Tony Kiss

tkiss@gannett.com

Rock legend Prince, who died Thursday morning in Minnesota, never played a concert in Asheville. But in November 1984, he made an unexpected and surprising visit here to buy a poodle.

The phone rang down here at the paper that day and I grabbed it. "Prince is at the Asheville Mall," an excited voice said. Right, sure. What would Prince be doing at the mall?. Then came another phone call saying the same thing. "He's in the pet store!" the second caller said. OK, that is weird, but I rang up the store and sure enough, the Purple One had just been in the Pet Luv store. He was aboard his tour bus, headed to Greensboro for a show, when came an immediate need for a toy poodle, the manager said.

A half hour earlier, someone had called the store and asked about poodles and wanted directions, the manager said. A few minutes later, Prince arrived, browsed the poodles in stock, picked a black one, and paid with his American Express card, the manager told me. The man was dressed in a full length fur coat, no shirt, white pants and purple knee boots. And his AMEX card was issued to Prince Nelson, the singer's real name. The manager said she had been alone in the store when the singer arrived. "I thought this can't be happening in my life!," she said.

After buying the dog, Prince went back to his bus, signed some autographs in the parking lot and resumed his trip to Greensboro. The manager said she was framing the receipt and putting it on the store's wall. And I had a very unusual story.

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