Happy Birthday to the Little Soldier Shop!

'Twas on this date in 1978 that Dennis Largesse purchased the Little Soldier Shop in Old Town Alexandria and ushered in a legendary period for wargaming in the region. It was not merely a place to purchase and play games, but a virtual home for many True Gamesmen, (including myself and quite a few of you reading this). The shop is long gone, and apart from an occasional reference to it in gaming reminiscences, I don't think there's any website devoted to it, (although my friend Chris once attempted one). But it is fondly remembered in a hundred hearts and minds with a hundred stories of its denizens and activities. It was something like "Callaghan's Place", from Spider Robinson's sci-fi stories. Any body could show up there, and I mean anybody - hard core derelicts staying just sober enough for one more toss of the die, Russian agents looking for the latest military books, our own spooks, children pulling their hapless mother's in to buy them the latest game, strangers and tourists recoiling from the grubby players circling around the game table. Beer and wine snuck into the coke machine for cooling by THOSE WHO KNEW, all-night tournies, Hearts games that would go on for weeks at a time, Diplomacy matches that would end in blood oaths. Ah, those were the good old days....