Shoes of Giants
Sunday, December 03, 2006
XMAS AT THE BOOK STORE
BOOKSTORE AT XMAS
By Frank W. Walsh
You would have loved being there for the season at the Old Town Book Store. I know I couldn't wait to get there in the morning, sweep off the snow, sometimes shovel it in shirtsleeves, cap and gloves, hang out the glass-domed kerosene lamp someone had donated. When we opened at night the lighting of the lamp would signal our readiness for guests. When the snow flew the lamp was reflected golden off the flakes making a Dickensian scene — not in London — but in mid-Michigan.
People brought things they thought would be at home in the book store: stuffed owls, ceramic ash trays from a pottery class, small statuettes, large paintings, coffee makers and cups, hand-woven fabrics, pots for Mu tea, photographs and drawings (many of the book store), even a crystal decanter for our cheap wine and a crystal glass for Mrs. B's Manischewitz.
No matter how early you'd get there, even with the lights off, someone would bang on the door. It was impossible to yell, "Closed!" A whole new adventure might be aborted. Most of the time the purpose of the visit would be to browse and get warm, but sometimes an alchemic incident would evolve — just the right book for the right person at the right time.
Our first regular employee was Nancy P. Nancy, like me, was a recent college graduate, a liberal arts major, equipped for everything and nothing. She had applied for a job at the local newspaper. The only opening was in the society section. This was the sixties, and there was still a society section. Nancy was no radical, but she was aware of shifting tides in the world around her. She was of a serious nature with a little frown line between her eyes. Documenting the doings of our town's dowagers did not fit into the role she had set for herself.
She had money but no job. We had a job but no money. She came to work for lunch money, which would come from our cash register, a red cardboard box that had once housed several tiers of chocolates.
We had a training manual — two, in fact — both by Christopher Morley: Parnassus on Wheels and The Haunted Bookshop. Books still in print and accessible through the Internet. Nancy stayed at the bookstore for many years before she left to become a teacher and start a family. She may at some time have been paid close to minimum wage. Perhaps not.
Always a delight was the annual December visit of occasional shopper, Sally C. She would come in with a long list of giftees, settle into the back room at the oaken conference table (from the Lufkin Rule Company when they closed up), search out a book or two for everyone on the list, erect piles, traipse over to Kent's Drug Store for wrapping paper, scotch tape and ribbon and perhaps a couple of egg salad sandwiches, wrap and identify each book and make payment by check. We would then cart the packages out to her station wagon and she would be off for another year, shopping completed. And we could relish our best sale of the season.
We never sold much. A $100-day was a wildly successful day. Often we took a loss. Our expenses were low, too. For many years all of our help was volunteer. Staff hours were sketchy. We opened at 10 a.m., closed at 6, reopened at 9 p.m. and stayed open until it was time to close — usually around midnight. It was an occasion characterized more by conversation than by commerce.
The first snow of the year heralded what became a bookstore tradition. When the big flakes came down. Real ones, like hosts or frozen manna.
On a display counter we had a pile of slight books, rather like pamphlets, with deckled edges and sea-blue covers and an envelope, too. They were editions of A Child's Christmas in Wales, by Dylan Thomas.
Going over to lock the door and pulling up a high stool, I announced that I intended to read the whole thing aloud. Once I began there would be no entry nor egress. Anyone who wished to leave could do so then.
When no one left, I would clear my throat and begin: "One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now …"
Every year for many years this ritual was observed. The snow came. The lock clicked. The reading began. The reading ended. That was that.
The bookstore seemed to have a life of its own, always open, always reaching out, displaying all sides of an issue. Piles of books rose, spontaneously generated on the floor. Boxes of books intended for return gathered dust.
New malls were built. Franchise stores with wide aisles, pyramids of best sellers, sale prices and fluorescent lights moved in.
On a sad September day, after 10 good years, the Old Town Book Store closed its door for the last time. The sports shop next door expanded. Now accessories for cyclists stand where once there were books. The red neon sign in the window, the extended black and white sign over the door that said simply, "Books," and the lantern are all gone.
But sometimes in December, as the new blanket of snow fights the slush of Hamilton Street, you might think you see a faint flicker between the heavy plate glass windows, and question whether there was a movement of browsers within. And hear an ever-so-faint echo of Dylan Thomas, "One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now … "
Frank Wolfarth Walsh
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
Sports Columnist, Neighborhood Newspapers
Author, Shoes of Giants
Blog: shoesofgiants.blogspot.com
Contact:
1130 14th Street N.
St. Petersburg, FL 33705
727.481.0592 — Cell
727.823.7749 — Fax
posted by Frank @ 5:25 PM 1 comments
1 Comments:
At 2:29 PM, Wolfhound Deb said...
Your description of the bookstore brought both joy and sadness. The joy of the memories of those times and the sadness of the time when I returned from my "journeys in life" yet one more time, only to discover that it and you were gone. I believe it was January, 1974 when I was last there when the bookstore still existed..... a very cold and snowy day. You were adamant that we treck through the snow to buy some fish for the tank to celebrate. I returned a little more than a year later only to discover that the bookstore was no more.
