Everybody thinks Tri-Cities, Washington(Richland, Pasco and Kennewick) is so conservative. And it is. Twasn’t always the case. One of the advantages in being relatively long in tooth is that you’ve had the chance to see how things change. In Richland, before the Red Robin became the City Buffet it was Adrian’s. Adrian’s had topless waitresses and even at one time a transgender singer named Kirsten(okay, I wasn’t old enough to actually experience Adrian’s in person, but I read all about it in the Tri-City Herald). And then there was the Tri-Circle Theatre. It was a drive-in cinema out in the sagebrush next to the unpaved Bombing Range Road. It showed porno flicks and each car had its own little screen. Middle-school boys walked through the desert to go have a peek… And then in Columbia Center there were two head shops. People could buy their bongs, papers, pipes and roach clips right there in the mall. One of those head shops was called«The Inn Shop», located where Abercrombie & Fitch is now. My parents hated it because they swore it caused my sister to run wild. Well, she did run wild, but I don’t know how much The Inn Shop had to do with that. And back in the 1960’s, through about 1978(when the family values crowd started grabbing the levers of power), most of the local elected officials were Democrats. My oh my, how times change!
