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For almost 15 years, I was owner/partner/operator
of the Village Bookshop in Hudson, Quebec. I miss all my bookstore friends, the give-and-take of a small-town business, the
heated discussions, the author events. I always considered my mandate was to provide a meeting-place for book-lovers, a community
within a community. I hope to continue this sense of warmth, participation and community on my website. Your contributions
are very welcome, and I will set aside lots of webspace for your writings.
In starting the ball rolling with my own
piece below, I can't wait until these pages are filled with your personal stories, rants, reminiscences, book reviews, etc.,
etc!
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An experience I would like to live through again…
For
as long as I can remember, my dream had been to have my own bookstore. Even while this dream was still vague and unformed,
and had not coalesced into something concrete, the signs were all there. As a kid, like so many others during the late fifties
and early sixties, I had delivered newspapers. The only thing is, even from a young age, I spent much more time actually reading
the papers than delivering them! Even then however, I got a real ‘charge’ as I deposited a paper at each home on my route,
imagining my customers waiting in anticipation to learn what had been going on in the world over the past hours or day. Sure,
it was great to have that spending money, but it was even better to be a small part of the great ‘news drama’ – sometimes
I even imagined myself as a big city newsboy, barking out the headlines on a busy street corner. (In reality, I was painfully
shy and self-conscious.) Then it was on to selling magazine subscriptions, glossy monthlies published by the Curtis Publishing
Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Whenever I addressed the envelopes and carefully sent out the proceeds of my hard work,
Philadelphia seemed so impossibly remote and romantic.
I began spending a lot of my time in the local town library,
discovering wonderful science fiction/fantasy writers like Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and of course,
Ray Bradbury. Since the kind ladies working at the War Memorial Library in Hudson, Quebec, saw me spending so much time there,
I suppose they must have though that it might make sense to recruit me, so they asked me to volunteer on Saturdays. This soon
became the highlight of my week, because during school hours, I constantly felt like the class misfit (‘Cosmo’, my classmates
nicknamed me, and so many times I just wanted to vanish into the pages of Ray Bradbury’s “Martian Chronicles.”) However, working
at the library, I was in my proper domain…I knew books, loved handling them, smelling them, shelving them and helping people
find the right book. Finally, I was in my element.
Over the years, from adolescence through my wandering and university
student days, almost any work, part or full-time that I found, had something to do with purveying information or knowledge.
This was true whether I was lugging projectors and film around for the Instructional Communications Centre at McGill, working
at the circulation desk at Dalhousie University Library and Halifax Public Library, flogging books and student paraphernalia
at Maritime Campus Bookstore, or working my way from cashier to district Manager with Coles Bookstores. However, towards the
end of my eight-year stint with Coles, I did develop the habit of muttering under my breath, “I ain’t goin’ to work in Jack’s
(Jack Cole, founder of Coles Bookstores) stores no more…”, to the tune of Bob Dylan’s “I ain’t goin’ to work on Maggie’s Farm
no more.” After leaving Coles, I spent another seven years travelling up and down the Trans Canada Highway (with countless
detours along the way) between Ottawa and Halifax, working as a publishers’ sales agent in a business I had started.
By
the winter of 1990, I was ready for a change. For several weeks, I had noticed a ‘For Rent’ sign placed in the window of a
small (300 square feet) retail location in the local IGA small-town mini-mall. I kept imagining this window, illuminated by
floodlights, displaying tempting books of every description. Inside the mall, I would peer through the panes of glass in the
rustic wooden door, imagining every available square inch of space within filled with bookshelves, themselves crammed with
books. Eventually, all this imagining and dreaming were not enough, so I approached the manager of the IGA, Mike Poirier.
This was a family business, with Mike running the store and mall, and his father, Raymond, overseeing the whole operation.
As soon as Mike opened the door and we both stepped in to this lovely little pine-trimmed room, I had already decided! “Are
you sure that you don’t want to take some time to think it over?” “What’s there to think about?” I replied. “You’re like me,
John…when something feels right to you, you go for it!”
I signed the lease in March, and began to work feverishly pouring
over lists of books, lining up suppliers, placing orders (and, with trembling hands, writing cheques from my modest resources),
adapting IKEA shelves and counters…all the myriad details that must be taken care of, whether your business is 300 square
feet or 30,000 square feet. I had set myself an opening date in mid-May, and worked right up until 2AM of that day, with a
couple of helpers, shelving the last of the books and doing all the finishing touches. I had placed a large ad - which almost
proved to be the final blow to my bank account - in the local paper which came out the day before my opening. I fretted constantly
for days, “I’m sure nobody will see the ad….if they do see it, they won’t care about a new bookstore…I’ll be broke within
a month and my family out on the street, it’ll all be my fault…”
Lo and behold however, there were several people waiting
to enter the store at 9:30AM opening day, and the day was filled with a constant stream of well-wishing customers. The owner
of the video-store across the hall cast wistful glances in my store’s direction all day; the town now had a single bookstore,
but my neighbour knew all too well that, of the three local video stores, his seemed the least likely to survive.
By
closing time that first day, I was exhausted but absolutely elated – I had proved all the doomsayers wrong! Over the fifteen
years that followed, no matter how many hours I put in each week, I never lost that original pride, satisfaction and excitement
at being a bookseller. I would love to experience my bookstore’s opening day again, and live through all the emotions that
were the culmination of years of dreaming and imagining.
John Kozakiewicz
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