Friday, October 31, 2014

Things You Might See In Hollister

Paul Harvey post script: While we were wandering down 5th Street in search of suitable images to capture, a woman came out of a boutique (Irma's Fashions) and asked what the heck we were doing.

Oftentimes such encounters involve shopkeepers who dislike photography of their establishments for any reason whatsoever. However, this time we were more or less recruited on the spot to come in and document the place ("Can you take some good pictures to put on my Facebook page?")

Being the accommodating sort, TSG accepted the invitation and spent 15 minutes or so inside taking a few pics and passing the time of day. Once the discussion turned to the woman's ex-husband and how he now weighed 350 pounds, we decided to take our leave. Our study of the shop can be seen here: https://picasaweb.google.com/109588081293702443159/IrmaSHollister102614

3 comments:

Parm said...

I don't know if it's the years, or the viewer, but I sure remember Hollister differently! The place you document is a place I might, in fact, not mind visiting.

Johnny's place had some pretty well-rendered artwork on his exterior walls. Some local talented starving artist working for some free beer and a sandwich or two?

There were a couple of disturbing masks (I think) amongst those objects de photograph. Basically pretty creepy.

As for the chatty (and pushy) lady with the shop, in fact, she had a pretty nice operation going there! For what its worth, and that's not much, the cowboy-themed purse earned a chuckle from me. The Ace & Deuce special!

Any earthquakes during your visit? Or maybe I am thinking of Watsonville?

W. "Whadda ya got?" Biscuit said...

At the risk of offending any visiting Hollister-ites, the town to me has been a half dozen stop lights or so to get thru on the way to The Pinnacles. To be sure there wasn't much of anything going on the Sunday afternoon I was wandering around. My sense is that it's a solid ranching/farming community with a semi-steady trickle of tourism based mostly on the legacy of the 1947 riot and the the 1963 Marlon Brando movie. As you mentioned, Hollister claims to be the earthquake capital of California, but I didn't see much emphasis of that in the way of a tourist draw. In my travels I think the much smaller town of Parkfield makes a bigger deal out of being a center of seismic activity.

Frankly when I went in to Irma's to take photos I wondered who the clientele might be...the merchandise seemed to be a little upscale for the local demographic, and I didn't get the sense that folks passing through would be in the market for that kind of stuff. But what do I know?

Parm said...

You know, I've never actually seen the Brando movie of which you speak. I certainly know OF it, of course. I need to get a hold of it somewhere and give it a viewing. It was called The Wild Ones, right?