Popular Posts

Monday, April 25, 2011

Universal Remote

There were just four of us in a passenger van designed to seat ten. We were scattered through the seats; as you do when the chance presents itself. Edmonton was streaking by the tinted windows of the van. Edmonton was bathed in splendid November sunshine. Little or no snow but little or no leaves too. The woman who had joined us last was asking the rest of us where we were going. She had; apparently only half understood our driver, though his second language English was very good. “Are we going to the west end?” She asked tentatively with a southern accent. “Yes.” I replied. “We will stop at the West Edmonton Mall, among other places.” I added. “Oh good I wasn’t sure what he meant by West Ed. I’m from Sacramento.” She intoned. “Not originally, with that accent.” I added with a chuckle. “I always forget.” She laughed. “Is it that bad?” “I like it.” My wife Lina added. “It reminds me of our trip to Nashville.” The lady turned and added “Close, Tupelo.” We might have sped through Edmonton without a word, as I have done dozens of times. But a chance remark had broken the ice and soon the lady in the back of the van was speaking of her home in Edmonton with an English accent. We were all, even the driver from somewhere else. The conversation wound as conversations do through different subjects; it started with Elvis who was also from Tupelo and went on to Graceland where we had all been. Then the lady from the south revealed that she had once dated a fighter and the conversation went on to the great fighters and great fights of the past. Lina faded out a bit as this was not her forte. I love boxing and know a lot about the fighters of the late seventies and early eighties.
We remarked on how, in the old days even the great fights were carried on network TV to be enjoyed by everyone who was inclined to watch. Nowadays you have to buy a ticket to a private screening or pay per view it on cable or satellite. We lamented the loss of the universally shared experience. “I remember the day after a big fight. We would stand around the schoolyard and everyone would have an opinion.” By virtue of the fact that it was free and on network TV meant that even the poorest of us could watch. Even the poorest and most ill informed could have an opinion and could voice it to all. “Something was lost…” she agreed “when great events became pay per views.” The conversation went on until we reached our destination. We parted; not as friends but at least as friendly and wished each other well as we parted.
I never fully forgot that conversation. It dovetailed with some thoughts I’d been having for weeks. You see we have satellite TV at home. One of the big Canadian ones. We have a big package, one of the biggest. I have long since given up on sports so we don’t have a sports package. But darn near everything else. We work long hours and often six days a week so when we get to watch TV I want choice. Even so; on a Sunday night recently I was regaling Lina with the available channels from the built in guide feature on the dish. “There’s never anything on when we have time to watch TV!” I protested. I was; as my boss was fond of saying “preaching to the choir” Lina felt as I did and needed no reminder of the fact. I was seeking commiseration. I wanted to have my opinion backed up; after all misery absolutely adores company. “You aren’t kidding. Even the game sow channel shows poker, POKER!” She replied dryly. “Watching poker is like watching paint peel.” I replied. “I thought the saying was Watching paint dry?” she replied. “Nah, these are reruns of poker games, that paint was dry a long time ago.” I turned off the TV and went to sit in the room where I do my best thinking; a windowless room with a large amount of porcelain. I had Bruce Springsteen’s 57 Channels ( and nothing on) running through my head. Two hundred channels of garbage! I kept thinking. Springsteen didn’t even know the half of it when he wrote his prophetic song. I pondered in my inner sanctum for a while.
“You know what is missing in society?” I asked as I returned to the room of the living from the room of the bath. Lina put down her magazine and was; I am sure, well and truly grateful for my minor in Philosophy. She knew better than to answer this rhetorical question. “We are missing the universal experience. “ I allowed sufficient pause to befit the depth and pithiness of this statement. “When I was a kid the school ground conversation was very much dictated by what we had seen on TV the night before. Mondays meant Hockey Night in Canada. We would stand around and discuss the one game that was on TV Saturday night. When there was a Wayne and Shuster special we all retold every joke the next day. Now we all go home to an entertainment extravaganza every night. There’s a channel for everything; game shows, cooking, shopping, religion, women, men, cartoons, you name it. Everyone goes into their little world and there is no commonality of experience. We are universally remote. Distant from each other; separated by the very medium that used to unite us in a common bons!” I was in full flight now.
“So you think we should have only one channel like the old days?” Lina said with a grin. “Remember when we had only CBC North?” I asked. “What are you talking about? I was born up here! I remember when there was no TV at all. I remember when we got four hours of TV a day, taped from earlier and replayed! Don’t tell me about CBC North!” Justly chastened; I continued. “Well back when we had only one channel we would all get together at the teachers place and watch Dallas.” I retorted. “The women watched Dallas,; you guys stood around the kitchen ate snacks and talked hockey.” She replied with a sarcastic tone. “Yeah but we shared an experience, that’s my point!” Just then the house gave a sort of shudder. The furnace sighed to a stop. The TV made a popping sound and went black. The water pump stopped and there was total silence. I looked at Lina; she shrugged. “Power failure!” I said. “Looks like it.” Lina replied. I flipped the light switch just in case. “Well I guess what’s on TV is a moot point now.” Lina said moving her chair over to the window and picking up her crossword.
The next day at work Gerry walked up to me “I was right in the middle of watching an interesting show on the Discovery Network when the power went off. I thought it would never come back on.” As he was speaking Darren walked into the room. “Yeah it sure was boring with no power I wanted to watch the Riders game.” “Count on the power to go off just when a good fishing show is coming on!” Piped Danny from the next room. I guess it just goes to show; be careful what you wish for…

Sunday, April 24, 2011

My memory's good but short...

“I’m going senile.” I said in disgust. My wife looked at me puzzled. I was standing in front of the office with a blank look on my face. “I just walked here from my office and I can’t remember why.” She looked at me and laughed. “Everyone does that; silly. Just walk back in your office and you will remember why you came here.” She was right; of course. I am sure everyone has those spells. You walk into a room for a specific purpose and you go blank. You cannot remember what the heck you walked in there for and that was the only reason for going into the room; whatever it was that you were supposed to do or get. A simple trick of the mind. But it certainly is frustrating. I swear sometimes I am going senile. What was I doing? What was I looking for? I walked back to my office and it hit me the minute I walked through my door. I knew instantly what I had set out to get. I was mortified.
“I can’t go out there and let them know this is what I forgot. I will never live it down.” I thought to myself. Whatever can I do? I leaned against my office door and glanced sideways at the general office. It was a beehive; as it usually was at that hour of the day. Damn; how am I going to do this? There was a lineup at the office and two people working there; my Wife and my Assistant Manager. There was a lineup at both checkouts. It never fails when you want to do something surreptitious there is always a crowd.” I should just be a man and walk boldly up and do this!” I thought. Then my cowardly alter ego said “No way dude; you are going to make a fool of yourself. Do it later.” But I had promised my boss to do this ASAP. I crept out of my office trying to avoid customers. But of course that didn’t work. “Hay Greg do we have a meeting tonight?” One of the guys on the Fire Department called out. “Yep, second Wednesday of the month.” I said as nonchalantly as I could. “You O.K.?” Roy asked, sensing my furtive movements. “Yeah; sure, fine.” I stammered. As soon as Roy was gone I worked my way closer to the general office. I tacked back and forth from one shelf to another. By now there was a lineup at the office and I took advantage of the distraction to make a dash for the showcase.
I fumbled with my keys. Why is it when you are in the biggest hurry you can never get the key to go in? There are two identical keys on my ring that fit the various showcases. Now the rules of probability state that there should be a fifty fifty chance every time I try them of getting the right key the first time. Balderdash! I have never gotten the right one first time. Finally I had my prize; now all I had to do was get through the checkout without my wife spotting me. As I stood up she was right in front of me. “Remembered what it was?” She asked. The words were like an exploding bomb. I stammered and stuttered and mumbled “Buzzerererahhhhhst” I said half under my breath hoping she would let it be. “What?” She repeated not letting it drop. “Mumble mumble wassisname.” I intoned. ”You are making no sense.” Lina said louder this time. I motioned for her to lean over and I whispered it in her ear. A grin split her face from ear to ear. “HEY EVERYBODY!” She yelled. I was making waving motions with my hands and mouthing the word NO over and over. “Greg forgot what he came out here for and had to walk back into the other room to remember it! Guess what he forgot?” She took the package from my hands and held it over her head. “A MEMORY CARD!” The whole building erupted in laughter simultaneously; both customers and staff alike. I walked to the till and paid for the memory card. There were people slapping my back and some people were holding their sides. I remember it like it was yesterday…

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Just like Mom used to make

Did you ever notice that some things taste better when someone else makes them? Seriuously; I think this is one of those things where If I were sitting down with a group of friends right now they would all be nodding and agreeing. I am alone at my computer but I am betting that you are sitting out there somewhere in cyberspace nodding and going “Yep.” Well all right maybe you’re not a “Yep” person; I sure am “Yep, indeed”. My Mother once remarked that salads always taste better when someone else makes them. I rest my case. You may argue with me but my Mom is always right. In many cases the thing that always tasted better is made by our Moms. They always know how to make stuff. What I don’t know is how they know all that stuff. Is there some kind of school for Moms that they go to? Is it genetic? Do they learn at their Mom’s knee? Rest assured that it is a universal truth right up there with “We find this truth to be self evident: That all men are created equal.”
But it need not always be your Mom; it could be your partner, or a friend or even a stranger at a church supper. Now I realize that there are those who will argue that the reason that it tastes better is that you didn’t have to make it. I like to think of this as the sheer laziness argument. Sure it tastes better you didn’t have to slave over a hot stove to get it. There is some logic to this. I used to work in a fast food restaurant I was good at what I did. I took pride in turning out a tasty hot, fresh burger. But when I sat down on my break I really didn’t feel like eating what I had been cooking and smelling all day. I would go miles out of my way to prepare something different. We would scrape all the breading off the filet-o-fish™ and pan fry it on the grill. We would cook the McRib™ patty and put Big Mac™ sauce on it, anything for some variety. We even worked out a scheme to take advantage of the proximity of competitors to our restaurant. I contacted a friend who worked at KFC and one who worked at the Pizza place. We all had similar benefits where we paid little or nothing for out food while working. So we would meet surreptitiously in the parking lot with bags of food under our coats and our uniforms hidden and we would swap our lunches. By Golly, it did taste better!
This worked fine until we got caught and the management of all three businesses got involved and kyboshed the whole scheme. Thos guys have no sense of humor. So maybe there is some merit to the laziness theory but I still don’t buy it. There is something to be said obviously for the effect of not smelling what you are cooking for hours and simply being tired of it by the time you have to eat. All these factors have merit but that doesn’t cover all the facts. Case in Point: even the simple things taste better when someone else makes them; even a bologna sandwich. I made one for my wife today which is the reason why all this ink is being spilt. Alright I know that computer screens don’t have ink on them. I am not like the person in the blonde joke with white out on my screen. But you cannot argue that a bologna sandwich is so time consuming that the making of it makes the sandwich taste bad. Now my Mom makes the best potato salad. No offense to my wife or others who have made me potato salad over the years, but Mom’s rules. It wicked cool! Is that expression still in? I never know anymore. I do know that groovy is dated, right? A potato salad is complicated there are many steps and many ingredients. Each salad may not have many ingredients but there are many different ingredients you could add. My Mom adds mustard. My Wife adds pickle juice, see what I mean. But bologna sandwiches are simple. Bread and margarine, mustard and bologna; not a whole lot of ingredients. Not too much wiggle room. Albeit the amount of mustard you use or type of margarine or bread will make a difference but let’s face it not that much difference.
I think I have solved the mystery. I think I have unlocked the secret that has puzzled mankind for years. I think the missing ingredient is care. That’s right care. I think when we make a sandwich or salad for ourselves we do it haphazardly. We slap the mustard on we give no thought to presentation or getting the coverage just right. We press too hard on the bread with our thumbs. We do not use a clean plate nor do we bother to present it with a pickle (when I make sandwiches for my Wife I often add little “eyes” made of olives on tooth picks that I stick into the top of the sandwich so that the ingredients form a face with a bread crust forehead and bologna tongue). We don’t take the extra measure of care for ourselves that we would for someone we loved or a total stranger at a church dinner. In fact I will go one better. Instead of calling it care, I will call it Love. What is missing when we taste our own sandwich is the Love that Mom put in. She always added just the right amount and she never ran out and had to go next door to borrow a cup. Thanks Mom; Bon apatite!

Monday, April 18, 2011

The Blob that ate Fort Liard

No good deed goes unpunished; they say. I know it is true. I once scraped the side of my new car on a telephone pole when I was giving a friend a boost. “What’s a telephone pole doing in the middle of your driveway?” I asked as I surveyed the damage. “Holding up the telephone wires.” Eddy answered sardonically. Ask a stupid question… Another time I delivered some groceries for a customer and when I came out the company truck wouldn’t start and I had to walk back to work two miles in the pouring rain. Another time; well you get the point.
“Hey Barry; the bottom half of the pallet isn’t ours!” I said as I removed the last box of frozen foods. “What?” Barry said angrily. It was nearly midnight and he was tired. “This bread dough is for the IGA Bakery in Ft Nelson. I’m not going back that way. I am headed to Ft Simpson to drop this trailer and then I am Bob tailing it back to Edmonton. I knew his switch (the other driver who usually drives while Barry sleeps) was MIA so I knew he was tired. “Can I leave it and have the other driver pick it up on Thursday?” I looked into his eyes they were underlined by dark circles. We depend on these drivers in the north. We depend on them and we take care of them. “Sure Barry. I’ll keep it here, it will stay frozen like a rock. “Here meant the unheated loading dock at the back of the store. I could close the inside doors in winter and use it as an emergency freezer. Barry helped me pile the cases against the outside doors. At forty below they would be frozen better than in a commercial freezer. The boxes were about two cubic feet. That is to say about as big as an ottoman. There were a dozen or more of them. “Thanks man, you rule!” said Barry as we finished. “Yes.” I replied “But only here in my tiny kingdom!” I wished him goodnight as my assistant Ron and I went home for a few hours sleep. We had to be back here in less than eight hours.
“You ever hear of a comb?” I asked Ron next morning as I knocked on his door. This was our routine. Each morning I walked past his door on the way to work. Each morning I knocked d and waited for him to get ready. He never combed his hair and seldom shaved. “Only in legends” Ron added laughing. He was a cheerful kid. I say kid but in fact in calendar years he was only two years younger then me. In temperament he was light-years younger than me. He was like Peter Pan, he never grew up. We walked the short distance to the store in the crisp morning air. Ron was shivering. “How come you never wear proper clothes?” I asked for the hundredth time. “I want to look cool.” He replied. He looked very cool in a spring baseball jacket, unzipped with baggy jeans and sneakers to finish the ensemble. He was shaking like a leaf. I unlocked the deadbolt and pushed the front door in. As quickly as I had entered I ducked out and flattened against the side of the building. “What’s wrong?” Ron asked his eyes wide. “It’s as hot as the fire of hell in there!” I said loudly. Doubting me or wanting to see for himself Ron walked in. He was back out like a shot. He dropped to his knees and gasped for breath. “You weren’t kidding it’s roasting in there!” He was panting for breath. “What happened?” He looked at me like he looked at me for all things. I felt like a Father to him sometimes. I looked at him, my mind racing. “If I had to guess I would say the high limit went on the furnace.” I replied. Wait for it, I thought. “What is a high limit?” Ron asked. I knew it. “A high limit is a safety feature that shuts the furnace down when the thermostat fails.”
I was working out in my mind what to do next. The thermostat and emergency cut off switch were in the back room. To get to them I would need to shut off the alarm which was in the office. The place has very hot and the air was not breathable. “You stay here and keep the door open. I will crawl to the back down low where the air is cooler. I will shut off the alarm and kill the furnace. “I took a deep breath and made my way in. I shut off the alarm but had to make my way out immediately. I was bathed in sweat when I hit the minus forty air. I gulped huge lung full’s of air and sat on the step. “I can’t even hold the door open.” Ron said. He too was bathed in sweat. I made another dash and this time I killed the furnace. I returned outside, hugely relieved. “That’s killed the heat source. At least there is no more risk of fire.” We sat on the steps and cooled off. “It will take hours to cool down in there.” Ron said unhappily.” I have orders to do today. “I thought for a minute. “We could open the front and the back doors and turn on the fan.” I replied. The store was equipped with a huge fan that was meant to keep the place cool in summer. It didn’t but it kept the flies busy.
We waited twenty minutes for the temperature to drop a bit and walked in. It was like there had been a fire or something. I hadn’t considered what the high temperatures would do. There was a pool of molten shortening and lard on the floors in the grocery department. I picked up an Aero bar it was liquid inside the wrapper and dripped from the ends of the packaging. My mind paced. Every item in the store that had chocolate in it would have to be thrown out. Granola bars; chocolate bars, cookies lots of styuff went into the bin. But the shock I got when I opened the front door that morning was nothing compared to the shock I got when I opened the receiving doors. I had forgotten the favor we had done the night before.. I was trying to ventilate the place when I swung open the inner doors only to be confronted with what can only be described as “The blob that ate Fort Liard” for there in the previously unheated porch was a blob of bread dough eight feet high, ten feet wide and eight feet deep. As I opened the door it surged forward like a living thing. Which; because of the millions of yeast in it; it truly was. It flowed toward Ron and I; albeit it was a slow flow. We dashed back as a wall of dough slumped into the room and surged across the floor. We were up to our wastes in the stuff. The empty boxes stuck out of the mass like flotsam in some giant flood. “No one in head office is going to believe this!” I said looking at Ron. “I don’t believe this!” He said holding one foot in the air and picking dough out of his sock.
Our eyes met in one long glance and we realized how ridiculous each of us looked. We both began to laugh. We were standing up to our waists in bread dough roaring with laughter when my friend Rick, jack of all trades whom I had called to help fix the furnace, walked through the door. He looked at the two of us. He looked at the sea of bread dough. He shook his head. He turned and left. Ron and I laughed louder. Rick returned to the room. “I just had to be sure I wasn’t dreaming!” He added and he too began to laugh. Then we got snow shovels and dug a path to the receiving doors. We dug them out and opened them. The store was cooling off now. We pushed the bread dough onto the snow where it froze. Rick filled a dump truck with it using his Bobcat loader. We hauled “The Blob that ate Fort Liard” to the dump. Like I said no good deed goes unpunished. But look at it this way I am still telling that story over twenty years later, so it may have been worth it.

Friday, April 15, 2011

I am my own grandpa






Like most people I had two grandfathers, my father’s father and my mother’s stepfather. I had two very different relationships with these two men. My grandfather Turnbull, my father’s father is my own blood relative. I am named after him. My middle name Earl was his first name. I am very proud of that. I have very fond memories of him; on one knee holding his thumb between his forefingers saying “I got your nose.’” Somewhere there is a photo of us; taken on my parent’s front lawn. He is leaning on a rock hammer and I am pulling a plastic dump truck be bought me, on a string. Granddad had just demolished a boulder the size of a Volkswagen with that hammer and a bucket of water. He first built a fire around the rock (something you could never do in Halifax today) then he threw a bucket of cold water on the hot rock and it split into pieces. He broke the pieces up with the hammer and the huge rock went away. He was not a big man but he could take a big problem and make it go away with that kind of determined effort his generation took for granted. He was a gold miner so it was second nature to him to go right through solid rock.
I haven’t seen the actual photo for years. I have searched for it every year when I am home. But the image goes with me everywhere I go. We distinguished (my siblings and I) between the two men by what we called them. Grandfather Turnbull was granddad. Grandfather Lewis was grampy. Even though there is no blood between us I am proud of him too. He built boats with his bare hands. In his younger days he built thirty to forty footers. Cape Islanders they were called. He built them in shops barely big enough to hold them. I never saw him work on big boats but I watched my Uncle Andrew build similar boats and I was in awe of these me who turned living trees into living boats that would flex with the waves and bring their crews home safely on those savage north Atlantic storms.
But there was always a distance between Grampy and me and my siblings. In his old age he built little boats, many in glass cabinets. They were models of boats that he had built for real when he was young. Just like he had years before; he built the smaller models with care and patience. True; no one’s life depended on it any more, or did it… Maybe his life somehow depended on it. The detail on the good ones was incredible. He would look for tiny pieces to fashion the rigging; the davits, the life boats and the portholes. He sculpted and painted window putty the exact color green of an angry Atlantic. The models seemed to pitch and roll as their bigger brethren had. He breathed life into these tiny models as he had built flexibility into the full size boats that allowed them to survive the gale.



When I first typed the moniker “grampy” it came up in red. Windows™ did not recognize it as a word. It suggested some possibilities; the first among them was “grumpy”. Now this is particularly poignant and this was a nickname we used for grampy sometimes, under our breath of course, me and my siblings. It was not meant in mean spirits but it reflected our frustration with him as he dealt with his frustration with us. In the summers my parents would take a week and we would drive to Yarmouth; where my grampy and grammy lived. My mother’s mother was a wonderful lady. She was short and round and we loved to visit her. She always had ice cream for us from Cook’s dairy in two quart bricks that you sliced with a knife usually strawberry and served with fresh berries. In those days ice cream was still made with cream; it was wonderful. I remember her eating lemon wafers and drinking what she called “White Rose Tea” which was hot water and milk. When we stayed with them grampy would stay in the porch and build boats. We were not allowed to move. He would get agitated if we broke his concentration. In time we took to camping when we visited grammy and grumpy.
The problem with grandparents is that they tend to leave you before you are old enough to truly appreciate them and I think this was the case with grampy Lewis. I now have a hobby; an avocation (writing) that takes a good deal of concentration… Oh bother what is that noise. “Hey you kids, why don’t you play in someone else’s yard?’” Where was I … Oh yeah, writing takes a good deal on concentration, train of thought you know… “Oh for Pete’s sake… Hey you kids I’m trying to work; don’t you have parents?” I think in time I would have grown to understand grampy and his need for peace and quiet. “HEY KIDS QUIET!!!” I mean he was just a guy who had worked hard all his life who wanted to make a statement about his life and values and …

Oh my God! I am my own grandpa!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Will eReaders Kindle a need to read?



John Doull's in Halifax



First of all I am not a Luddite. What is a Luddite; you ask? Why you young whippersnappers. When I was your age I had to walk to school eight miles, uphill both ways. What is a whippersnapper anyways? Luddites were 16th century textile workers who often threw their sabots or wooden shoes into the wooden gears of the looms they were forced to work in order to intentionally damage them. This became known as sabotage. They were fighting the progress that was stealing the need for their talent and forcing them to accept a much lower standard of living. But I embrace change. I love gadgets. I own an eBook and an IPad and an IPod. I love them for what they are and what they can do. I love that you can download the latest book in seconds and often the old masters like Conan Doyle or Hemingway can be bought cheaply or even downloaded for free. I love that you can change font sizes, switch from single page to open book format and turn the backlight on and off. I love that you can have many books in one small device, eliminating the need to carry many heavy tomes. If you were; for example a businessman who enjoyed reading Harlequin romances you would not have to endure the disapproving glances of your fellow subway riders as the eBooks cover is totally generic. There is much to love about the new format. It’s shiny stuff attracts the jackdaw in me.
The eBook and the Kindle is only the latest format to come along in the modern; build a better mousetrap race to improve everything. There have been books on vinyl, books on tape, and books on CD. All of which had their followers. There may have even been books on 8 track, I don’t remember I was too busy blow drying my hair (yes I had hair) and gluing shag carpet onto the back dash of my Gremlin. I must confess that as much as I like to be thought of as the cool Uncle with the IPad. I also have a collection of books that fit into a different category. It has a lot going for it too. It requires no batteries, is recyclable, can be read in the bathtub and will not crash on you. They are called books on paper.
All right so I might be a bit of a Luddite. I once threw a pair of red plastic Crocks in the fan belt of my F-150 when it refused to start. I love BOOKS! I love the feel of a paperback in my back pocket, to be whipped out while riding on top of a wagon full of hay so I wouldn’t waste the five minute ride back to the barn. I loved leaning against a giant Oak on campus and stealing a few minutes from a busy school day to spend with anything other than required reading. I love the smell of new books their spines still tight and their pages crisp. I love the smell of old books their pages like cloth from repeated use. Used books and; ooooooooh, used book stores. I am drooling thinking of their cluttered stacks. Give me a good honest used book store any day. Like John W. Doulls on Barrington Street in Halifax. It is everything a used book lover could want. There are book shelves; to be sure, miles of them spread over two floors. But the books don’t end there. Books are over door frames and in piles in the aisles. There are boxes of new acquisitions in the front window, still unfiled. John is a man well suited to his calling he is bearded and bookish and ask him, just ask him for that coveted volume; that treasured tome. He will know exactly where to find it. In the world of used books I am a man with tunnel vision. When I approach most store owners cringe. They want customers with wide and varied interests. They wantmen and women who search the stacks with binoculars not a magnifying glass. They want multiple sales and wide interests. But they also need the guys like me. Guys like me who will shell out often more than a hundred bucks for the right book; albeit a very specific book.
I first crossed John’s path a fair many years ago. I had leant a copy of my favorite book to a friend and that friend had not returned to book. Now before you think my friend some sort of cad, some unfeeling bum let me explain. The book was what you might say less than great condition. It was a paperback copy of Fishing With Gregory Clark by the reporter and correspond ant Gregory Clark. It was the Totem Press edition and it had seen better days. Better days when it had been bleached by summer sun and soaked in spring rains. In battered my hip pocket while hiking back to the lake. It was stained with bug dope from days when the fish weren’t biting but the flies were. It’s pages were soft like cloth and it sort of wilted in your hand when you held it. It was tired but like I feel at the end of a long day, it must have been satisfied; proud, fulfilled. It had lived up to the promise of its’ author. It had provided me with countless hours of joy. I knew every story in it by heart. Stories like Bick’s Crick, The Purist or A Sportsman is One. When it was gone it was like a piece of me was gone.
My hopes were not high when I walked into Doullls. I made my way to the second floor where the sporting section was. I had spent a wonderful twenty minutes lost in the stacks of books. For books are everywhere here. They are on window sills and on door frames; in piles on the floors. The place smells, but not of must or even dust but of venerable age. It smells just the way a used/rare/antique book store should. When I handed my books to the lady clerk she said; matter-of-factly. “Did you find everything you were looking for?” “Well, no actually.” I replied a little hesitantly. She allowed her eyes to rise from the fly page she was penciling a selling price on as is the habit in the trade. “Oh?” she asked cocking an eyebrow. “I was looking for Fishing With Gregory Clark” I stated as if it were a can of Campbell’s soup. “Do you know it?” I asked. She did not; from the look on her face. It was then that I noticed John. He was standing behind her and he was beaming.”I do!” he said with some pride. I like a man who loves books. “Do you have it?” I asked hopefully. “I do.” He replied without the exclamation point. “There!” He pointed to a stack of boxes by the door. “Just arrived.” He whispered conspiratorially. “A widow clearing out her husband’s treasures.” He took the top off an apple box full of hardbound books. The revelation that it had come from a Widow did not surprise me. Clark had been a veteran of the First World War, a correspondent in the second and was one of the most widely read Canadians in the thirties, forties and Fifties. He had never retired not officially anyways. He died in his eighties about the time that I had discovered him. “First edition, hardcover with dust jacket.” John said proffering the book. I took it from him with reverence. It was like being handed the family Bible. I opened the cover. There was no notation yet on the fly leaf. John noted my glance and quickly added “I haven’t marked it yet.” “It is for sale?” I enquired. “They’re all for sale.” He said with a grin. “Seventeen dollars sound fair?” It did indeed and I nodded. John wasn’t finished. “You might be interested in these. He took three more books out of the box all hardcovers and all in as good condition. “I’ll do the three for forty five.” “Done.” I replied. He had sold four books in less than a minute.
There have been other memorable finds in Doull’s “Fun with Dick and Jane” for my wife. He would save many other copies of Greg Clark for me. I look for them every year. John has an inner sanctum where he keeps the good stuff. I have never been able to walk in but I have seen in when he has fetched a pricy piece of antique or collectable prose. The book is also an artifact. It has a story to tell that is writ large on it’s’ pages but not in ink; not leastways in the publisher’s ink. Books often bear inscriptions. Most are by their authors but also by people gifting a book to another. I have often found these moving or puzzling or both. An endorsement from a parent wishing that a child get as much joy from a book as they had; which begs the question “Did they?” An endorsement of a special book given on a special day; a graduation or a wedding or anniversary that leaves me feeling voyeuristic when I read it. There are sometimes student’s notes and underlined passages and I love to read these to see if the reader got the same thing out of the book or passage that I did. I often think of the widow who sold her husband’s books and how his once loved copies of Greg Clark had found a new and welcome home. I wonder what he would think of a second generation falling in love with the author’s works and would he be happy that they had found a good home. I once had to pack up the books and music of a deceased colleague and I could not help but feel a connection to a man I had never met because we owned so many of the same books and CDs. How that apple box was like a biography of that woman’s lost love. I wish I could have looked through it with more detail.
Very often I come across other artifacts in used books. So many things get used as book marks. I have found letters and bills, shopping lists and a photo of a child. I have found movie and theater tickets. One day I ran across Barrington in the rain while waiting for the bus. I bought a book from Doull’s and returned in time to catch the number ten Dartmouth which was always late when it rained. Inside the book was a bus ticket from exactly ten years earlier. It was for the very bus I was sitting on. Had someone read this very book on this very bus ten years ago that day? It sent a shiver down my spine. I once paid five bucks for a book only to find a ten dollar American bill inside the book. On another occasion in Doull’s I spotted a copy of “The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes” the exact edition that my beloved Grandmother had given me as a child. I had read it until it fell apart, and every other Holmes book that Conan Doyle had written. I scooped the book up with great joy and it still graces my bookshelf. It is a treasured memory of my Grammy.
None of this will ever happen with a Kindle or eReader. No one will hand their IPad to a friend when they are done with it, like they do a book. There will be no story written in the flyleaf of a Kindle. No tear stains on the pages. No poignant notes as bookmarks. I doubt the electronic media will kill the paper book no more than vinyl or books on tape did. They will do what they do best and hopefully spread the good word of great writers to a new generation. There is always a price for progress. The phone can keep you connected but it costs you some privacy. The jet plane gets you there faster but you lose some of the leisure of a trans-Atlantic voyage. Progress is good but I hope the new mousetrap does not kill the old one entirely. We still have the option to take a cruise or write a letter. Hopefully when I am dead and gone someone will walk into a used bookstore and ask for my copy of Fishing With Gregory Clark. Maybe there will be an owner like John whose eyes will sparkle when he opens the box. I promise the new owner not to cackle too loud when he or she opens the cover. There is nothing like good, old fashioned progress.