McHuston Booksellers

Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

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Someone throw the penalty flag!

January 7, 2013 /

Sincerely disappointing. The football game to determine the champion of the season, the Superbowl of the collegiate ranks, the sadly-named Discover-BCS National Championship Game, is available only on cable television.

Well, that isn’t exactly true. If you have a handheld computer device that can access the ESPN application (and live in the Pacific time zone) you can view it on WatchESPN.

Unfortunately, the television I generally park myself in front of for couch-potato-ing doesn’t feature ESPN. (Editor’s Note: There is a television in the bookstore office that is part of a cable bundle – including ESPN – that would be viewable if the proprietor cared to forego dinner and stay at the shop for most of the evening.)

I thought there were some things that remained sacred. The NFL is still carried on the free channels. News bulletins. Car races. Soap operas. Even the shopping channels have a spot on the basic tier. Most of the college bowls games?

Nope.

They belonged to ESPN. I didn’t see too many as a result.

The OU Sooners played their game on the FOX network, but then – after halftime – fans like me were hurting too much to continue watching. In fact, fans who shelled out for tickets, travel, hotels, meals, and souvenirs were filing out of the stadium long before the game ended. Even though it was one of the few games of the season I could watch, I couldn’t bear it.

I’ll have to wait until March, I suppose, when the basketball season is carried by old trusty CBS, available on that ESPN-less screen.

Of course, I can watch all the BookTV I want, at least until the publishers organize and hold a championship, which will be snapped up by ESPN, no doubt.

See Time. See Time fly…

December 31, 2012 /

The last day of the year – 2012. Newspaper writers and internet bloggers are looking back over the past twelve months, digging up and presenting lists of best and worst, interesting and otherwise.

For me, I’d just as soon look ahead.

2012 was – by my reckoning – as quick a year as I’ve experienced in some time. Contrary to popular opinion, years do not pass at equal rates. True, they are filled with twelve months and (excepting leap years) standard numbers of weeks and days, but some seem to trudge grudgingly along while others whisk by in an impatient flash.

For me, this was one of the latter. 2012 started as a year caught up in alternating fits of inactivity and furious planning. The physical part of the bookstore was closed and by the arrival of the new year, I was mired in the “any day now” part of anticipating the reopening. Good things take time, and it was not until April that I received the keys to the new location.

All the moving, planning, sorting, stacking, cleaning, organizing, and decorating tasks that were necessary to open the new location seemed to affect the passage of time itself. There weren’t enough hours in the day to get any one task completed. Summer came and went, and winter finally arrived, and now the holiday season is wrapping up.

I think I’ll be content to look forward to 2013 instead of compiling any list of my “year’s best” or “year’s worst” events. Suffice it to say that anything not on the list of things that need to be completed by the end of 2013 must have been something I managed to finish before the midnight wrapping-up of this year.

Thanks to all who visited the new shop, and my gracious appreciation for the many kind words offered in regard to the store as it is shaping up. It is, after all, a work still in progress. The image is proof enough of that. The picture was taken just under three weeks after the reopening project started, and while it isn’t dramatically different, the shop has already evolved from its beginnings.

There is a feeling in the air, an aura of anticipation – if you will – that makes me almost certain that the upcoming twelve months are going to be filled with wonderful things for the business and otherwise. I truly enjoy visiting with all of you who share part of your day in stepping through the front door, and look forward to seeing you in 2013.

Best wishes to all, and a Happy New Year!

Sports department.

December 29, 2012 /

Don’t get me wrong, I was rooting for West Virginia. I may be a bookseller, but I’m also a sports fan. Big 12. Big 4 (As the Tulsa World calls the four area schools). I hated to see the Mountaineers fall to Syracuse (Syracuse?) but on the other hand, there is that new rivalry with established conference programs.

The prediction, early on, was that Gino Smith, the WV quarterback – a Heisman frontrunner – was going to come into the Big 12 and oversee the blowing out of the traditional powers on his way to a NYC trip to pick up the heavy brass statue.

Oooops.

That didn’t happen. In fact, Gino and the West Virginia program not only didn’t play up to expectations, they had to have been a disappointment to their own fans. They fell flat for fans of the Big 12, too.

The Conference has been represented so far by Baylor, which whipped up on UCLA, Texas (which looked like it was going down to defeat, but) rallied to vanquish Oregon State in the waning minutes. Hey! A win is a win! In that same vein, Texas Tech came from behind to win over Minnesota. 3 for 3. Batting .1000 to bring a baseball metaphor into a football story.

The bottom line is, going into Saturday’s slate of games, the Big 12 was representing itself pretty well, until those league newcomers lined up. I wanted them to win. Don’t get me wrong. I always want the conference teams to play well against the other leagues’ best.

WV… what happened? The team that was going to win it all in the Big 12 with the quarterback that was going to win the Heisman – lost. 38-14. Hey, Mountaineers! What happened?

Humility tastes best when it is first sampled by those who would swallow it with the most difficulty. West Virginia… welcome to the Big 12 Conference!

As a football fan that first wants the local schools to win, followed by the conference schools, I hated that West Virginia met its match in its first representation as a Big 12 school. On the other hand, if a conference team had to lose, best it was West Virginia, those upstarts that had all the pundits talking them up smartly.

Oklahoma. Oklahoma State. Texas. Texas Tech. Kansas State. These are teams that wait in the wings for a chance at the Mountaineers, in conference. West Virginia? It’s the off-season for you now.

Practice up.

(Oh. The picture? I decided that random images of the store need to be included for those who are just – tuning in, to use an old (but familiar to me) metaphor. There is no actual football going on inside, except during the games, on television… In the office.

There is a Sports Department. With actual books. Come and look!

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