When I was a kid, my family took roadtrips down to Disney World around Thanksgiving. We rolled down the highway in a Country Squire station wagon, and I recall our two big stops being Pedro’s South of the Border, where we bought fireworks, and one of the highway rest areas in Maryland, the name of which escapes me. Sadly, the only name I held onto from all those rest areas was the evocative and menacing Cheesequake, but that was in NJ.
The one in Maryland was special, because it had a comic-book vending machine. For geeks like me and my brother, this was gold. By the time we would hit Maryland, we’d have finished all our comics anyway, so there was a thrill to picking up something new, even if our choice was limited to the few selections at the front of each shelf. The only comic I remember buying from one of these machines was an issue of Logan’s Run. Never any X-Men or Fantastic Fours, as I recall, but maybe I’m just rewriting childhood to make it seem like a life of privation.
Why do I bring this up? Well, during last Wednesday’s Scavenger Hunt of the Soul, I came across this:
That’s right: an iPod vending machine. And I wasn’t even in Japan! This was in the Macy’s department store at the Garden State Plaza here in NJ! I had to check it out, if only to see whether users are limited to credit/gift cards, or if there’s a slot to put $100 bills in. Sadly, there were no cash purchases.
Seriously: a vending machine for $300-$400 MP3 players, as well as high-end B&O headphones and the very camera I used to take this picture!
Living in the future sure is fun!
Chesapeake House
But what issue of Logan’s Run was it?
the total was 5 and I recall he had some gaps in the middle (maybe 3). Perhaps it was a post-5 issue. You remember: just after the dome breaks, it rains so hard that people get washed away (in the DC area too)
I just found this page looking to see if anyone remembered the comic vending machine at the rest area in Maryland. I remember the last time I was there was on a family trip from Atlanta to New York in about 1977. We saw Paul Lynde and thus entourage making a pit stop there that day. And I got to read Spider Man vs Doctor Octopus during the rest of the trip.