Palin on Wal-Mart wedding

Editor & Publisher, the trade magazine for the newspaper business, has been reprinting items from Alaska newspapers on Sharah Palin, now the Republican vice presidential nominee. Included was this item from The Anchorage Daily News, which I offer without comment:

Palin Presided Over a Wedding at a Walmart. He worked in the pets department. She was a cashier. A romance blossomed. And when it came time to say ''I do,'' they chose -- where else? -- an aisle next to menswear. Sandwiched between racks of cotton pants and surrounded by ''Back-to-School Specials'' signs, Jake McCowan and Rosalyn Ryan exchanged vows last week at the place where they met, work and fell in love: the Wasilla Wal-Mart. A crowd of 200, including passengers from a tour bus and several dozen curious shoppers, watched the two employees tie the knot in an afternoon ceremony officiated by Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin. ''It was so sweet,'' said Palin, who fought back tears during the nuptials. "It was so Wasilla." [ADN, Aug. 28, 1999]

Wasilla, a hour's drive north of Anchorage, looks a lot like North Dirksen Parkway ... but surrounded by snow-capped mountains, birch trees and Sitka spruce. It's considered kind of a scruffy little town, and people there take pride in that -- in a way that would be instantly recognized by Chicago Cubs fans or Illinoisans talking about Illinois politics.