![]() There was the voicemail Orzell listened to after one particularly hectic day earlier this month. That was like the event - you came to Al's, you bought the newspapers and everyone went home to read the funnies." "He told me his dad would bring him down here on Saturday nights. His family had moved to Fort Collins in 1942, she said, and he remembered Al's and Bud's News Stand opening being a big deal. There was the man who walked in and started regaling Orzell with tales of his childhood. Joann Speiser Hooper remembers seeing a newspaper article sometime in the 1980s with a big headline. Once a thriving center of smalltown businesses, Old Town - unlike Al's - has changed a lot in the last 71 years. And aside from the loss of its longtime distributor, the digital age made its impact on Al's as well. "And she looked at her students and said, 'So when was the last time you bought a magazine?'" Orzell recalled. They'd walk through the narrow shop and discuss the breadth of magazines offered there. This year, after hearing about the news stand's impeding closure, she brought her class in early. And you can't forget the tourists or Fort Collins newcomers, who would come in and moon over the old-fashioned news stand nearly frozen in time.Įvery year, Orzell said a Colorado State University journalism instructor brought in students from her course on writing for specialized magazines. Then the regulars, who stopped in for cigars, cigarettes and the wide array of magazines Al's always carried. You have the older customers, who remember biking to Al's for penny candy as kids. ![]() "That's what was so cool about Al's - you get such a wide variety of people," he said. "People come in here all the time to talk to us, about anything really." ![]() "We're like a dry bar," explained Hill, who started at the shop around 2001. Behind it, Hill, an 18-year employee with long, salt-and-pepper hair, guarded packs of cigarettes, an array of pipe tobacco and the shop's famous popcorn machine.Īfter buying a few packs of cigarettes, one customer lamented the closure with Hill and asked for a picture with him. Baskets of corn cob pipes and displays of reading glasses rested on the shop's glass counter. ![]()
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