexico.

Port Gamble, by the way, is one of the best names for a town I think I’ve ever heard. It could show up in a historical romance, a science fiction story, a soap opera, a western–it’s a name that conjures up every locale and genre I can imagine. Pirates are approaching Port Gamble as we speak, the orc army has surrounded Port Gamble, someone has died in idyllic Port Gamble and it’s a case for spinster-detective Miss Whatsit. We have enough antimatter to reach Port Gamble, a stranger with a gun on his hip and dust on his hat rides a pale horse into Port Gamble, strange lights have been seen in the hills over Port Gamble and children have started to disappear.

It makes you want to move there.