McHuston Booksellers

Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Category: Uncategorized (Page 6 of 45)

Bookstore moving update.

December 28, 2011 /

I’ve been fielding calls from folks wondering about the bookstore. If you have questions after reading the article, check at the end for a phone number.

Here’s an update.

McHuston Booksellers is on hiatus, still awaiting completion of the new location at 122 S. Main Street in downtown Broken Arrow. The building sits on the west side of the street between Commercial and Broadway and currently has a storefront awning that says: Francy Law Firm.

The law offices have been removed along with the old wiring and what-not, replaced by new cabling, columns and beams, and light fixtures. The sheetrock starting going up right before Christmas Day.

As with all projects of a similar scope, the completion date is a little bit of a guessing game. In all likelihood, it will come sometime in February. The books and fixtures from the old location are currently in storage, ready to be brought back out when the time comes. Trade accounts are preserved, and will be ready as soon as the store is.

In the meantime, we’ve spent some time nosing around bookstores in Arkansas and Oklahoma, gathering ideas for the grand restart. We’re truly excited about being a part of the emerging Broken Arrow downtown project and hope our customers will be patient while we get things resituated. New customers will – I hope – be pleased at the new addition to the collection of businesses in the pioneer district of downtown Broken Arrow. Our new location will be in a building that was constructed before Oklahoma statehood, but will be as modern as wi-fi and the latest bestsellers.

Look for us soon, at 122 S. Main in Broken Arrow. More questions? Call McHuston: area code 918, then 361 and 7860. (Have to break those up because of computer robo-indexing. The old days were so much easier…)

Thanks for your patience. I hope the new setting will be as surprising for you as it is exciting for us!

McHuston

Big News. Big Move. Downtown BA.

November 2, 2011 /

The countdown has begun.

Broken Arrow’s Main Street bookstore is moving into the downtown proper – happy to be part of the grand plans and exciting renovations that will re-energize our pioneer commercial district.

Interior renovation work is underway on the building at our planned new location, just north of the Main Street Tavern, which will allow for a bright display of our inventory.

There is a small snag.

Our current leasing arrangement has expired, and while the landlord allowed an additional month, we are currently unsure whether the new location will be ready previous to December 1. The store inventory is currently being boxed for moving and there may be a brief interlude between the closing of the current location and the opening of the new.

All trade account balances will be preserved and continued at the new location.

Broken Arrow officials have great aspirations for the downtown area, and McHuston Booksellers hopes to be a contributing part of the district’s reemergence as a destination location.

Steve Jobs, we hardly knew ye.

October 6, 2011 /

My wife wanted to know why her television program was interrupted to announce the death of a man whose name she didn’t remember. He had been sick with cancer, she said.

I don’t know why, but my first guess was Steve Jobs.

“Yes, that’s him,” said my wife.

Two things became clear when I tried to explain why he was important enough for the network to break into programming to relate the news of his death. It was just too simplistic to call him an inventor who made electronic products, and – as I wrangled for words to define the man behind the Apple – I struggled also to keep my emotions in check.

It was like losing a brother or dear friend.

I gave up my Selectric typewriter in favor of an Apple IIe, a prehistoric computer that I thought was sensational. For the time, it was. Spelling errors? Just back up the cursor and type over them. Move sentences and paragraphs. Frustrated? Just punch the delete key. Or save and come back to it later. No more wadded up pieces of paper littering the wastebasket.

On the back window of my Honda hatchback was an Apple logo sticker, the only adhesively applied object ever attached to any car I have ever owned. It represented a clique, of sorts. Like a Harley, only geekish.

Over the years, I wound up in bed with Microsoft. Not necessarily happily so, but nonetheless. Budgets had a little something to do with that. Apple and its proprietary rights. After the IIe, I tried an Apple IIc before going IBM. There were so many programs that were much more affordable.

But I never lost my affinity for Apple. I was one of the club with a lapsed membership card, still admiring the group and its products and its cultish approach to business.

For guitar players, there is Eric Clapton. Among electronics owners, there was Steve Jobs. An early message put it in terms I consider most appropriate, likely delivered from an iPhone or a competitor inspired by the Apple product:

He was our da Vinci.

And he is gone much too soon.

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