I thought about wearing a bow tie. Partly as a tribute and partly to acknowledge that booksellers can also be characters. I didn’t think about the bow tie for too long.
That fashion statement belonged to Mr. Meyer.
He had a shop over on Peoria, near 31st Street. Some of you won’t remember him at all, but those who ran across Lewis Meyer, Bookseller would not soon forget him. He was a fixture in the regional book world and enjoyed a national reputation in publishing circles. I heard him described as a book salesman in those terms usually reserved for those selling ice to Eskimos.
He was a smart man – had a law degree but kept at that practice for only five years or so before giving it up. He was a deejay for an hour every day on KAKC radio, long enough to plug books for a downtown Tulsa department store. He got such a following that he began hosting a weekly review at Brown-Dunkin’s, in an area that could seat over four-hundred.
They filled the place to hear his book act.
I remember him from Channel Six. Not that I regularly got up that early on a Sunday morning to watch “Lewis Meyer’s Book Shelf,” but I sometimes caught the late-night edition. It’s hard to imagine these days – a fellow on television talking about nothing but books. It was a different era.
Actually, his program spanned an era or two. He was on KOTV weekly for more than thirty years.
He was a character, complete with the suit and bow tie.
I’ve had people remember him while visiting our shop, recalling how he could get so worked up over a book that you’d walk out of his store owning a copy – whether you had intended to buy it or not. In a Tulsa World profile from 1986 (back when book shops could be found in greater number around Tulsa), a competitor mused that Meyer could rely on his wide circle of friends and acquaintances to regularly buy new titles. Meyer admitted that he sent out some 2,000 “love letters” a month filled with book-buying suggestions for his customers.
In addition to his shop and his review programs, Lewis Meyer also found time to write. In fact, it was a copy of his first effort that brings him to mind. “Preposterous Papa” was his first published work, a remembrance of his father, Max Meyer. A copy came into the shop yesterday, signed by both Mr. Meyer and his “preposterous” papa, Max. A folded picture of the smiling bookseller had been stashed inside the back cover.
When the book was released in 1959, Lewis Meyer had enough notoriety that Sapulpa (Meyer’s home town) declared a Preposterous Papa day, with an airplane fly-over, an honorary dinner, and a live book review (of his own book) by Mr. Meyer himself – to be held at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, where the auditorium offered a greater seating capacity than any other Sapulpa location.
A sharp businessman, no doubt – but that was a different time. Maybe he could have held on where others could not. He was confident thirty years ago.
“I’ve never been concerned about competition,” he said. “If you ever start a bookstore, pray for chain-store competition – all of it you can get. They don’t know books. People get so angry at them then buy from someone who does.”
Maybe Lewis Meyer would have an answer for Amazon and the internet. Maybe he could negotiate through the Kindles, iPads, and Nooks and still stock all those expensive brand-new books. Maybe his publisher’s deal would continue to allow him to return unsold copies, where so many other stores have lost that capability.
Maybe those 2,000 “love letters” might be the difference, although – the $1000 monthly postage creates its own overhead to be offset by copies sold at a reduced margin. Even among his regulars would likely be customers questioning his full-cover price versus the Amazon amount.
But he was King of the Book-hill in his day.
“The more you read, the taller you’ll grow,” said Mr. Meyer in his smiling signoff.
Except I read a lot. A lot. And I never got much past five-ten.
I’m going to put on my Bistro-jacket and serve up some lunches, right after I put the bow-tie back in the drawer.
Come visit!
McHuston
Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!