Can We Get Some Swiss Cake Rolls?

You probably wouldn't notice as it's not going to be a major change from the recent pace, but I'm going to be away for a bit, so you'll just have to wait awhile for the next post (which I think will be #90).  Hopefully this one will be sufficiently satisfying to hold you over.  If you really want to do it up first-class-prison-style, get yourself some water to enjoy while you read.

So, yeah, this is a sign a long abandoned Holsum Bakery Thrift Store on 5th Street North.  This is a pretty desolate bit of town these days, as the area is surrounded by a few major roadways and the county incinerator.  I have vague recollections of one of these stores from growing up, but I'm pretty sure it was somewhere in the north suburbs and not here in industrial downtown.

You can see this sign with a different set of tags here.  You can see in my shot that those tags were painted over some time before what now looks like "River Silk" came about.  Actually, as I look at that older shot more closely it says, "Riv" in large letters and "river" in smaller ones too.  I have no idea whether that's a gang thing or just a street artist thing, but this isn't the only tag in the Twin Cities with those words.  The Google streetview truck apparently came by in between tags. Check out some more shots here and here.

At some point, I think I read something about the role of a thrift shop like this, which sold discounted day old bread and bakery products, for the poor of the city.  Unfortunately, I can't find that source right now.  So I will leave you with a link to a less moving but still interesting (in a very different way) article about the history of the Holsum brand.