Rick Simonson

Going Nowhere New, Being Somewhere Else
August 10, 2007

Ours is a store that has a summer trade which, in part, is markedly different from the rest of the year. It can also vary year to year, depending on who is getting here and how. The introduction a few years of large cruise-ships, which venture from here up to Alaskan waters and back, was a marker of one sort, bringing a wider array of people from the U.S. to town, and through our doors. On the other hand, the movement away from Seattle - a dock just down a block from us - of the actual old Alaska ferry, a regular working boat, meant a loss of a kind. Though tourists rode it, plenty were the residents from up north who would come in, load up a box or two, and say, See you next year.

At that, allowing for the quirks of weather that have one wondering as to whether summer has come, is coming, or has gone, depending (this year) on the week, there are other markers of the season. Like a boom, almost, starting last week and then apparent from the get-go with this past Monday, it was clear it was August. August is a distinct month in the pantheon of the warmer season. No, it's not about back-to-school sales. August is when the people from other countries come. Do they.

It is always bracing and exciting. Walking through the store, you hear languages and accents, see families of one world or another, sometimes distinguishable, sometimes not. One moment it's a couple who say they live in nearby Gig Harbor, asking if their visiting nephew can take some photos. Ah, where is your nephew from? Tehran ... and his family has a bookstore. Meet the nephew, get more of the story - it's still more his father's doing than his, though he has aspirations - and here, on his digital camera, shots of the store back home. Posh and tony it is, more so than ours. It looks like something that could be anywhere of a similarly upscale carriage-trade store, only that the women in the photos are in more black than they might be elsewhere.

The tidal surge of people coming through means not only more people simply in the store, but people coming from other perspectives, with other opportunities. The result can be the shopping through of titles, or sections, at a clip those sections don't always see. There was a woman the other day from London, here for a conference, who made herself laden with all sorts of Jungian titles, some of the Princeton Bollingen books (the hardcovers), which had been languishing a bit.

Another change in recent years is that more people are finding their way here who don't speak much, if any English. Places such as New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas have experienced forever. Now it's happening more in a place such as this. Again, the charm, whether we have someone on staff (or by phone) who can communicate, or not. I once used my pseudo-Spanish and French - getting them mixed at that - to try and direct two Italian women to a nautical supply store that sold detailed, seaworthy charts for sailing the Inside Passage. I think they got there, eventually.

One also becomes aware of how many people here - and so many elsewhere in the U.S. now - still have close family ties - the grandmother in Germany, the whole family from India, the mother in southern France, the brother in England. A summer or two ago, a woman I assumed was making a first visit - the German accent was heavy - brought up a stack for purchase, and with it, laid down one of our book cards. You've been here before? I asked. Every year, she said, I always come to see my grandchildren, and I always come to this bookshop. The funny thing in that moment was that she was the third German grandmother I'd helped in three days. I wondered if Germany knew this.

Posted by Rick Simonson on August 10, 2007 | Comments (1)