My name is Paula Bosse. I’ve been blogging for several years, most recently with my blog Flashback Dallas, in which I write about Dallas history. I love researching and writing about my hometown, but there are so many interesting things I come across that deal with things beyond Dallas that I figured “Why not just start a whole other blog?” It’s either that or a damn podcast, so be thankful.
I’m not really sure what this will be yet. But, basically, if I like it, I’ll toss it in.
And “High Shrink”? What does that mean? If, like me, you’ve ever worked in retail (I worked in bookstores for many, many years…), you’ll recognize the term “shrink” or “shrinkage” as “that which has been stolen” or “lost,” due to theft or accounting errors. (The candy and chewing gum displays at convenience stores are, no doubt, a “high shrink” area of the store. In bookstores, those areas include Bibles, manga, and various headache-inducing tchotchkes.)
When I worked at a very large flagship Borders store in North Dallas, I created a little area of weird and cool books — the kind of thing one would not be surprised to discover had been shoplifted. I called my little curated collection HIGH SHRINK which both amused me and sounded strange to everyone else. And it was surprisingly popular. I thought I’d resurrect it for this blog.
I often think I’m the only person who gets really excited about esoteric historical things or old ads or forgotten pop culture, but I’m not, of course. There are lots of us out there. Welcome to my little offbeat corner full of weird shit found on the internet.
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Copyright © 2017-2023 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
High Shrink 
I found online your 2008 piece on the late Carl Anderson, “University Park’s Monarch Butterfly Wrangler.” In 1950, I was a 9-year-old neighbor, about six doors down the block on Centenary Street. “Mr. Anderson,” on his own, organized a Monarch study club for about a dozen kids, including me. The Dallas Morning News reporter Frank X. Tolbert and a photographer produced a feature story on our enthusiastic efforts. I am now 80. Carl Anderson remains one of the great influences on my life. The photo of his butterfly covered face that appeared later in Life magazine is also online. Thanks to Carl’s curiosity, hemispherical migration patterns of the Monarch are now a scientific fact. Carl would be devastated to learn that human population growth and climate change now are threatening the Monarchs’ future.
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Hi, Jan. I wrote about Mr. Anderson in 2015 in my Dallas history blog, Flashback Dallas — and it is one of my very favorite blog posts. I think of his story often. I’m so glad you were one of those lucky neighborhood kids! Here is my original post, with lots of photos: https://flashbackdallas.com/2015/02/10/monarch-butterfly-wrangler/
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