Another birthday behind me.
I spent Sunday rising up and down from a plastic stool. I must have the thighs of a thirty-nine-year-old.
Sitting, I review the books on a 6-shelf 3-foot-long wheeled metal cart. I sit because that brings me to eye level with the three shelves of books. I can quickly scan most modern spines and make an instant decision on each book without touching it.
Leave it
or
Set it in a box to my left to go to the stores
or
Set it in a tub behind me to go to research
or
Set it on a cart to my right to go to Data Entry and be put online for sale at a price I’ve pulled out of my head
or
Set aside on the floor because I don’t have any idea what to do with it.
When I’ve finished one side, I rotate the cart 180 degrees and face the other side. I do this seated usually. Sometimes the cart spins easily. Other times I must wrestle with it.
When I’m done reviewing the books on a cart, I rise from the stool and push it away. I insert a sun-gold yellow slip of paper in between two books that has BBTF printed on it. That means the cart is ready to head north in the giant warehouse building to the Books by the Foot department.
How are the decisions made? Experience. Sometimes a hunch—based on experience.
If a book has any hope of finding a reader or collector, I won’t leave it on the cart to go to its last chance of remaining a book in exile to Books by the Foot. (There are far worse fates.)
Then I get another cart and roll it into position.
If a cart has books with spines that are illegible like this one:
I’ll have to lift each of those books off a cart to inspect it more closely. The cart above was laden with Gach books from one of our collectible rooms. They had been online for over 8 years and hadn’t sold. We took them offline, and I was tasked with reviewing each one. Almost all had a slip of paper in them. Gach, an autodidact genus, had typed a complete bibliographic description and selling price on these slips. Only one went to BBTF. A midcentury Physiology textbook—14th edition—outdated with no redeeming qualities. His price was $17. Most of the books had prices in the $100s. Maybe 15 were $1000-5000. My task was to reduce the original price dramatically and add any info I thought might aid in its being “found” by searchers online. None went to the stores—too obscure. Now they will be put back online using far advanced technology from 8 years more experience and at a much more attractive price.
Those three carts were tough slogging. Many were in foreign languages—mostly German—and I had to parse out many of the titles.
That was not fun birthday work, but it needed to be done.
When the day was done, I called the three dogs into my car and drove home. I’d celebrated with family the night before. Oysters, oysters Rockefeller, wedge salad and a martini. I didn’t want to go out again. Too far and too hot.
At home, I did some chores, reheated 4 leftover oysters Rockefeller, grilled a couple “exploding” Rochester hot dogs from Wegmans, opened a bottle of red wine and cooled off in the air-conditioned home.
Over the weekend, I likely reviewed 40 or so carts of books. Maybe 8000 books. I usually look at more, but the tough Gach books slowed me down.
We are driving to Hagerstown. Supposedly, this will be the last 90+ degree day for a while. It has been over a month with only a day or two in the high 80s.
I went out and bought cases of flavored water for the warehouse staff. Naturally, we have plenty of water coolers as well, but I thought this might help.
But finally the torture is ending—for a while.
Tomorrow and for the next 9 days, the phone reports the highs will be in the low to mid 80s. But it has been known to lie before.
Last night and this morning, I spread 35 80-pound bags of large stones along the steep driveway. Some of the asphalt edges are starting to get eroded. I think this river stone is too heavy to wash downhill. It was heavy hot work. The bags had been dumped in one place. I needed to drag them so they’d be evenly spaced when I sliced them open with a box cutter and dumped them out. 80 pounds is about my limit for lifting now. I’m glad I didn’t hurt my back. That would mess up the trip.
That was a lot of hot sweaty work.
There are still 8000 pounds of loose rubble to spread. A big pile of it. I’ll have to get a Bobcat for that. Or let someone else have that pleasure.
Ernest is driving under the Appalachian Trail bridge. We are going to do some massive culls. All three stores are getting facelifts. We will reduce some categories and enlarge others.
…
On the way back… we’re expanding the $1 sections within the store to see if that helps sales.
So many moving parts. I should let go of more. The game board is so large and has so many pieces…
What to do?
Run away!
We’re going back by Alternate 40 so I can look at a property. We just drove over the Appalachian Trail. Still beautiful country. Before long, the rooftops will begin growing out here more. Then this county will have the urban sprawl that makes Montgomery County so dreary.
The vintage books are now stocked again.
A few weeks ago, those shelves were half empty. I beat the bushes, and antiquarian friends delivered some big loads.
And the warehouse is full again. A few months ago, I was worried. There was too much space. Now there’s not enough space. I’m worried about that. Our customers are bringing in so many books at the stores—despite the heat.
What to do?
Run away!
In a bar at Dulles.
I’m flying to Copenhagen in a couple of hours.
It was a massive undertaking to get away.
I swept through so many carts this week. Today I was obsessed. I was desperate to have enough for empties for the place to survive my absence.
Of course we have 8-10 carts out for welding.
I should just bite the bullet and buy a dozen… or a score.
The real problem is the problems. (Are the problems?)
We have about twenty carts “permanently” loaded… with problems.
Take sammelbands.
What the h*** should I do with sammelbands?
Some collector or librarian thought it was a good idea to bind a bunch of separate publications into one book.
Often they are tedious religious tracts. These crazy botanical volumes are so cool. This librarian had the courtesy to bind in a table of contents.
How do you sell such a thing? Sometimes you can break them up into their component parts and try to sell them one at a time.
Cataloging the whole shebang would take forever and still be a long shot.
But sometimes there are treasures in sammelbands. Imagine finding Tamerlane bound in with a group of early 19th century poetry pamphlets.
My best one is about 4 inches thick. All pamphlets by John Quincey Adams. I bid on it against a bunch of specialist booksellers in a rare book library “auction” a few years ago. I glanced at it and thought it was cool but not thrilling. When we were the winning bid, I had the chance to look more closely. Thumbing through it, something caught my eye.
“John Quincey Adams” signed across the top of the third pamphlet. The fourth, fifth, sixth…
But these sammelbands… they are “problems.” So they and others occupy a cart collecting dust until…
I could just dump them, and the world would never miss them. But that’s not in my DNA.
Perhaps I can say they are ripening. Someday, a solution will come with an epiphany.
Letters, photos, journals… stuff.
A herd of carts laden with “stuff” that is sheer torture to quantify. And often forlorn hopes to market.
This week I attacked some. No matter how much I tried, there was still “stuff” that couldn’t be trashed, nor could it be sold. What did I do? I force-marketed whatever I possibly could, and the dregs I put on a “distilled problem carts.” I’m creating super-problem carts.
Someday, there will be a solution.
These have been on carts for a while.
I can’t bear to sell them.
These were treasures when I was a kid. Dad would take me to the Tech Drugstore on the corner of Main Street and Harlem Road in Amherst, New York. He likely had doctor business there. To keep me quiet, he would let me pick out something. Often it was Airfix miniature plastic soldiers. There were 48 in boxes like these. I think they cost 50 cents—a silver Walking Liberty half-dollar at the time.
I had armies from all different eras. I’d set up battles on the living room floor.
An idyllic childhood…
So, I can’t get rid of these quite yet. Nor can I take them home.
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
Yesterday afternoon when my frantic day was ending, the woman who works with high-end designers here came in and excitedly said we just got a huge order. 250 linear feet of antique books.
Can we do it?
Well, we just reloaded the “vintage rooms.”
You saw that in the image above.
Now the floor and the shelves will be stripped again.
Ebb and flow.
Last week’s story was titled after some words in a Dylan song that was played at the Hershey concert. Out of context, they seem very sad. The entire song is extremely sad but so true—oh so, SO true.
It’s not his best music, but the poetry is worthy of a Nobel Prize laureate.
Walking, walking with you in my head
My feet are so tired, my brain is so wired
And the clouds are weeping
Did I hear someone tell a lie?
Did I hear someone’s distant cry?
I spoke like a child, you destroyed me with a smile
While I was sleeping
I’m sick of love
But I’m in the thick of it
This kind of love
I’m so sick of it
I see, I see lovers in the meadow
I see, I see silhouettes in the window
I watch them till they’re gone and they leave me hanging on
To a shadow
I’m sick of love
I hear the clock tick
This kind of love
I’m lovesick
Sometimes the silence can be like the thunder
Sometimes I wanna take to the road and plunder
Could you ever be true? I think of you
And I wonder
I’m sick of love
I wish I’d never met you
I’m sick of love
I’m trying to forget you
Just don’t know what to do
I’d give anything to be with you
Well, I think I’m over all that.
The Italian arums are exquisitely beautiful this year. There are dozens of stalks around the property. The top berries are reddening.
I’m leaving the states just when the summer is turning pleasant. I could actually do some gardening in the next week or so.
It was just over 9 years ago when I was last in Copenhagen. It was a family trip to celebrate my younger son’s graduation from college. It was great fun. I drove from Denmark across the long bridge to Sweden and up to Stockholm.
Most memorable was the short train ride from Copenhagen to Helsingor. The castle there dominates the strait from the North Sea to the Baltic. No ship could pass without paying tribute. It was Denmark’s heyday, and it ruled vast territories.
Helsingor Castle is better known to us as Elsinore. Hamlet’s castle. The tour was very evocative and sticks with me still. For there is a legend that a troupe of English players ventured there to perform before the king. One of the troupe could have been a young William Shakespeare. His knowledge of the castle in the play almost demands that he spent time there.
That was also the beginning of perhaps my most magical year. So much travel. I learned a great deal about books and book collecting. But most of all… well, look at Dylan’s song above.
My golf buddies and I traveled to Ireland, and we toured the northern parts, playing at a number of iconic courses. It was the top of the world in so many ways. I was in better shape physically and mentally than I can recall.
One of the courses even featured a dolmen and burial chambers.
Amazing the changes that devastation can wreak upon oneself when you go down the road to despair.
It was the best of times and then the worst. What seemed like it would be forever was just a year. And the years since, despite the successes in so many other areas, are dominated by that “one thing.”
“And the clouds are weeping.”
Ruined forever and for all others.
I suppose it is good to experience the mountaintop and the pit. Your life is not fully rounded if you haven’t.
We are flying over the Maritimes. My buddies and I were supposed to play golf in the Maritimes in 2020.
COVID canceled that. And when we came out of that, my buddies didn’t want to go play anymore.
I hope I sleep some. The flight took off early. 5:15. We land at 7 am.
If you’ve read any of these before, you know I’ll be out walking. My feet will feel the pulse of the city. I remember such a clean and orderly place.
The only fear was the bike lanes. The Danes and their lanes. Maniacal bicyclists.
At home, some big changes are coming while I’m away. The downstairs library will be transformed into a terrifying and bloody gallery of oil paintings. I’ll post pics when I get back.
Well, it is nearly 7 a.m. in Maryland. In Copenhagen it is just before 1. The stupid hotel won’t let me check in until three. I got here at 8 a.m. When they told me their policy, I had them hold my luggage, and I took the Metro to the center city. I was pretty dazed and tired. But I found a few museums and soldiered through.
The Thorvaldsens Museum has hundreds of sculptures and casts by the artist. Some are massive. This statue of Gutenberg must be ten feet tall.
They also had a collection of Etruscan mirrors. I think mirrors are magical objects. I sometimes think they retain images they see somewhere in their depths. If so, imagine all the faces held in this looking glass.
I guess I can send this out now.
I’d so tired. I could sleep on a couch in the lobby, but, no, I’ll head to the Metro and go back downtown now that this is done.
Postscript
I finished this just around 1 p.m. I sent all the images to my editor.
I was FREE!
My luggage was locked away in a storeroom, and I took the Metro to the Botanical Garden and National Gallery stop. Up to the surface of the earth and into the garden.
“Did I send off the text of the story?”
“Nope. I don’t think so.”
Back down into the subway pit of Norreport. Onto a crowded sweaty subway car. All the way back to the Best Western near the airport.
At least they let me check in—15 minutes early.
Maybe I’ll shower.
Maybe I’ll just go back to the Metro. I bought a 24-hour card. So I can stupidly ride the train as much as I want.
Tomorrow’s got to be better.
Seems like I very often have “traveller’s regret” on the first day.
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