Monday, cold and gray.

Ernest is driving us down to Gaithersburg yet again. Andrew and Bryan are following us. We will go down in two vans and drive three back. The place is a mess due to shelf removals to take down old drywall sections.

4 days last week. How many more days before that project is done?

Whatever it takes.

We will have a new entrance. New counter. Lotsa changes.

Balancing the category moving and expansions is difficult. You don’t want to move books twice.

Well, it will be something to be proud of when it is done.

It was a brutal weekend. I really pushed hard to get ahead. I must have gone through 40? 50? carts. I added to the burden by getting a pallet dropped off by a New Jersey bookseller early in March carted up. I figured they wanted to get paid, and the lot was aging. It was very good. Lots of late 20th “hypermodern” fiction in shiny Brodarts… Worthless online and in their store. But we could use them for colors. Well, some of them. Only certain colors are in demand. Many other colors we are oversupplied on. But it was fun—like seeing a lot of old friends… irrelevant friends, friends whose jobs (“value”, I guess) didn’t work out as planned.

We are on our way back. It is 1 p.m. already?!

We brainstormed the new counter layout with Patrick (Gaithersburg store manager), Clark and the contractor. I think we have a plan.

I made an executive decision, and we are moving transportation—cars, boats, planes and trains—into the new area. It’s getting bigger as well. But not too much. It doesn’t sell well enough to devote much more space to it.

We are also uniting related the categories of theater, music, Hollywood, drama, opera and dance together. They were in 4 or 5 disparate areas due to poor planning. (I did those bad plans.)

We have large sections of New Arrivals—Books, CDs and DVDs in the new section. That should help keep the customers interested while everything is in upheaval.

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Tuesday.

Another beautiful spring day. Sunny. Calm.

I was so tired yesterday. I may have been hungover from the massive amount of work I did on Saturday and Sunday. I really abused myself.

When we returned from Gaithersburg, we had one van of books and two vans of vintage “Carl Bookcases.” These were taken down when the contractor removed a couple of drywall sections, which allowed us to create three straight aisles so you can see from the front of the store all the way to the back!

“I don’t want to put these up, Mr. Chuck. They don’t match.”

Indeed, they were odd dimensions and types of shelving. “Quirky” would be a gentler term.

We were so cheap in the early 80s that both Carl and I used Masonite scraps to keep the bookcases square. Full sheets cost $8, I think. A lot of money back then.

“Ok. We will take them back to the warehouse, where appearances are not that important.”

We are driving back.

There’s Frederick in the valley up ahead. I 270 drops down and toward the city. It is a gorgeous perspective. When I first started Wonder Book, I was still living in Rockville—in my parents’ house which I’d inherited after they’d passed away.

The steep ridge of the South Mountain chain rises on the far side of the city. I live somewhere along that ridge—south of the Camp David and the Grotto of Lourdes and north of Interstate 70.

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Wednesday

The week has been so stressful. So many things to do to get Gaithersburg finished.

And there’s a lot of physical work. I’ve done this before. The staff down there hasn’t.

The focus is to get as much of the space normalized for customer use as quickly as possible.

It will take a while before all the shelving is built and installed.

Then there’s the new sales counter to be built between two doors only 8 feet apart. Clark and I did measurements to try to make it not too big and not too small.

There are so many empty bookcases that I pressured the staff to price 1000s of new arrival books, CDs, DVDs and LPs.

If nature abhors a vacuum, then I abhor an empty bookcase.

Come shop. You’ll see a LOT of fresh stock.

We brought down about a dozen 8-foot tables to display stock on—especially LPs.

I’ve interacted with many of the customers, and they all seem excited about the expansion—once they are convinced the mess means we are expanding and not closing.

The LPs are especially affected. Prior to removing drywall, the LPs were located in a cramped room. They’ve since been moved to a much better place—which, unfortunately, is out of sight at the back of the new room.

“Yer gettin’ rid of yer records,” one person stated matter-of-factly.

“No. Just the opposite! The bins have been moved to a better location!”

So, I made some ugly signage and taped it onto the New Arrival LP crates.

The signs alternated “New Arrivals” and “More LPs This Way” (with an arrow pointing in the proper direction.)

Clif is driving us to a house call! It has been quite a while since I’ve gone on one. Andrew and Jason are in a van behind us.

I don’t know why I’m doing it. Mental health break maybe.

It is in Fairfield, PA. Very familiar territory. That little borough is kind of in between Gettysburg and Waynesboro and close to the Mason Dixon Line.

I’d been contacted by a woman in her 90s. She just wanted the books removed. Her husband had passed away last fall.

“He went to a sale in Princeton a week before he passed.”

They’d had a small online business called Zane Grey Books. (I was to find no books there by Grey.)

A basement seller. Amazon. ABE. Biblio.

I didn’t understand the book selection. A lot of foreign books. A lot of obsolete science and social science textbooks.

Weird.

Maybe he knew something I don’t?

Maybe these were just the dregs.

Maybe other booksellers had been in before us.

The price was right.

Free.

But I need to factor in the cost of the 2 vans, 3 guys for 5-hours round trip. Unloading. Sorting.

Zane Grey… really out of style now. Highly collected a few years ago.

There’s no such thing as a free kitten.

The house was a modern A-frame up a steep slope. The driveway was daunting, but by careful backing, we were able to back around some stumps and wellheads on the front lawn and get fairly close to the ground level basement exit.

I assumed the bookseller position—on my knees before a full bookcase and began removing books and stocking them in boxes.

Two and half hours. 5000 books. A couple hundred metal bookends. A few odds and ends.

“Can you use this?”

“Would you take that?”

Her daughter arrived halfway through the packing. They were both grateful to have the burden removed.

We are heading south on 15.

The sun pouring in through the huge windshield is warm. Makes me sleepy.

Rough night last night.

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It is Thursday morning. Cold outside. 32 degrees.

The moon is a faint sliver just over the distant horizon. It is colored by the pastel dawn.

Dawns and sunrises are infinite.

The woodstove glows 6 or 7 paces from my bed where I lie, the laptop propped on a pillow on my core. The teakettle is making noises. Soon, it will scream its readiness, and I’ll have a mug of tea to warm my hands.

I awoke at 4 and forced myself to finish the new chapter of the Round and Round stories. #46. Owain Part 1.

I don’t know why it took so long to finish. It should have written itself due to the inspiration.

March is ending. It has blown by. Mostly due to the expansion project at the Gaithersburg store which has captured my time and energy and spirit.

I don’t shy away from hard work. Well, some kinds of work are pure torture. But if it is paper and print and wooden shelves, ink and cloth, spines, boards, titles and jackets—then it is no work. It is true love.

The sun is up. Its rising has fled north into the forest. But the golden light pours through still bare trees.

The daffodils are peaking. They will be blooming everywhere for a couple of weeks yet. Then they will slow as the late blooming varieties try to offset so many others fading.

A couple of neighbors came up last evening, and we walked around the beds with glasses of bubbly. Their excitement had me look with new eyes on the flower show.

“You should call the newspaper.”

I didn’t reply, but the last thing I want is strange cars up here.

I will start putting stakes in where I want to add flowers next fall. By then, there will be no remnants of the daffodils above the ground. If unplanted areas aren’t marked, I could end up overplanting existing beds…

A new terrace wall was put in extending the one created a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to use the remaining pallet of stone, but there’s some left in the wire cage atop the pallet.

I can do something with those. (I hope this doesn’t mean I’ll be tempted to visit the stone yard and be seduced into acquiring more.)

Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Hauling stone up a rocky mountain, what’s so crazy about that?

The car in the background gives you an idea of how steep the driveway is. Imagine it on ice.

The temperature will rise to 56 today, but Saturday, Sunday and Monday will be in the 70s.

April, come she will…

I’m not going to the New York book fair next week. Too many unhappy memories of the great city.

And the Waldorf Astoria is still not reopened! 9 years! I went with a friend the week it closed. I bought some souvenirs from the shop which was offering deep discounts.

The garrulous bartender I’d gotten to know at Sir Harry’s Bar just off the lobby regaled us with stories of Sinatra huddled on his favorite corner barstool. I bought a couple copies of the Waldorf Bar Book and asked every staff member I encountered to autograph it. Back then, I never suspected I might not ever stay there again.

When I’d cross the lobby in the footsteps of… just about “everybody” in the past 80 years, I felt I actually belonged.

I’d stayed there enough times.

Once, at the bar in the Peacock Lounge in the heart of the lobby, with the view of the clock, I ordered a Vesper the cocktail invented by James Bond in Casino Royale. I mentioned that story to the young bartender.

“You look like James Bond,” he said. And for an hour I felt like Bond. James Bond.

Different times. Different me. Only 12 years ago and 25 pounds lighter.

Still got my hair and teeth though!

I’d made friends with an agent at the Diamond Desk. When I was coming to town—3-4 times a year in the day—I’d email her, and she’d find me an upgrade to a mini suite on an upper floor on the quiet side of the building.

I was no big spender. I think she liked that it was clear I was thrilled to be there.

They were giants then.

The City was still filled with legends.

For me, that was the pinnacle. I’d “arrived” as much as I would ever would.

Maybe I’ll get over it. Maybe the great lady will open her arms again.

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It is Friday. Another cold morning. 46 degrees. The woodstove’s orange eye glows some paces away from my bed.

The dogs are breathing softly on the bed next to me.

I got home late last night. Leo Kottke was playing at Birchmere all the way down in Alexandria. I rushed through the day, getting as much done as humanly possible. I worked remotely with Ernest and Patrick down in Gaithersburg to shift categories around to give some of them more space. It was tricky visualizing the new layout in the old part of the store and remembering how many new rows had been erected in the part.

To keep sales up and entice the customers, we’ve put out thousands of “New Arrivals.” Books, LPs, CDs, DVDs—all have large swaths of “New Arrival” bookcases. There’s a lot of fresh stock for you to look through if you can get by.

A friend and mentor I haven’t seen in many months was finally back in town. I couldn’t say no when he’d asked me out to lunch. The opportunities are too few. He is traveling the world. Again. Now he’s making another road trip. Driving to parks and presidential libraries on his way to Oregon.

His quests inspired me. Time to hit the road again.

He picked me up—probably fearing I’d be late—and drove to Hagerstown for oysters at Schulas. We caught up on everything.

When I got back, I rushed through as many carts as I could—finding a high gear to work in—before I needed to take off.

Then it was time to fly. Alexandria is at the opposite side of “dial” if you consider the DC region a clock face enclosed by the Beltway. Frederick is way up at 10 o’clock some 20 miles outside the Beltway. Alexandria might be thought of at 4 o’clock way inside the Beltway on the Potomac.

And it was rush hour. I had to take the worst possible roads to get there.

Actually, it was pretty smooth til I got to the George Washington Parkway. Once a scenic greenway that follows the south shore of the Potomac, it has now become construction mess as the region copes with massive growth and traffic issues. Why the construction is so terrifying, I don’t know. Driving southeast in the afternoon, it is one lane with Jersey barriers inches away on both sides.

But then I was there and parking in the iconic venue’s lot.

You’re sort of required to buy dinner at the long tables which stretch from the stage. I had red beans and rice—heartburn, for sure.

And then the man came out. He looked every bit of his 79 years. Thin. Frail. His sparse short gray hair sticking out in every direction. He had been so beautiful.

But he could still pick and strum his twelve string and his six string like he had 4 hands. The only disappointment was he didn’t play “Pamela Brown.” So I will play it for you.

I had been much younger than my son, who sat with me, is now when I last saw him.

A different world and time.

The drive home was a nightmare. Exhaustion was part of it. The guidance wanted me to take the GW Parkway back. I missed a turn due to construction barrier confusion and crossed the Memorial Bridge into the city. I crossed back over a couple of miles downstream.

The parkway was closed by a cop with flashing lights blocking the only lane?!

I was on my own because all the guidance kept insisting on was for me to head back toward the parkway that must be closed by an accident or something.

Eventually, I got to the Key Bridge and was forced back onto the parkway. The Jersey barriers were even tighter, and I wasn’t the only one driving at 20 miles under the speed limit. I envisioned my car’s sides being scraped clean by the concrete on both sides.

I was so happy to be home. The dogs were thrilled too. They’d been alone for a long day.

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I usually include some of the finds we’ve made during the week. There are a lot. But this is kind of fun.

These are rooms of antiquarian books of no value to readers or collectors.

I wish I could bottle the “old book smell” of those book rooms. I’d make a fortune! I could buy more books!

I guess you could call them orphans if that’s not politically incorrect nowadays.

We are their only hope.

Pretty overstocked right now.

I hope that changes soon.

Need a 1000 linear feet of old cloth books?