WE NEED BOOKS!
May rains have been memorable.
Cold. 43 outside. 62 in. It is pouring. That started around noon yesterday. It will continue until 10 tonight. It is Wednesday, May 28th.
I have company. An old bookseller friend brought her late partner’s personal books down from New York. She stayed last night and will stay tonight. It’s tragic we can’t wander in the gardens and forest in the merry month of May.
I tread lightly so as not to awaken her below. The dogs did not linger outside. I put them in their towel-filled pen when they came in. I don’t want soggy dogs on my bed. The hair is bad enough.
Goodness, I ate and drank too much last night. Foolish. I’ll pay for it today. I took her to Frederick’s new (old) hot spot. A church. Well, a former church.
The Wye Oak Tavern. Why Wye Oak? The Wye Oak was a Maryland landmark. When it died in 2002, it was thought to be over 450 years old. But it was far away on the Eastern Shore. The Eastern Shore is the peninsula we share with Delaware on the east side of the Chesapeake Bay. We occasionally get old souvenirs made from the Wye Oak. Wooden spoons…
The restaurant and bar is located in the former Visitation Academy. It was for 150 years the home to nuns. A long high wall wraps around it. Cloistered. There is a nun graveyard in the complex. It was also a Catholic school for girls until 2016.
The whole complex was purchased and redeveloped into a hotel and restaurant. You can stay in a nun’s cell. I’m sure the rooms are far more comfortable than when the sisters lived in them.
Turning a church and altar into a bar and restaurant was a touchy subject for many people. Especially vocal were some of the former students. But the church was carefully preserved. It was desanctified by the Catholic Church. Any purely holy objects were removed.
However you feel about it, the space is beautiful, and it is far better than demolishing the obsolete complex. Faith is on the rise, according to news reports, but I think the world is far away from the sisterhood population growing significantly.
I was able to get a table on the mezzanine since we started so early. It is a pretty long climb up the steps to get there. The waitstaff must labor to avoid having to serve the small number of tables up there.
The view is lovely though.
The food was fabulous, but very expensive.
The service was rushed.
“You must order everything at one time…”
“Have you had a chance to look at your menu…”
“Have you decided…”
The unfinished cocktails we’d carried upstairs from the bar should have indicated that we were in no rush.
The battle between economics and service… a dilemma.
But I’ve found that in the places with seating, demands on their customers don’t last long.
However, the place soon got packed on a cold rainy Tuesday night. Not all of Frederick’s wonderful restaurants are faring so well. Many are only open from Thursday through Sunday.
The heavy rain on the roof above my bed makes a “white noise” kind of sound. A soft hissing roar.
I should get up and shower and put the kettle on.
I think my friend will go to work with me. I plan to go to the Gaithersburg store. I hope the walls of the former office were removed overnight as promised. When that area gets filled, I can work out the final layout of the store, even though there are many more bookcases to build and install.
I used to build all the bookcases myself. I couldn’t afford to pay someone to do it. I got pretty good at it.
I would go to a lumberyard and choose #2 pine boards. One inch thick. 6, 8, 10, or 12 inches wide. I’d carefully avoid any pieces that were warped or had splits. I’d load them onto the bed of my once white Ford F150 pickup. I think it was a 1975. I bought it from a buddy. I also bought a cap to cover the bed to keep book buys dry.
If it was a clear day, I’d park behind the shop. Sawhorses would be set up. The planks would be laid across the horses. They needed to be stained, and I learned the most efficient way was to put on rubber gloves, dip a rag into a one-gallon can of Minwax Special Walnut wood stain and wipe the boards with the rag. That was much faster and more efficient than using a roller or a brush. Then I would cut the boards to size—the two uprights, the top and bottom and however many interior shelves I decided were best. Then would come the assembly. Originally, I used a hammer and finishing nails. When battery-operated screw guns were invented and put on the market and I could afford one, I switched to screws.
“Zip, zip, zip…”
I enjoyed doing that. When I could afford to have someone else build them, I discovered I no longer enjoyed building them as much.
My friend brought me a gift—a couple of gifts. One was a two-volume set of John Donne’s poetry. That’s a coincidence, as I have had a vellum-spined Nonesuch Press edition on my night table for over a month. And I communed with Donne at his statue and tomb inside St Paul’s Cathedral in London just over a week ago. She also brought some handcrafted artisanal Polish sausages. They smell divine.
It is after 7. The teakettle should start screaming soon.
The night before last, I weed whipped around the property. The two sets of stone steps that descend through the gardens in front of the house needed to be cleared. Briars growing up through some patches of hay scented ferns near the house had to be knocked down lest they go to seed and create more problems.
The vast fern brakes are expanding all over the property. I don’t know why. Some of it may be my activity. But most of it is nature. They are a beautiful lime-green lush carpet everywhere you look. Some were starting to descend into my Green Garden behind the back porch. That’s my favorite bed. I’ve filled it with so many varieties and species of shade-loving plants most noted for their varieties of green foliage and not so much their blooms (if any.) I had to beat the ferns back a bit by creating a border separating the wild from the cultivated.
Then I hit some of the low-hanging branches over the driveway. The weed whip chews the tender new boughs into bits.
So much to do.
Then the blower had its cord yanked 4, 5, 6, 7… times before roaring to life. All the plant and forest debris was cleared off the steps and walkways and porches and deck.
Thursday already.
Two full days of rain and cold have ended. I just switched the heat off. I turned it on last night, mostly for the sake of my guest. It is cooler downstairs. Upstairs, it was 60 inside, and the temperature was going down.
My poor friend. It has rained her entire visit. There was no question of going out in the gardens or strolling Frederick’s quaint downtown.
Wednesday when we finally got in to the Wonder Book warehouse, I’d told her I needed to visit the Gaithersburg store. She said she’d like to join me as she’d read about the evolution taking place there.
A van was made ready, and we drove down the Interstate in soaking rain.
Would the old office walls have been removed as promised? I backed in next to the other two Wonder vans there. We hurried in. There were too many raindrops to dodge. She took off exploring the books. Mickey and his crew were on ladders installing cameras and data cables. Most of the scruffiness at the front end had been mitigated. The counter and entry area were lovely.
“Did he come?” I asked Patrick.
His reply was affirmative.
I headed to the back corner of the venerable old bookshop.
!!!
The three walls and door had disappeared.
I’d known that rather too large room for 45 years—almost. My first day at work in the Gaithersburg store was sometime in June 1980. (June will be here again this Sunday!)
Now it was gone. Swept away as if by a tornado.
I thought of all the hundreds of managers and employees who’d entered that office every morning for decades to count the money and set up the cash drawers.
When I worked there for about two and a half months that summer, the owner, Carl Sickles, used a fishing tackle box as a cash register.
The old office space void is bigger than I envisioned. Now the template is clear. I know what to do. Several thousand more old books will soon be displayed for customers to browse.
The stalled reformation was back on track.
That begged the obvious question we all ask every day, “What next?”
Thursday
It is a foggy wet morning. 53 degrees. I can only see about 100 yards toward the valley before the world is blocked by a gray white wall.
The three dogs are on the bed next to me. When I got up to put the teakettle on, Pip followed me closely—wheezing and coughing. Does he know it is time for his morning dose? The meds which may abate the symptoms of his incurable affliction until it is time for his evening dose.
Or does he just have the knowledge that every morning brings a dollop of liverwurst? He joyfully inhales that, unaware of the two pills embedded in it.
My friend is sleeping downstairs. Birds are zooming onto the porch roof outside my window. The big mug of tea is cooling on the nightstand.
Back to Gaithersburg on Wednesday.
What’s next?
While we await more shelves being erected in the old office’s void, some more categories can be shifted and expanded.
The recently glazed glass cases are being stocked with beautiful and collectible books. Scruffy oddball stuff on the display tables has been removed.
Friday already.
Monday seems so long ago.
But London feels like I was just there. In some ways, I still feel I am there.
Life is speeding by too fast. I’m not doing what I want to.
Old Scratch is chasing close behind, and I’m allowing frivolous distractions to pull me in all kinds of unwanted directions.
Yesterday was torn apart by distractions.
I let Giles out at 4:40 a.m.
It’s raining?
Again?
As dawn lights the morning, I see the valley is banked with a heavy fog.
I’ve experienced this many times before. It could very well roll up the mountain and envelop the house when things warm.
London…
It was wondrous.
I should write more about that. Doing that would take me back there. And away from here, where there are appointments and problems and repairs and projects and… people problems.
Where was I?
Why, last Friday!
I had to rush out to for a house call. It was Beverly Byron‘s estate. She was the local congresswoman in the 1980s and early 90s when Wonder Book was just starting. She had passed in February at age 92. News has changed so much that I was unaware of that. We get the local paper—The Frederick News-Post. I just never look at it anymore. I used to read it religiously. Deaths, car wrecks, fires… everything going on in town was in the paper.
I had gotten the call from a real estate agent who is helping the family. She told me they didn’t know what to do with the stuff and were thinking of tossing it.
“Don’t do that!”
I felt there was a sense of urgency, so I dropped plans and went first thing on Friday morning. It was a beautiful spring morning in Frederick’s most beautiful and classic neighborhood. The house was largely emptied and being prepped for sale. There weren’t many books. Turns out, many things had been moved out. The remaining books were not exciting. But the aura of the place was. I felt the sense of history.
The Byron family has deep roots in regional leadership. Beverly’s husband had been Congressman Goodloe Byron. (He died suddenly while jogging in 1979, and she succeeded him.) His father had been the local congressman as well. (William D. Byron had defeated baseball legend Walter Johnson in the election. He died in an airplane crash in 1941. Eddie Rickenbacker was on the same plane but survived.) William D. Byron’s wife succeeded him in congress too.
There was still a lot of memorabilia in the attic and the basement.
And it turned out a lot of books had been moved out and were being stored in a relative’s house.
I told them there was no reason to have me look at anything until the family had decided what they wanted to keep.
“Call me when you’re ready.”
Saturday was a grueling day of book slinging at the warehouse. I’d only gotten back from England on Wednesday. After being away for a week, I was somehow a month or more behind. Must be some kind of time warp. That evening, there was a celebration of life party for my friend and mentor Allen Ahearn. I’d missed funeral and the wake after it. I was trapped by ice on the mountain that day. I was glad the family decided to have another get-together in his honor.
The event was just so… “Allen.” He loved having big get-togethers. His family is very large. His extended family makes that immense. Then there were always so many friends and booksellers.
There was a jazz band! (How “Allen.”) Babies to older folk. I saw people I hadn’t seen… since before COVID.
I chatted with a semi-retired bookseller friend who caught me up on a lot of the book people I’d “grown up with.”
It felt as if Allen was there. Maybe in the next room. Maybe outside, looking down from the clouds. More likely sitting behind his desk chatting or advising another bookseller or grandchild.
I think he must have been there because he visited me that night. In a dream, he was talking with me at the dining room table—just the two of us—like the good old days. I’m sure I was asking for life advice.
Sunday was back in the trenches at the warehouse. There was so much I’d gotten done that I had to expand my usual work area.
When the day was done, I went to visit my friends and former booksellers Howard and Sue at their farm winery—New Market Plains Vineyards.
My body sighed with relief when I got there. It is such an idyllic, bucolic place. It is a sign of good friendship when you are accepted, even though you’re toast and dull. We ordered pizza, and I watched the sun start sinking over the thousands of grapevines.
Monday, Bryan and I drove a van to Gaithersburg. Things had stalled a bit as far as renovation.
But the new hours seem popular.
The glass had been installed on two full rows of bookcases, but almost nothing was in them.
‘Where are the good books?!’ I wondered.
I wandered around the place and tried to visualize what categories should go where. It is hard to do when the puzzle is incomplete. The last thing I want to do is have the great staff there move things twice… or three times.
I decided to push myself and the contractors a bit.
The first signs were taking so long. I sent a passive-aggressive email asking about their progress.
I reached out to the great guy who is going to tear out more of the old drywall that breaks the store up so much.
I pushed myself to complete the designs on the window treatments that will keep out the sun and advertise just how big we are and what we have to offer.
There are 8 (!) big double windows just along the front. They have always been ugly, and the sun ruins all the books and signs it can reach. Covering the windows will be the best option.
My friend’s visit occupied much of the middle of the week. It was a great pleasure being able to sit and talk with her. We share a lot of the same experiences—life as well as books.
The books she brought me are a joy.
John Donne.
A favorite.
Odd. I had a fine press Nonesuch edition on my nightstand. And I had “communed” with Donne at St Paul’s just a week before.
Even more exciting was the provenance. It had come from the collection of the iconic A. Edward Newton.
That gets us to Friday… or rather Thursday.
Things fell apart.
My friend needed to return home that morning, and Wonder Book was screaming for attention.
We were able to walk around the gardens before she left early that morning. The rain had finally abated. As she was loading her car, Giles appeared. The b****** had wormed his way under the chain-link fence on the gate in the dog pen!!
My grand plans for the day got their first blow.
I jury-rigged blocking his escape with rope and wire.
I’d have to find a fence contractor. Today.
Down the mountain to work.
“We’re out of ‘raw.'” (Raw books are the common, easy to sort and evaluate, modern books that keep most of the people at the warehouse busy.)
!!!???!!!
We’ve had supply issues for months. Why? It’s a mystery. Another vestige of COVID, I think. The traditional supply sources of library and school and charity books sales have changed somehow.
I hurried off to my laptop and began searching for old contacts.
I sent emails to people I hadn’t heard from in years.
I reached out to mega-charity guys who traditionally had unlimited, though often problematic, books and media.
We needed books, but more importantly, we needed the work for the people here.
The rain hasn’t helped with our store buys. I went out into the warehouse searching for overlooked pallets.
What’s happened?!
Are we getting fewer books? Are we processing them faster?
Likely it is a combination of things.
And then I got “served”?! That made my day.
“This is NOT what I should be doing!”
Patrick, the wonderful Gaithersburg manager, came to the rescue. He’s been doing pickups at a nearby regional charity. He just so happened to be bringing a load up that afternoon.
“They have a lot more.”
“Go get them, please!”
If it was many loads, then Gaithersburg would need another van. They always have two. But if one was being dedicated to pickups, they’d… We sent down a third van.
Then it was time for me to face the growing herd of carts…
Except I kept getting interrupted!
I’ve been cultivating sources for older books. We seem to have plenty of those. But those are a LOT harder to process…
It SHOULDN’T be that hard!
Now my friend Alan Robinson is coming in for a couple of days.
Two houseguests in the same week!?
In the last 5 years since… you know what… I’ve gone for a year with no overnight company.
Well, it will either get better or it won’t.
I need to get off this mountain and face the music… the books… the problems…
The first price for fixing the patch of chain-link was $700?! The whole gate can be replaced for $450!
Too much. It’s all just too much.
But the day is brightening. We will see how good or bad today is.
As it is right now, I’m living above the clouds.
I wish I could float upon them and read and write.
I could use the rest.
There are no comments to display.