The Ramblings of Weesatch Joe

  This is the companion piece to "Books Have Their Own Stories to Tell." And, for the record, I really do like Edna St. Vincent Millay.  When Edna St. Vincent Came for a Visit It was a typical Tuesday: slow, after Monday's rush. Only two customers had come in since we had opened two hours earlier. I was sitting at the desk, taking care of some paperwork and considering which stack of new trade-ins to attack when the phone rang. The woman on the other end of the line said she was cleaning out her mother’s things; there were a couple boxes of old books, would I be interested in looking at them for purchase? Yes, I said, when should I expect her?   She said she would come by after lunch, maybe closer to two, and she hung up without saying goodbye. When she arrived, somewhere between lunchtime and two, she had two small Lowes’ moving boxes, each about half full of books. I glanced at the titles on top; would she prefer to browse while I prepared the offer or come back lat...

A friend owned a small bookstore and, in the course of a conversation with her about the books that came to and left from her store, this idea came to mind. I cannot remember, now, if this story was my idea that I pitched to her, or if it was something she experienced. Perhaps it was a little bit of both. That said, this story in no way represents her, her words, or opinions.  I actually had the idea of a whole series of stories told from the perspective of a book and wrote one such piece (it follows this one). Maybe, someday, another book will speak to me and I will tell its tale, too. JFM Books Have Their Own Stories to Tell Once upon a time, there was a woman who owned a bookstore. When the local paper did a story on small businesses in the community, the store was described as “quaint.” At first, she was disappointed by the moniker. Quaint described the Red Hat Society. Tea parties with cucumber sandwiches and Gingerbread houses with swaybacked roofs are quaint . But wh...