Giants.

June 13, Lodi, California.

Went to Wal-mart to look for the last supplies needed to put the finishing touches on the custom-made crib (inauguration was last Saturday, no wood splitting, baby survived,) the "small" version, as usual in California, where the first giant so-called Wal-mart supercenter only opened a couple of years ago. I remember covering it for the Press-Enterprise; the first giant store allowed to open in the state was in La Quinta, near Palm Springs; they're still far and between. It occurred to me that there wasn't a town we worked between Brownsville, Texas, and Twentynine Palms, California, that didn't have a Wal-mart supercenter. Not one. California, with its scarcity of giant Wal-marts, feels like a foreign land.