Friday, September 29th. This month will end tomorrow—that coincides with when this story gets announced on social media and to our newsletter subscribers.

It flew by. A month of competition. Me versus tens of thousands of books.

Tilting at windmills?

A Sisyphean obsession where the lesson is forgotten over and over again?

Racing, hurtling toward a finish line that I do not wish to cross.

Ambition crashing into a deadline.

My shoulder is sore. I can’t imagine why. I lifted stones, bags of soil and mulch, wood and books all week. And tens of thousands of books.

Why?

Need? Duty? Obsession?

“Pathology?”

Diversion from summer’s end and an attempt to delay the season which has just begun? A season whose outcome is inevitable and unavoidable.

I’m tired. Yesterday was long. It ended just a few hours ago when I got back from Baltimore. It was raining again. It was nearly 2 a.m. when I bumped up the mountain. My headlights flashed on three anxious faces in the dog pen.

“He’s BACK! LET US OUT!”

I fell into bed as soon as I did the minimum. Slept hard for five hours.

I felt great for the first time all summer, it seemed.

Last week, I was dreading the trip to that dysfunctional city. I’ve been in dread of many things lately.

Doom mostly.

Yesterday afternoon, I was anxious, excited even. I pressed myself to go through as many books as possible. I wanted to clear some of the logjam of carts before I left. One of the last good books I came across was this:

It reminded me of the mission.

The duty.

The passion.

Book rescue.

This would be pulp if not for us—and the system we invented and evolved over so many years.

I went to see Bob Weir (a Grateful Dead founding member, as if you didn’t know) and his band on a Baltimore pier. I had bought the tickets in July when an advance sale email dropped in. I’d enjoyed his show at the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony so much I felt I should go. I got third row center seats.

As the date approached, I wondered if I would bail—find an excuse not to go.

Then things changed, and I was anxious to go.

It is a gray morning. The mountain is damp. The ground is littered with tree debris.

The former hurricane Ophelia battered us with rains all week—but mostly last weekend. Fall came in with a splash.

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Ophelia, where were you in July when heat and drought killed the tender plants? Now you pour rains upon us while fall is draining the life from the trees and plants. Green is dying and will turn brown and desiccated. The living world retreats beneath ground—roots and seeds. The chilled air is made colder by damp and gray.

It is Sunday night.

Cold and damp.

It is the first night I’ve worn warm clothes to bed.

I awoke early. I thought there was dawn light in the bedroom.

I rose and crossed the house to start the day. It was then I notice the clock read 3:47.

Awake but confused, I knew I could not return to bed.

I went to work early then.

I had some notion I would get ahead. I would sort through all the books awaiting me and move on to… something else.

I know now this is madness. An obsession. A Poe-like compulsion.

But knowing something and being able to do something about it is not possible with some mental conditions.

I worked. I drove myself to read thousands of titles.

Early morning became mid, then late, then noon…

I worked until exhaustion set in.

I made the little mountains of books I’ve done every weekend here since May—when I returned from Venice.

The yellow tubs are going to research. The boxes to the stores. There are many carts and other piles out of frame.

My “summer of love.” Book love.

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There’s been one standout in the warehouse gardens this year.

The Wonder Book Vineyard. Both vines produced a lot of pinkish white grapes.

The variety is named after some woman. V… something. Maybe I should plant a vineyard on the hill.

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Monday morning

A good doctor appointment for a change.

My longtime specialist thinks maybe the meds are messing with my mind. I complained of fogginess, lethargy… “bad head.”

He took his phone from his pocket and direct dialed the head of the cardiology clinic which has been part of this tumultuous summer. They are friends, I guess.

“I’m with a longtime patient… what if we change [some polysyllabic chemistry name] with [some other polysyllabic chemical formula] and drop the [chemical formula]…?”

His colleague agreed and told him to go ahead.

I feel better already. I hope it helps change the three-month funk I’ve been in.

After his appointment, I had to drop off my hot Explorer. They fixed some recall things last week. The first rain we had I noticed my floor was really wet.

Did I leave the window open? Air conditioner leak?

I dried it out.

Then Ophelia visited. Heavy rain for two days.

It was the rain.

Water was sloshing in the black carpet of my beautiful car.

Travis followed me to the dealership, and we are now taking a “shortcut” cross-country to get from I70 to I270. At least, he assures me it is a shortcut. It is a winding road through what not long ago was country. We are seeing fields and developments—the new Maryland. The major crop now is rooftops.

We will get to the Gaithersburg store eventually.

I needed to get out of the warehouse for another reason besides my soggy car.

I spent about 20 hours there this weekend.

It’s not working. The formula is out of kilter. No matter how hard I apply myself to it, I simply cannot get ahead.

Something’s got to give. I can’t work like that anymore. I’m ignoring too many other things. Those carts aren’t the only books in the building. Then there are the pallets of “Chuck Kills.” They keep multiplying. Are there a dozen now?

It’s not that I’m unwilling to delegate. There are 4 people here now who can evaluate a lot of the better books. I’m the only one who can blow through a few thousand an hour.

It is the “tweeners”—books that aren’t blue chip and are exotic that are the trickiest. Do I “guess” at a price? A little too high doesn’t matter. The price will keep going down until it finds its level. Some… you know they gotta be researched.

Instant decisions. Thousands of decisions an hour when I’m on a roll.

I have enough Latin, German, French, Spanish… to get by. A lot of other languages I can parse information by the way the contents look or images or layouts.

My book talents are about as diverse as my tastes. Maybe my depth is a bit shallow.

At Gaithersburg, we did a heavy cull for Books by the Foot.

I didn’t know it then, but “pruning” would become the dominant theme of the week.

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Tuesday

Ernest and I are flying northwest on I70 to Hagerstown.

It is raining again. Four days in a row. The warehouse roof sprung a couple of leaks. I did a survey of the whole building. Now to get the roofer out.

The wet and gray makes the chill colder still. I bemoaned the heat we were inflicted with in early September. Now I yearn for some sun and warmth.

I grew up in an early 20th century house in Amherst, New York. I guess you’d call it Edwardian. Lots of oak—everywhere. My parents were the second owners. The first owner built the house. On the third floor, the bear head (as a small child, I was sure the rest of the bear was behind the wall and could spring out of it and eat me) and the deer mounted on the walls overlooked the oak pool table. The gentleman also hung signs around his early 20th century “man cave.” They were adages, I suppose. They were faux wood and hung from silk cords. One impressed me enough that I remember it to this day—maybe incorrectly. My memory says it goes something like this:

As a rule, man’s a fool
When it’s cool, he wants it hot
Always when it’s hot, he wants it cool
Always wanting what it’s not *

* The “real” version is:

As a rule, man is a fool. When it’s hot, he wants it cool; When it’s cool, he wants it hot. Always wanting, what is not.

Benjamin Disraeli

We cross two mountain ridges to get to Hagerstown. Both are forested. (I live 5 or 6 miles north of the easternmost range—the Catoctins.) My home is near the right center of the big green blob on the map below. It is called the “Watershed.”

There is no color in the trees’ leaves yet. Just green. The dull leathery end-of-life green, not the tender lime-green of early summer.

But in a month, if the temperatures hit the right way, the forest will be a riot of color. Fireworks to celebrate the great massacre that freezing weather brings to the earth’s surface.

I cut more wood last evening.

It was really kind of stupid. A big dead tree got blown over a couple of weeks ago. It fell across the little private lane my home and nine others share. I was down in the valley—near the entrance. Neighbors responded and cut it up. I asked and took all the small pieces. The guilt complex that governs much of my life inspired me to offer to cut up the big chunks that remained. I left work early yesterday afternoon and went home. I gassed and added chain oil to two saws and drove down the mountain to the big deadfalls.

‘Whoa! They didn’t look that big driving by in the truck!’ I thought as I assessed the tree trunk.

I started the saw and started nibbling away at the ends. When I got most of the way through, I would set the saw down and roll the log over. Then I would cut from the other side until I sensed I was almost through. Then I’d step back and raise my leg and strike the cut end with my heel. If I had cut enough, the end chunk would separate and roll a couple of feet away.

Of course, it started drizzling. I was quickly wet with sweat and liquid air.

I had to surrender when the last two chunks were just too big and convoluted to cut. One piece was from a fork. At the forks, the wood grain goes every which way. The saw resists cutting through it—bucking and jumping at the confusion of planes.

Then it was time to load. My shoulder is mostly better, but it couldn’t lift the big pieces above my shoulders. So when the pickup’s bed was filled with one layer I could not get any more on top of them. I’ll pick up the rest when it stops raining—except the two giant chunks. Those I’ll roll under the bushes—hiding them until nature reabsorbs them.

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We are heading back.

Ernest and I “curated” the worst categories. So many bad books. That’s how bookstores die, I’m convinced. (At least one way they die.) The owners are unwilling to purge the dead unsaleable stock. As good stuff sells, more and more bad stuff comes in and doesn’t sell. Soon every space could be filled with bad stock.

Then…

Your bookstore is dead.

It was quite a workout. Bookselling at Wonder Book can often be a contact sport.

I wonder how the others manage?

Those that are still alive…

We left with a full van of culls—mostly for Books by the Foot. There were plenty more full tubs that would make the next trip.

The place looked much better, much more friendly and viable, with so much dead wood removed.

But there were still ugly problem areas throughout.

It was a cold damp day. Some more rain came in the afternoon.

When I got home, the house was chill. The mountain around it was gray with mist and drizzle.

I decided to light a fire. The first of the season. It would be much easier to use the touchscreen on the thermostat. But a fire would be so much nicer.

It is the earliest I’ve had a fire in the woodstove that I can recall. September 26th.

Soon the house went from the low 60s to over 70.

Cozy.

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Wednesday

Another day of therapeutic culling at the Hagerstown store.

Cliff, Ernest, Andrew and I drove up in two vans.

We pulled more than a vanload yesterday and two vanloads today.

Mostly old worn dreary generic coffee table books for Books by the Foot.

The store will have lots of room for fresh stock in many categories.

(Note to Ernest and Caryn: “DON’T send old generic coffee table books to the stores!)

(Note to self: “Vide note above.”)

All the way back, the chime in the van kept going off as if one of the doors was ajar. But none were.

“This happens pretty often in this van,” Ernest told me.

“Put notes on the dashboards with problems. I can’t get things fixed if I don’t know about them.”

So many moving parts. So much equipment.

We returned, and the vans were unloaded.

I went home. I stopped and lifted the heavy pieces into the pickup.

Some evening soon, I’ll go out to the barn and split all this. I enjoy that.

Something out of nothing.

Generating my own heat.

Good exercise too. Except when my shoulder aches. I hope it is temporary—acute—not chronic.

I rolled the two impossible chunks under some bushes along the wildness along the property line.

At home, I forced myself down into the gardens and emptied more composted manure into the new beds. I planted the rest of the mail-order trillium rhizomes.

I’m not optimistic. The mail-order trilliums have been mostly a failure.

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Thursday

If the other stores needed culling, then the Frederick store must as well.

I took Clif, Ernest and Caryn and two vans. The warehouse’s big “book” guns. You have to know what to cull, or you might do more harm than good.

You don’t want to cut live wood. It’s a waste and hurts the plant.

Also, it’s good for them (and me) to see what doesn’t sell.

Two van loads out of that store.

I was satisfied.

We’d made all three stores better, more viable—at least until the bad stock builds up again and chokes the gardens.

“Bookstores are like gardens.”

I like that thought. Did I just invent it—or steal it?

Back at the warehouse, I blew through fresh stock—”raw” books.

Just the opposite of all the pruning.

I watched the clock. The deadline was 3:30. It is about an hour to Baltimore. Kevin and I wanted to meet up about 4:30 for the 7 p.m. show.

I wore scruffy clothes and drove my old Jeep. The “dog” car. Baltimore equals “danger” in my mind nowadays. Car jackings. Muggings. Gangs on ATVs and motorbikes. A kind of urban Mad Max place with hard streets and “For Rent” storefronts.

The phone had a little trouble finding the parking garage, but soon I was at the Inner Harbor with Kevin.

Kevin Mullen. Friend. Rare bookman specializing in art. Grateful Dead acolyte. Good friend.

He goes to a LOT of shows a year. 30? 50?

He understands and is part of that culture. A tribe. A different species or subspecies. Followers of a different drummer.

Near the entrance is “Shakedown Street.” He tells me most shows have one. Vendors set up tables or booths. You can get a drink for a $2 “donation.” Grilled cheese sandwich for $1. Tie dye—everything.

“The girl carrying the $5 Polaroid sign? That’s code for acid, Chuck.”

A lot of these people will be driving?

Impromptu grills. Colorful patches. Thousands of metal pins.

“That guy has those patches woven in Nepal. He supports a family there that does them.”

Every twenty paces or so, someone comes up and hugs Kevin. It’s a community. A kind of nomad community that converges on concert venues of the various Dead bands that the original spawned. The concerts are like oases.

A lot wear the garb and I suppose live the life of hippies. Some are original. But there are a lot of young ones trying to recapture—whatever the 1960s and 70s were.

Gas tanks kept hissing here and there—filling big balloons.

“Ice cold whippets! $5!”

Nitrous oxide.

Tables were offering mushrooms and edibles. Maybe half the crowd was sucking on vape pins.

My drug of choice was gin.

“Let’s go to Ruth’s Chris, Kevin.”

It was about a hundred paces away. I had a martini and oysters Rockefeller.

My first night out all summer it seemed—well, it is fall now.

Then we walked back through the maze of Shakedown Street to get to the entrance.

An impromptu band was playing in the parking lot. Young women were dancing barefoot—raising their arms above their heads in serpentine waves.

The tickets were third row center. Kevin knew everyone around us.

“Chef from Miami… doctor… runs a ski resort in Montana… lives in Costa Rica and comes home for Dead tours…”

The concert was wonderful. Bobby played a lot of old favorites. His band was excellent.

Keyboard, dobro, bass, drums, cello, violin, trombone, trumpet, saxophone—and Weir on guitar.

It was a four-hour show. About three hours in—near the end of intermission—there was a general cheer around the harbor. Fireworks at the stadium across the water. The Orioles had just clinched first place for the first time in a… long time. They’ve been mostly terrible for decades. Before that, they were always good—often great.

I had Sunday season tickets for a number of years. 13 Sundays a year I’d drive to Baltimore.

Now I don’t care about baseball much.

It’s changed.

Or I have.

Brooks Robinson died the day before. An icon and hero of my youth. The greatest third baseman ever. He bought books from me one year at the Florida rare book show, which always used to coincide with spring training. Like Kevin, one of the nicest most sincere guys around.

The concert ended with a magical version of Terrapin Station. It is a thirty-minute rock symphony with various movements and motifs.

It was an evening of full circle. Returning to music that was part of the spring of my life.

Now it is fall.

I was never a “Deadhead.” I only went to one Dead concert. It was a mess for me. I went to a number of Jerry Garcia shows. They were in theaters with seats assigned.

But the music spoke to me. Some people don’t “get” The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien. But if you do, you share something with a large group of people.

Same with Dead music. Maybe it is kind of like “rock/folk”—jazz. It goes to places unplanned.

An “unspoken thing”—tacit—you understand without explanation. The music speaks to you—or me, anyway.

When the album Terrapin Station came out in 1977, I was home. Dad was dead in ’75. My mom was in and out of nursing homes. I’d take her to doctor appointments at Walter Reed very often. I’d haul the big metal wheelchair out of the car’s trunk and hours later put it back in.

Then I heard the album… new. It connected immediately.

Inspiration, move me brightly
Light the song with sense and color
Hold away despair
More than this I will not ask…

And I would revisit those words often for the rest of my life.

I’m still trying—which is a victory in itself.

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So many good books.

What will happen to them when I can’t plow through thousands every day?

This Oppenheimer is a first. None online. Later editions, a couple for a few hundred dollars. No auction records.

A cool and timely find.

Hundreds of other really good books amongst thousands of just plain good books.

I’m going to make reservations to go away.

Maybe London. That’s easy for me. The Chelsea book show is in early December.

If I fail to do it, you can castigate me next week.

I’ll figure the dogs and other things out.

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Ophelia 9/26-27/23

Where were you in July
when summer burned the tender plants
Hot dry sun parched the earth?
Now when life is retreating
—returning back into the earth
—your pour from low gray skies
day after day
It only makes fall colder
The air is liquid with mist and drizzle droplets
The damp only strengthens the chill
So sudden that summer failed and died.

Ophelia, I lit a fire
Your icy fingers were reaching
in through closed windows and solid walls
You sought to enter my home
and catch me trapped within
The woodstove window glowed
like a dragon’s eye
Its fire repelled your chill, gray damp
—pushing it out into the wild
where it belongs in this season
when green life dies a slow death

Ophelia, or some sister,
come next spring and summer
Soften the earth
Let the tender plants drink and flourish
It is that season which needs you
Fall will dry the green regardless