I confess to it. I did it. Blame no one else. My apologies.
John Fogerty (and Creedence Clearwater Revival, or CCR as we hipsters used to call them) posed the musical question – Who’ll Stop the Rain? – back in 1970.
In mid-Summer 2013 in Broken Arrow, OK… I did. Sorry folks, I know we needed it, but I wanted to keep the driver’s seat dry and – without thinking – I strolled out and rolled up my car window.
Oops, and – again – sorry about that.
Nothing like anticipating a thing to kill any chance of it. As I look out the window now, even as it approaches dusk, there is nothing to be seen but blue skies over our fair city.
Sorry.
It would not have happened except for the fact that it is Sunday, store closed, day off, and here I am working away at the front counter. Pricing books and running them out to the shelves (maybe that’s a stretch. Limping them out quickly is probably more accurate), I noticed the cloud cover and thereby completed my rain-killing activities. I actually held off washing the car, which would have guaranteed a downpour.
Sorry.
As for the work aspect on the day of rest: I managed to get the huge backlog of books sitting around in stacks at the front of the shop on the shelves. I unpacked ten boxes of new arrivals and stacked them for sorting at the back. I inventoried (perhaps) three boxes of the new arrivals.
Would have done more, except I could tell they would require some reorganization of the shelves. Man. One thing does lead to another. Had to change the height of the shelves in several bookcases, dig out additional shelving from the back of the storage closet, clean everything as I moved it, and re-align the inventory. New signs had to be hand-labeled. Nothing too big when considered alone, but – as a project – enough to make an eight hour workday out of a store-visit on my day off.
While checking in the orphans (the books, you know, are like children in my custody and care while I prepare them for new homes), I realized that some of these are the final glimpses of our past. A good many of the books on the back table will never be digitized by Google or Kindle or Kessinger or anybody. These little orphans in my custody are truly – orphans.
Many are recollections of pioneer folks who lived in the times of our grandparents and great-grandparents, who took the time and effort to record on paper their stories. It’s clear from looking at the interior that a number of these have been typed by hand (on that old machine called a typewriter, which was like a keyboard without a screen, digital memory, or insert-mode). The subject? A specific and localized region of our US. Some of these contain history of Oklahoma and Indian Territory. Some are recollections of a family’s involvement in the history of that time. Some are from Arizona and New Mexico. There are books on this table with original source material from Nebraska, Minnnesota, and Illinois.
There is a book about the early history of a Caribbean island – not one of the tourist traps – with information that will never be found by the Google digitizing radar. The second image is a book by a woman in NW Oklahoma who chronicles her family’s life in that area, with details of the local history – facts that will be lost unless this particular orphan finds a good home.
Among the stacks in the image are several signed copies, including a memoir by the mother of Dr. Karl Menninger, an eminent psychiatric pioneer who autographed the title page with a note of his connection to the author. Getting a signed copy on your Kindle, Nook, or iPad just won’t be the same.
It made me a little more optimistic about the many shelves of dinosaur-style inventory I maintain. I understand the convenience and trendy-ness of electronic reading devices. Looking over and handling my physical inventory, for me, is a sensory connection. There is a place for plastic books displayed on a digital-file optimizing glass, with touch control. I know that. I can appreciate that. I just can’t believe it means there is no place remaining for paper-and-cloth-bound books in the digital age.
Maybe I’m in charge of protecting the orphans who won’t be a part of that assimilation. If any of you have concerns, their safety is well-placed, and I do my best to vet new guardians before letting them out the front door.
Come visit! (I’ll keep the orphan’s singing to a minimum!)
McHuston
Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 S Main Street, Broken Arrow OK!
