This story marks the end of 8 years of these Friday releases. Next week will begin year 9. In addition to Friday releases, there have been a lot of extra posts. So this story is #469 of mine at this address.

We have not missed a single Friday.

I thought at the time I should record bookselling and booklife as I’ve experienced it over many years.

As a slice of life, it is a pretty big slice.

Now, it has sort of taken on a life of its own.

Not a day goes by that I don’t see a book I’ve never seen before. That helps keep things fresh.

Many thanks to those who have read some of these and especially to those who have written comments or contacted me directly.

I also want to thank my editor (who wishes to remain anonymous), the tech advisor who keeps everything running (Clark) and the backup editor (Annika.)

Thursday, July 17th

Marathon days every day lately, it seems.

Wednesday started with me prepping for the housekeeper. She had been late on Tuesday and couldn’t finish and asked to come back.

She did wonderfully. So nice to wake up in a made bed with cool clean sheets, especially after Wednesday’s fiasco. The dogs are asleep on the bed as if nothing had happened last night.

I took the recycling can down early this morning. 50-60 pounds to hump up onto the pickup truck. I didn’t want to miss the pickup. The next is two weeks away.

I finished another 40-pound bag of sunflower seeds and went down to the garage for another. My knee did pretty well with the weight and all the steps.

The squirrel is back on the porch roof!?!? I trimmed the nearby redbud aggressively so the rodent couldn’t leap onto the porch and eat all the seed and maybe do other mischief too. I’ll do some more with the pole trimmer before I drive to work. Maybe it has some flying squirrel genes in it.

Otherwise, I don’t know what will happen today, except that it will be less overscheduled than Wednesday.

I’d baked almost ten pounds of chicken for the dogs on Tuesday night. I had to clean that up and put the pieces in the fridge. The dogs loved licking the cookie sheet clean of the chicken juices and gelatin.

I climbed out the bedroom window onto the porch roof and blew off all sunflower seed husks and other tree debris. It looks much better.

Then it was down to work.

We had an order for 100 linear feet of classic lit books. For that reason and that I thought I might get to meet the floor-covering people, I had Trevor drive me down to Gaithersburg. I worked on correspondence on the way.

I sent Ernest to the Frederick store in the big new van. (Yes. We needed another van. #12. We now need three vans parked at Frederick and Gaithersburg at all times and two in Hagerstown. The other four are at the warehouse being unloaded, loaded, sent to swap out full ones at the stores and for other projects.)

So down to Gaithersburg again with Trevor this time. He’s got some great ideas on things we should be doing with social media.

Tik Tok?

I don’t know what it is. He says a lot of young people do all their shopping on Tik Tok. If so, we’d better get on too.

So much of the best things that happen in life are when you find the right person… or the person that knows the right person.

I was trying to explain the problems of giving time to “cold calls” to my son.

“They’re time is ‘free.’ Yours isn’t.”

At this point in my career, if someone “somehow” gets my number and begins, “Is this Charles?” I’m pretty sure it’s a cold call. No one who knows me calls me “Charles.” When I’m sure, I’m sure I disconnect.

If someone calls and says they’re from a company I’ve never heard of—usually marketing or finance or real estate—I usually disconnect. Engaging them is a fruitless step for me and for them. Do they really think I’m going to give investments to a stranger, engage a stranger to refinance my buildings…?

That’s a “disconnect” in another meaning.

I just this second got a cold-call text offering me a job. I’d make $300-700 per hour. I’m guaranteed $10,000 a month. I’m pretty good at math. That doesn’t add up.

That’s another problem with cold calls. So many are scams.

I have a very good relationship with the owner of the shopping center in Gaithersburg—the landlord. He and his longtime assistants have been great. Lately, I’ve needed contractors for various things with the massive store expansion down there. Those that I’ve worked with have all been good.

Reliable.

Honest with pricing.

Showing up is so important.

I texted the Sherwin-Williams manager that I was going to come down. She said she’d have samples of floor sealant and coloring I could look at. The “new” bookstore had been maybe a dozen rooms—offices, storage rooms… etc. in previous incarnations. The floors are a patchwork of bare concrete and linoleum tile and have a dozen other kinds of coverings in between. To scrape it all down to bare concrete would be a horrific dusty mess. I just want to cover it or seal it or carpet it. I don’t mind the semi-industrial look it is now. The scars show what the spaces have been through and, by extension, what Wonder Book has been through.

This location has been a bookstore since 1975 when Eleanor Sickles opened a tiny corner of it as Book Mark of Gaithersburg. After that, her husband Carl retired from civil service and kept expanding room to room for many years. After he passed away, his son Ray ran it. When he was going to close it in 2008, I stepped in and offered to buy it. Since then, Wonder Book has made two substantial expansions.

I got no response from the paint store, but I’d said I’d be there in a couple hours, so I started dropping literary books into big plastic tubs. You know the drill by now. Depending on what the customer wants, we pull dupes and old titles that have languished on the bookshelves for years.

For me, it is kind of fun, semi-mindless physical activity.

For the store, it is a kind of makeover.

Who should walk-in but the contractor who has been MIA for weeks now!

He had color samples with him and photos on his phone of the floor treatment he wanted me to consider.

“I’ll put those lights up today.”

!?!?

My lucky day.

Trevor and I started heading back. I was yawning and drained. That’s something I want to talk with the doctor about. Is there something new wrong with me?

At the warehouse, the HVAC people were there. This is the 5th or 6th company we’ve brought in during the last few years to try to get cooler air into the populated workspaces. Previous companies said they could and would and then never reappeared. Others simply did not show. A couple said it was too big a project for them.

Part of the issue is the previous owner (the US Post Office) had incredibly complex venting and ductwork systems. I’m talking huge ducts one could actually easily crawl through on hands and knees. When I arrived, the HVAC people were wrapping up, and it still wasn’t blowing air where we needed it most.

I suggested, “Why don’t we just close that and open that?” They reluctantly got a ladder and did it. Air started whistling from vents fifty feet down where all the people have workstations. (I’m clearly a tech genius without training. A venting autodidact. A sheet-metal polymath. Maybe I should change jobs?)

All these years of stress, and it only took them a couple hours.

I shook my head in amazement.

You just need to find the right person.

A few other chores. Some carts, and then I had to head to Pennsylvania for my annual dentist appointment. (You find someone you like, and you don’t risk changing.)

The appointment was at 3. I had a 2:30 teleconference with my doctor. I’d had a bad experience with a specialist group I’ve been going to since my post-COVID “diagnosis.” If you listen to the radio, “everybody” has it. Everybody “needs” this very expensive medicine to survive. I wanted to see the specialist office I’d been going to. I’ve got some weird thing going on inside me. When I called to ask for an appointment, I got a scheduler I could barely understand. (I’m pretty good and very patient with accents.)

Essentially, it came down to, “You canceled your last two appointments. You can’t see a doctor. You have to see a nurse practitioner. Do you want an appointment with her?”

“Ummm… ok.”

(I canceled the stress test because I could barely walk after the car wreck. I canceled the follow-up appointment because I hadn’t taken the stress test…)

So. I’m driving on the interstate watching the clock and waiting for his call. My vehicle is linked to my phone, so I could take his call hands free, I thought. He called early. I touched the screen to accept, and he was gone. Did I disconnect him? I was still forty minutes from the dentist. Should I pull over and wait for the MD doctor call?

Then I was on I-81 with its trucks and dozens of million-square-feet warehouses. Jammed. 15 mph. He called again! It was easy to slip onto the shoulder at that speed.

“Thank you for calling…” I said breathlessly. I explained the dilemma and why I wanted to see another specialist. He said he understood.

“Sometimes my schedulers say the wrong things too.”

“Not like this.”

Back on the highway to the dentist. At the Maryland-Pennsylvania border—the Mason-Dixon Line—the skies opened, and thunder and lightning engulfed the jammed traffic. I eventually got to the dentist. On time. It was pouring rain. Even with an umbrella I had in the car, I got wet in back. The office was cold with A/C. I lay down on the plastic-covered examining chair (brrr!) while the tech began digging in my mouth. I’ve seen her many times in thirty or so years. She was always young and very cute. She is still very cute.

Wet. Cold. My mouth gaping open with her hands and tools inside—finally the torture ended. The dentist came in for two minutes.

“Looks good.”

“Same time next year?” She asked.

“Sure.”

Then it was on to Chambersburg to help buy a new car. Trees had blown down in the downpour, and I had to choose alternate routes to get there.

From the dentist to a car dealership. The day in hell continued. That went pretty well considering. A couple hours of the salesman disappearing into the arcane managers’ office with the necessary paperwork periodically, and we had a deal.

“I’ll write a check for this amount.”

“We don’t take checks. This might take 5-10 days to clear…”

Hell.

Then to dinner at a Japanese/fusion place. It was great.

Texts started buzzing in my pocket. It was a neighborhood phone tree.

“Big tree down blocking gravel road… can’t get to my house to get my chainsaw…”

About 20 texts bounced in. I couldn’t drive up to my place if I was there to get a saw. My knee is a lot better, but I don’t know about climbing the rocky mountain drive.

Fortunately, by the time I got back to Maryland, the road was clear. One woman neighbor thanked the “Testosterone Club” (her term.)

The 6 or 7 neighbors tend to pitch in when something like this happens.

The dogs were thrilled to see me. There was a lull in the storms. It was about 9 when I got inside with the dogs and my stuff.

Then BOOM! CRACKLE! BOOM! HISS!

Crackling booms and hissing torrents. I poured a couple fingers of Bombay Gin. The restaurant was “BYOB.”

I put on The Avengers tv show Blu-ray disc to wind down. It had been an eventful day in an eventful week. I took my chances that lightning would not blow up the tv. Giles wanted to crawl into my lap. All 61 pounds of him. Merry was panting in my face. Pip is mostly deaf and blind, and he was curled up on his pillow. I couldn’t put the dogs out in their pen. That would be cruel. I had to finally yell at them to “GET DOWN!”

It turned out The Avengers’ episode on next was “Forget Me Not.” I didn’t know it, but this was Diana Rigg’s final appearance as Emma Peel. Linda Thorson also debuts as Tara King in the show. I’ve watched a lot of The Avengers in recent months—with Rigg and Thorson. Both women have meltingly magnetic faces. They “mug” at the camera and sometimes breach the fourth wall. The mid-60s clothing and decor are brilliantly colored and sometimes psychedelic.

I’m kinda glad I was too young to “experience” the 60s.

(Diana Rigg also played the movie role of the only woman James Bond ever married in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.)

Then it was bedtime. Pip has occasional coughing fits, so he sleeps on a pile of towels in the indoor pen. Merry and Giles were in bed with me. Usually they go down and are rag dolls til morning.

Then another storm rolled in.

Crackling booms. Hissing torrents. Blue-white electric spiderwebs jagged across the skies.

Soon, there was a 60-pound panting hound hovering over me. Merry, panting as well, was trying to crawl atop me.

Merry went in the pen with Pip. Giles was chastised to the floor.

I awoke around 2 a.m. Was it over? I looked out the window, and the forest was filled with fireflies flitting and flashing in the forest. It is a good year for lightning bugs.

(I’ve got to hurry this up. Early deadline this week.)

Sunday, July 13th

Another birthday tomorrow.

Sigh…

It is already muggy and warm at 6 a.m.

When I came home last night, the sky opened. Thunder. Lightning. Rain so heavy I was driving 15 mph. I planned to rest up before going to visit a friend I rarely see anymore. We used to be so close. We would go on shopping expeditions to the big outlets in Leesburg. They were so much fun then. The Williams-Sonoma shop was amazing. So much amazing stuff you couldn’t find anywhere else.

At bargain prices!

Now you can get just about anything within a few miles.

Now I don’t want anything. No more stuff.

Except books.

And stuff that comes to me in the vast warehouse that many compare to the one in Indiana Jones after they’ve visited.

Like this little French cat statuette.

It is a Fremiet. Maybe from the 1840s.

Where did it come from?

No idea.

It came in a box from somewhere and was put on a “non-book” cart by a sorter.

When I saw it amongst the junk and the trash we get—pencils, clipboards, frames…—I thought, ‘This is the real thing.’ Sure enough, it is “signed” and quite heavy. And it is beautiful. I used to have cats. Lots of them. I love cats. Up here, they’d decimate the wild birds. And it is much harder to travel when you have pet cats.

I can make a little room for that kind of “stuff.”

My friend, MB. She lives about 3 miles from me. Maybe less as the crow flies. She and her husband have beautiful gardens. He is a “master gardener.”

After I’d rested a bit, I got up to drive over there. There was still a torrential storm. I texted her, “Do you still want company?” She might want to cancel, or maybe even her power was out.

She replied, “Yes.”

Driving over, the storm ebbed a bit, and I saw several rainbows on the horizon. Then something happened I’d only experienced once before—and that was when I was a very young man. There was a rainbow on the road ahead. The foot of the rainbow. As I got closer, the lights didn’t flee as they usually do. I drove into the rainbow. It was like being in a prism. Colors jiggled all around me. I should have stopped and sought a pot of gold on the roadside.

It was a magic moment. I felt I’d been blessed.

“Do something important.”

“I’m trying.”

Soon, I was heading up her gravel driveway. Their house is pretty high on the slope but not mountain-high like mine. No bears or poisonous snakes.

Their driveway was bone dry.

“If you wonder why I texted you, it’s because I drove through a monsoon to get here.”

She’d prepared a lavish Italian feast for me and three other guests. Most or all of the produce was from her husband’s gardens. 4, 5, 6? Varieties of tomatoes. Luscious homegrown summer tomatoes. Salmon. Tortellini. What else? Cheeses like you only taste in Italy. I should have taken pictures. We could have been in Tuscany. Her country kitchen would fit right in. It was a wonderful evening of catching up with old friends.

I deserved it. I’d done another massive amount of work over the weekend.

There was a lot on Ernest’s table that needed special attention.

Last Friday, July 11th

We got called back to Congresswoman Beverly Byron‘s estate. It is a beautiful classic colonial in a sea of beautiful homes. The best of Frederick.

The family had picked out what they wanted to keep and what they thought should go to auction.

We were there for the stuff they felt no one would want.

(I know ALL about that kind of “stuff.” My advice is always, “Don’t throw anything away!”)

It was a fascinating house call. I liked her. She was the kind of politician who was in no way polarizing. It was a different time. She was an excellent representative when my personal ideology was changing. I’d “grown up.” Being an employer—a responsible employer—and a parent taught me life lessons I hadn’t learned in the decades I spent growing up a few miles from the District of Columbia. The most powerful and richest place on earth.

Yet, like the lilies of the field, they neither toil nor spin, and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

DC is often a Lily of the Valley.

I’m not being controversial. This is just what I experienced growing up there. And now it is a half-century later. Same place. Nothing has changed.

Except me.

Bryan and I got a lot of books, but the most interesting things were the framed items.

Many were signed.

But there were dozens of photos of her with world leaders as well as American politicians and celebrities.

What will we do with it all? I’ll figure out something. Wonder Book gets creative.

One of favorite things was this L’Escargot menu she had framed herself.

A different time and place.

A rainbow.

A birthday.

July 14th. Bastille Day.

Happy Birthday to me.

I got a text on Saturday. It was a number I did not recognize.

“Let’s have steak tomorrow night! It’s my treat.”

Hmmmm… scam?

I thought for a while and then replied, “?” Who knows? Maybe someone I know has a secret number.

Who knows? Maybe I have a secret admirer.

“Excuse me, is this Annie’s contact information? I’m Molly.”

(Sigh. So it’s not a friend inviting me out for a birthday dinner. :-( )

“Wrong number.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought it was my friend’s number. I hope I didn’t interrupt your beautiful day.”

Still weird. But a steak would have been nice.

Andrew is driving us down to Gaithersburg. I haven’t been there since last Tuesday. It is still a work in progress. The sign people haven’t come. The floor guy. Nope. Electrician. Nope.

It is overcast. Muggy. The bandage on my forehead covering the wound (so it won’t leave a permanent mark) is probably unnecessary.

I wonder how long it is going to take to fade?

The traffic is heavy. We’re getting off. This part of 270 has 14 lanes. Crazy.

Nothing has changed.

A lifetime of driving on I-270, and nothing has changed.

Except me.

And millions of books.

All these years and millions of books have gotten new homes—like adopted cats—because of what I learned while growing up from the Washington Post, WAMU—Public Radio, having kids and becoming a very reluctant “business man.” I never thought I’d become a “merchant.” But a merchant of old books is not a bad gig and probably the best thing I’m qualified to do.

Old books.

One thing I learned right at the beginning was to leave any prejudices I might have about books outside the shop entrance. I need EVERY customer and every sale to make a go of things.

Other booksellers scoffed at me because I was willing to sell romances, comics, kids books. They were sure I was a sellout when I decided to rent videos. (In many ways, I did it so I could watch the movies “I” wanted and the kinds of things other video stores weren’t offering).

An extension of that are our large 5 for $5 sections.

Books, kids books, DVDs, CDs, LPs…

It makes many things accessible to customers who are pinching pennies. With kids’ books, parents can get their kids a lot of books to choose from. You never know what book is going to “click” with a kid. Some buy a bunch of these to donate to schools or other orgs that can use books.

And it gives us final options for unsellable books that are too cool to dispose of… giving them one last chance.

Casting a wide net also brings in catches that are worth more than a book. Last night, a collection of 18th-century pharmacy and midwife books dropped in from somewhere.

Those will be fun.