Listen: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/notesinbottles.mp3 or read on…
Some days at the shop, my visitors remind me of notes sealed in bottles.
Each customer brings a message to me. Often, the customer is not even aware.
But I see the message and treasure it.
Some examples of messages plucked from bottles that floated to the center of the Universe, which is what Reed Books/The Museum of Fond Memories is, most definitely:
1. One reader tells me how he discovered his first John D. MacDonald book by accident, while staying at a rat trap motel back in the 1980′s. Since MacDonald was so good at describing the underbelly of Florida night life through the eyes of its movers and victims, it was the right time. I sell the customer a bio of MacDonald, wishing I had read it first. Travis McGee was one dude.
2. A good ol’ boy browser noses about with his wife, and manages to do something any ventriloquist would envy. He talks without touching his lips together. You’d have to be there, if you don’t already know what I’m experiencing. “All right” becomes “awe ITE” and “yeet yet?” is actually “Have you eaten yet?” and so on. He was a cool cat back in high school. His ducktail has thinned.
3. Another junkin’ couple cruises the shop, and the male partner expounds on his store of imcomplete knowledge: “See that Ray Bradbury book? You know, he created Star Trek. He’s dead now.” 92-year-old Bradbury is not in great health but he’s still happy to be alive, according to all reports. Don’t know whether the late Gene Roddenberry is happy.
4. One more curiosity-seeker walks around with his pal and is heard to say, “With all them computers, people ain’t even gonna need books no more.” Employee Marie Peerson overhears this and reports back. She, too, is entertained by messages in bottles, even if the bottles sometimes leak and make soggy the messages.
5. A large baseball-capped man is awed by the life-size stand-up of Elvira, Mistress of the Cleavage, or whatever her stage name is. “She got me through my formative years,” he chuckles.
6. One silent customer forces me to read his mind, as he looks at an old publicity photo of Lauren Bacall. “Does she feel as pretty as she looks?” and, studying a Rolling Stone Magazine with Tina Turner thereon, “Does she do it like she dances?” I distract myself from further mind-reading. As Bugs Bunny said, “Enough is enough, and too much is plenty!”
7. One enthused customer is everywhere at once, overwhelmed at the variety of literary treasures she’s unexpectedly finding in the shop. Her shoes defy gravity, and she finally purchases more than she intended. I wish for a moment that I possessed a remote control that would allow me to replay her energy for the inspiration of other customers.
8. A happy young man picks a leatherbound Robert Louis Stevenson collectible book for his library and is already looking forward to the next visit. Yet another collector spends the entire day carefully deciding upon which century his next selection will time-travel from. He loves it all.
9. A Lincoln-conspiracy scholar has me order two more obscure assassination study volumes for his collection. He and his wife are always smiling and satisfied when they leave. Wish I could bottle them, but they are already bottles, and I their opener.
So it goes.
Anybody anywhere anytime who claims the old-book business isn’t fascinating and educational and riveting just hasn’t dared to take the time to come in, spend an hour or two, and allow the tomes of yore to whisk them away to better lands and imaginations
(c) 2012 A.D. by Jim Reed