Remembering Lazaar's and Boise's

Cleaning out a desk yesterday yielded not one, but three Pink Pearl erasers - and some memories of going downtown to buy stationery supplies.

Plainfielders used to be able to shop at Lazaar's on Park Avenue or Boise's on Front Street (or both, if a true lover of paper, pens, pencils and such). You could get just one of whatever you fancied, in contrast to Staples, where things come only in multiples. Staples was widely blamed for the demise of the friendly neighborhood stationery store and indeed, after about 50 years serving Plainfielders, Lazaar's closed soon after the big store opened on Route 22.

I remember meeting a young artist while I was part of the Johnson family's "Plainfield Today" team. When I found out he had no proper supplies for his drawing, I told him to wait in our North Avenue office while I dashed to Boise's to get some good paper and a gum eraser.

Unlike the Pink Pearl, which has a bad rap in this article, the gum eraser can cleanly get rid of pencil lines after a cartoon or drawing has been inked. I still use one when I get a library book where some inconsiderate person has underlined words or phrases in pencil that I feel compelled to erase before reading. (Note to Charlie: I always called them soap erasers too.)

It took me a long while to get used to Staples after Boise's and Lazaar's were gone. I still wish I could get a single needed item instead of a pack. But I came to appreciate their ability to special-order my favorite extra-fine point pens and narrow-ruled pads. Thinking I was going to write a book in retirement, I ordered two dozen of the latter, but still have more than a dozen left after nine years. On the other hand, I have gone through dozens of Staples spiral-bound notebooks while taking notes at city meetings for the blog.

One of my favorite destinations in Seattle is a stationery store inside the great Uwajimaya store in the International District. Audrey and I both overindulge in pens and notebooks at Kinokuniya Book Store when I am visiting.

Somewhere along the line, I discovered JetPens online and used donations to my my blog's PayPal account to get my favorite Pilot Hi-Tec C pens to go with the Staples notebooks for meeting notes. But you can bet, if Lazaar's and Boise's were still open, I would just go downtown and get my supplies.

--Bernice