Thanksgiving

When I got to the industrial park where the Wonder Book warehouse is located, it was completely deserted. It is always quiet on weekends, but usually there are 5 or 6 Wonder Book employee cars in the lot. On Saturdays, the sport and utility vehicle company across the street is open. Here or there, someone might be in at work at the 30 or so businesses on our horseshoe-shaped road.

Not today, Thursday, November 27th. It was a ghost town.

I parked and got out of the 8-year-old SUV. There was an eerie flapping sound from across the street. A plastic roof covering was the only lonely sound.

Eerie—like being in a spaghetti Western. I expected a bad guy to appear around a corner.

The alarm was disarmed by my key card when I entered. I’d left the three dogs at home. Larry texted asking if he could drop off books on Thanksgiving Day. I didn’t want him to have to deal with them if I was away.

I’d told him, “Ok.”

At some point, I was going to the old family place for what could be the last Thanksgiving gathering there. The younger son couldn’t make it. Commitment to his other family.

I’d hoped for so much more from the family I envisioned as opposed to what has evolved.

I had an idyllic childhood. Kid friends, nice neighbors, three brothers who later would return with wives and kids. Two parents who kept the home warm and filled with food and things in the cold Buffalo Novembers of long ago.

I tried so hard.

Maybe too hard.

I flicked on the lights in the office, and when in the warehouse, I switched on the industrial ceiling fixtures that come on with a loud “pop” followed by a deep, almost roaring, electrical hum.

Walking to the area where I’d left off working the day before, I flipped open my laptop and put on DirecTV. The default channel was playing It’s a Wonderful Life. It would repeat that all day long.

It doesn’t make me cry anymore.

With that as my background soundtrack, I surveyed cart after cart after…

I’d had two people cart up more of the deceased bookseller’s hoard so I’d have work to do. I think he died from a cliff fall on the Maryland Heights ridge, which runs along the Potomac across from Harpers Ferry. That was some years ago.

His family brought us books then until I told them I could buy no more.

They just wouldn’t sell, no matter how nice they looked.

I barely interacted with Bruce when he’d bring us material he couldn’t do anything with in hopes of picking up some money while getting rid of the stuff.

I’d heard his method of acquiring books was to stuff professors’ mailboxes with flyers asking to buy their personal libraries. He targeted the better schools in the Mid-Atlantic and New England.

Professor’s collections can have wonderful material in them. They can also have exotica. Does the rule “publish or perish” still hold dominion over tenure and promotions? So many university press publications have extremely narrow focuses.

Not the kind of books that even studious lay aficionados would be delving into.

Most languish unread—forever.

Then many of the collections also have a great deal of foreign language books. Those are often even more unsalable to the public.

But this “second wave” material had good timing. We need more variety for our huge project. “Variety” defines these books.

So, I’ve been plowing through these pallets laden with plastic tubs—another modus operandi of this bookseller.

I don’t get it. Big tubs are inefficient storage.

“Now or never.”

And I’m racing against time.

This all may be winding down soon.

Another truckload will head out today—Black Friday. One, maybe two next week, and we may be done.

“Is it over? Are we finished?”

It is cold this Black Friday morning. 28 degrees outside in the blackness. I didn’t build a very hot fire last night. The bones of the house are cold.

I’ll get up soon and shower, feed the dogs and head down to see the bustle of the busiest day of the year. (We hope.)

Maybe I’ll get out to one of the stores to see if the excitement can raise me from my ennui.

Thanksgiving at the old home was nice. I arrived midafternoon. Two grandchildren were awake.

I headed up to the attic to find the old wooden Brio train set I’d collected for my two boys. It has been a long lingering fantasy to pass these on to the next generation when they eventually came.

I found them beneath the long-disused pool table and carried them from the third floor to the first.

I guess I went a little crazy all those years ago. I had as much fun as they did during that golden era.

The two-year-old immediately set to it, and I crawled down on the floor to play too.

Friday morning, my fingers are cold tapping away at this. I’m still a little full from the turkey, gravy, stuffing and mashed potatoes. It was so good.

This project has been all-consuming since the end of September. A two-month race to fill massive requests. Unless reorders come in, we will return to the usual rat race.

Monday will begin December.

Christmas.

New Year.

Winter.

I want to put my hands in the soil and plant bulbs.

I want to light a fire and make heat in my home.

I want to play with books.

There are wondrous, beautiful, meaningful books flowing past me.

I want to stop and inspect each one. But there is no time. I must glance and move to the next.

The torture of being tantalized.

Tuesday was a bizarre night. Giles was nervous. Panting. Whining. He’d lie down. Get up. Circle around. Walk on the bed (on me sometimes.) I let him out in case that was the problem. Nope. He was back with the same symptoms. I tried earplugs and covering my head with pillows, but his movements shook the bed. After numerous tries to get him to calm down, I finally walked him out to his pen. It wasn’t a very cool night. His doghouse is full of cedar shavings. I walked back to the house. He began howling. I closed the internal doors. Earplugs. Pillows. I could still hear him—muffled a bit—but still present (at a distance.) I was a little concerned about my neighbors, even though the closest is half a mile away. Up again to put his bark collar on.

FINALLY, I could rest. I have no idea what time that was or how long I slept.

It is November 25th. A month til Christmas. Two days til Thanksgiving. Despite the monstrous order consuming us, we are prepping the stores for the holidays. They look great. We are blessed with excellent staff at all 4 locations.

The window treatments were finally installed at the Frederick store. Those views have always been ugly. Customers coming to the store see the backside of our sales counter and office.

I spread more compost behind the wall but haven’t planted any bulbs yet. Maybe this evening. Well, it looks like rain. Maybe not.

Another truckload of books went out yesterday. Over the weekend, I pushed myself to generate appropriate books.

The day before Thanksgiving.

I used to love that holiday. The whole family would gather around the table. Mom spent the day—and likely some days prior—prepping.

The smells. The Macy’s Parade on the black-and-white TV. Dad fiddling with his 35mm high-end German photo equipment.

It was magic.

Now that’s all gone. They are all gone. Ancient history. Happy memories.

What am I to do?

Work til I drop.

Yesterday, Tuesday, was looking pretty good. Over the weekend, I had put an impressive dent in the awful books that I’d been avoiding.

Travis, Charlie and Ian did a great job sweeping the top shelves of old sets.

The day began with my planning reconfigurations.

1. Bring the exotica pallets up closer so I can continue killing them off.
2. Take pallets of “media” (DVDs, CDs, VHS…) to the back to make space near the front of the loading docks.

It was working pretty well til I sensed silence on the docks from my work area on the other side of the vast cinderblock wall.

I left my frenetic sorting area and went to check.

A bookseller friend was dropping off some pallets for us.

A LOT of pallets.

A little later, more silence.

A charity with a small box truck filled with boxes.

A LOT of boxes.

A little later, Clif came to me.

“[The name of a charity] is here. I was afraid of this. They haven’t come in a while.”

I went out to look. It was a very large box truck. 36 feet? Packed floor to ceiling, front to back and side to side.

500 more boxes.

Shell shock.

I felt my body had been slammed—like in my car wreck last June. A body blow.

There was nothing to do but force it all inside.

A lady stuck her head into an adjacent dock and caught my eye.

“We’ve been waiting fifteen minutes!” She stated with annoyance. Comic relief.

There was nothing to do but keep working as fast as I could. It goes with the territory. Expect the unexpected.

It is a foggy morning this Thanksgiving Eve.

We are trying to prepare another truckload of books to go out on Friday. Black Friday.

It is Friday.

Working alone here on Thanksgiving was a bit surreal, but I’ve done it before.

I’m very tired.

Maybe I ate too much.

Maybe I “felt” too much.

Another year til next Thanksgiving.

Maybe that will be better.

Maybe it won’t matter.

The Big Project?

It has been an exciting ride. Certainly exhausting and stressful.

Now we go back to “situation normal.”

I snagged some of my Limited Editions Club books that were double-stacked… for decades.

Time to put them online for sale.

We will get one of the my Roberts’ collection bookplates into each of them.

And we got new tote bags in.

Wonder Man has returned!

Oh! Among the LECs, I found another limited edition. This one I bought from Don Grant. I got to know him slightly. I bought a bunch of the Stephen King Gunslinger books from him at a reduced price. Was he remaindering the remnants? Raising some cash for the next publication? I don’t recall.

I do wish I hadn’t sold all those Gunslinger boxes. But as we booksellers say, “I made my money.” It makes us feel better in “I shoulda…” situations.

I did keep this one.

I’d forgotten all about it.

Beautiful books.

Rediscovered treasure from another era. A different century. The previous millennium. A different distant happier time when hope and horizons were limitless.