Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/whatchagot.mp3 or read on…
Back in times more drear than these, in times when I still believed
you had to work for uncaring bosses because there were never
enough caring bosses around…back in those times, I would dutifully
and extravagantly do my job to the best of my ability. In order to
maintain sanity, in order to nurture my concealed Muse, I would
compensate myself through the pleasure of books.
.
I can remember days when my jobs took me far afield. After doing
more than my share of work in a strange city, I would knock off and
search for old books in old bookstores. My recreation, my therapy.
.
Trolling for treasure was my private pleasure. I never dreamed I would
one day be dealing in artifacts for a living, so I just enjoyed the moment
and remained focused on my private hobby.
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From the outside, an old bookstore was just that—a place that magically
appeared in my travels and allowed me to enjoy its existence. Once I left
the store, in many cases never to return, I assumed it would always be there
should I need it again.
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In other words, I took old bookstores for granted.
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Now, right here in the present, I am experiencing an old bookstore from
the inside out. Now, I see customers who remind me of the pre-bookstore-owner me.
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Example:
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A little girl is shopping with her dad and sisters, and it is obvious
that an old bookstore is a new experience for her. At one point, she
wanders over to me and asks, wide-eyed, “Those diaries over
there…did you know that people have written in some of them?” I
nod, speechless for a jiffy. “Why would you keep them here?” she asks.
.
My mouth, always speedier than my brain, quips, “Why would I keep
diaries that were not written in? I can’t imagine selling blank ones…except
to people who want to keep their own diaries.”
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She looks back at the mailbox area where thousands of old letters and
postcards and scrapbooks and snapshots arrange themselves in a merry
jumble. She’s absorbing.
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“And just think,” I do go on, “We have all these notes and love letters and
secrets that people kept a hundred years ago…and we keep them safe for
other people to read and appreciate. We’re paying our respects to the lives
they once led.”
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I stop at this point, lest I preach too much.
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She and her sister wind up reading some of the letters and showing them
to their father.
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Later, she purchases a blank diary. What will happen next? You tell me.
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Another example:
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A woman who is spending a lot of time looking for books from a list
asks, “What would you have all these thirty-three-and-a-thirds here for?”
She is disdainful. “Why would you keep these?”
.
I get preachy again. “Because we sell them to people who love to listen to
them, who appreciate their wonderful sound.”
.
“You sell them? How can they play them?”
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“We sell record players, too,” I answer.
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She has to ponder this, never having considered that things she once
discarded from her own life might still be cherished by people living other lives.
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One more example of how the urban bookstore I’m so used to seems alien to
first-time visitors:
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“What are all those police doing out there? What happened?” An anxious customer
is a little flushed after being outside the store.
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“Uh, what police?” I really am not aware that anything has “happened” outside but,
this being the City, I would not be surprised.
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I go outside to see what’s up. There, standing and chatting and merrily smoking,
are the security guard from next door and the security guard from across the street.
I assume that something I see—and inhale—every day can be something odd and
troublesome to an outsider.
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I re-enter the store. “Oh, it’s just a couple of security guards.” I put my
the-City-is-safer-than-you-think spin on it and continue, “that’s one of the
reasons the crime rate is so much lower than in the suburbs. Many buildings
have their own security, in addition to the downtown security force the regular
city police.”
.
The customer relaxes and gets busy amassing an enormous stack of old
American Rifleman magazines he covets. Maybe his memory of Downtown
will be a benevolent one.
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And so on.
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Each customer brings perceptions I can’t divine until they reveal themselves,
so I’m learning something new every few minutes. My customers are my
instructors, I their student.
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I wonder whether they ever get as much out of these encounters as I do
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http://www.jimreedbooks.com
© 2011 A.D. by Jim Reed
