Rick Simonson

Back from the Heartland
July 21, 2008

People in Seattle were acting as though it was high summer as I made it back home from a 5-day Nebraska trip - to the resumption of fall buying seaon (the end in sight) - even though with the temperature 20 degrees cooler and the air several pounds lighter, it felt more as though autumn was being arrived at. (Truth be told, when I was in Elliott Bay's neighborhood the first day back, I wasn't entirely sure I was back in Seattle. The Red Sox were in town to play Seattle's woeful Mariners at nearby (to Elliott Bay) Safeco Field. Maybe my flight had gone awry. Was this Boston then? Were Beacon Press and David Godine and what's left of Houghton there here? Carol Horne, are you nearby?)

Before leaving Lincoln and some good family visiting (no small part of it about books and reading), there had been a return visit to Lee Booksellers (www.leebooksellers.com) in south Lincoln. A copy of Birds of Nebraska had been eyeballed - and left for use. Another copy was needed. As much as I can say anything about Lee's, it was hearing from cousins and an uncle about the service there - how helpful and good it was, from finding the right thing on the shelves there, to ordering something that wasn't in. They also frequented some of the signings.

Time in Lincoln did allow for some other meandering. In the continuing 'dialogue' that seems to go on, within stores and amongst them, about the place of books v. sidelines, an extreme case in favor of the latter has to be the Nebraska Bookstore. My best frame of reference for a store like this - apart from the campus but near it - is Seattle's venerable University Bookstore (www.ubookstore.com). The store has departments - electronics, office supplies, and the ubiquitous 'Husky' merchandise - but it also is very clearly and evidently a trade bookstore, Seattle's largest. It's the most visible dominant part of the main store - and the numerous branches.

The word 'bookstore' in the Nebraska Bookstore seems akin to the word 'record' still being in the same of stores that sell music, or using the word 'dial' to make a phone call - when a rotary phone is seldom what's used nowadays. You have to do some looking to find books in the joint.

Walk in the front door, and allowing for a magazine stand and convenience/impulse items, it's Nebraska Cornhusker regalia as far as the eye can see. How many t-shirts, how many items of possible apparel and under-apparel ...

I have been in there before (have even bought a t-shirt), but I've also gone in looking for books. I went upstairs, where for years, they had been (a University Bookstore and Elliott Bay alum, Mary Hambly, had once been found working there). This time, no trade books: more Cornhusker stuff and some textbooks. I peeked in the basement. There? No, that was where they kept Go Big Red furniture (!) - La-Z-Boys, recliners, couches ... you name it. 

Finally, peripheral vision at work: there on the north side of the main floor, some items not to be folded, nothing S, M, L, XL, XXL, or XXXL about them: books. Not many and not a particularly robust display ... I was tempted to get something just to show ... but finally meekly meandered out.

I sauntered west, if sauntering is possible in humid, 95-degree, late afternoon warmth. A few blocks that way is Lincoln's Haymarket District, a small neighborhood of century-old brick buildings, most having done service as warehouses. This is Lincoln's 'old town' neighborhood, for many years now the source of enterprising store, cafe, and restaurant owners. Good independent coffee places (The Mill), several pleasant-looking bars and taverns (something cold for days such as this), shops selling both the imported (Ten Thousand Villages) and the local (Made from Nebraska), the latter being big into Nebraska-produced wines.

A funny link or resemblance of this district in Lincoln to LoDo in Denver and Pioneer Square in Seattle: they are similar in composition, after years of neglect, the reclaimed old brick buildings; the train station is there; there are sports stadiums (of more recent vintage) proximate (Coors Field for Denver, Safeco and Qwest Fields for Seattle, Lincoln's sweet little Haymarket Park for independent league and college baseball and the nearby football stadium for the University of Nebraska). LoDo has a Tattered Cover; Pioneer Square has Elliott Bay, Seattle Mystery, Wessel & Lieberman, and Globe Books.

Lincoln? Thanks to a little sign (We've Moved) posted in the Mill coffee shop, I wandered into newly relocated Bluestem Books (www.bluestembooks.com). Newly relocated it may be, but this gem of a shop - over 40,000 (mostly) used books, beautifully displayed - was an eye-opener. Owners Scott and Pat Wendt have had this going for over thirty years, the past twenty-four of them in a storefront which had been even more in the heart of the Haymarket district than I had known. Driven out of that locale by a road construction project, they're still on the outskirts of the neighborhood - and much more visible to the idle passerby (such as myself). Great regional, Native American, and natural history selections seem to be the heart of the store, but the art sections look strong and the literature sections, too - there's a Marguerite Duras assortment of titles that exceeds what most any serious bookstore would have.

It was a great and fitting way to wind this little trip down - some books for family in Lincoln, a copy of the University of Nebraska Press' Lushootseed Texts: An Introduction to Puget Salish Narrative Aesthetics to bring a  little home home, and why not - a nice French, or sky blue t-shirt. 

Posted by Rick Simonson on July 21, 2008 | Comments (0)