Dateline: Caribbean South of Bahamas. Day before yesterday we were taken to Sarasota beach to see the sand. I know, intellectually, that not all sand is alike because some is okay for making concrete while other sand is not. I seldom can experience that difference by touch or feel.
Sarasota sand is different and even I can feel and see that difference. It is finer, smoother, closer to powder. The signs say it is quartz-based, and washed down from the Appalachian Mountains – darned far away from here.
Did you ever notice how all malls in America look very much alike? We were in a big mall in Sarasota looking for a small item, which by the way we didn’t find, and it looked just like a big mall anywhere in the States. If there is “regionality” in shops you don’t see it in mall shops.
I suppose you might see regionality in certain merchandise if you were a detailed shopper (I’m not). Heavy-duty parkas are sold where there’s lots of snow and cold, I guess. Swim suits sold in Florida in winter, not in Maine or Minnesota until spring. These minor differences don’t show up in a cursory walk through the mall.
The little item we were looking for we finally found in the crafts section at Wal-Mart, which by design looks like Wal-Marts everywhere. Oh well, all of this reflective of a lessening of regional differences across the U.S. I suppose.
