Old Bookstore Memories

 

Today I would like to pay tribute to two local used bookstores that exist only as memories now, but, oh, what great memories those are! I suppose (or I would hope) that all young readers had such places, stores that would allow them to browse and dream and explore (at very little expense and therefore all the more available) new (and old) avenues of literature. There were two such places in our area, both owned by retired men who smoked pipes and both of which seemed to be run not so much to make money but as a means to keep busy, in a low-key kind of way. And we kids profited in so many ways from such a business strategy.

The first was called Half Price Books (not the huge chain store – and it was really half-off of whatever the original price was on the cover), a small one-room building not far from the town’s Jack-in-the-Box, broiling in summer, chilly in winter, with a cement floor, two shaded windows, and two doors, filled to the gunwales with books. Tall shelves with narrow aisles navigable by only one person at a time. It was run by a white-bearded old gentleman we called Half at first, though we later came to know him as Captain Frank Armstrong (now there’s a name for you!). We came to buy so often he would greet us with a familiar, “Hello, boysh!” He also sold soda out of a little cooler behind his counter, and that helped mitigate the summer days; it was here I was introduced to the joys of a cold Peach Nehi.

It was also here that we brothers could indulge our growing interests, Mike his Hemingway and Faulkner, John his Bradbury and horror fiction. This is where I bought many a Ballantine Books Adult Fantasy volume, curated by Lin Carter, introducing me to Mervyn Peake, E. R. Eddison, Peter S. Beagle, and the like. It was here I found my improbable copy of “The Pedant and the Shuffly”, my embarrassing Avon edition of “Jurgen”, and my 1963 paperback “The Sword in the Stone”, the Disney movie tie-in, which, since it was originally sold for fifty cents, only cost me a quarter. We would return home with our hauls and the rest of the afternoon could be spent reading and gloating over our finds.

The other outlet for used books was called Yesterday’s Warehouse, and it lived up to the name. An enormous steel-frame building, divided into a small office, a cavernous room filled with rambling shelves, a seldom-visited upper floor covering a third of that space, and enormous garage doors, front and back, that were opened in summer to catch the breeze. It was run by a retired dentist (I don’t recall if I ever heard his name [John now reminds me it was Kimble{sp?} and that does ring a bell]) and occasionally presided over by his ancient mother when he couldn’t be there. While Half was predominantly paperbacks, Yesterday’s Warehouse was mainly hardcovers, and also featured various gimcrackery items of an interesting nature.  I bought a set of monk book-ends, a small bookcase in the shape of a clock, and many National Geographic maps there. But the main feature was the books, of course. You could go in with $20 and expect to leave with a tall grocery bag full.

Notable volumes I found there were T. H. White’s “The Book of Beasts” and “Mistress Masham’s Repose”, a set of 1928 Books of Knowledge, G. K. Chesterton’s “The Coloured Lands”, "The Little Grey Men", and Bellairs’ “The House with a Clock in Its Walls”.

  Yesterday’s Warehouse was an interesting location in that it was a place even Pop enjoyed visiting and didn’t mind taking us; in fact, I believe it was he who discovered it! A lovely place to spend a couple of hours in, browsing, comparing one’s finds, and then returning home to add to your growing book hoard.

Perhaps these bookstores were too good to last. First, Half Price was effectively over when Captain Armstrong left; it limped along for years with another owner and location and was never the same. Then Yesterday’s Warehouse was shut up, I never knew why. Now the nearest used bookstore is over thirty miles away in San Marcos (which since publishing this post I know find has closed!), and that is part of a national chain. While it is good enough and supplies a fine selection of books (it's even air-conditioned, of course), it has none of the lazy, louche, and informal charm of those beautiful old monsters. I pity those growing up (as I pity myself now) who do not have such a place in their hometown.