I wandered into the Home Furnishing’s Section of the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Queensbury, and found the offerings touching. People don’t seem to throw away or give away too much furniture, so the clothing aisle’s are full and the old TV’s and cushions sparse. I try and picture the people who used these things. I saw no computers of any kind, no hard-cover or relatively new books.
In America, the economists and politicians have decided that rural life – farms, small businesses, doctor’s offices, towns – are inefficient, and don’t fit well into the new global and corporate economy, so they are dying, emptying out as schools empty out, sons and daughters are forced into bad jobs in cities, and work, post offices and farms vanish. It seems doubtful you will hear about this on the campaign trail. It seems to not be as important as wars and politics.
In rural America, there are often few restaurants, but every small town has a Thrift Store, sometimes two, among the few remaining entities than can compete in their own sphere with Wal-Mart or Lowe’s or Appleby’s. For me, these stores are testaments to the lives of the people who bring offerings here. There is a powerful impulse in rural life to share good fortune, and people often talk about cleaning up their homes and bringing stuff to the nearest Thrift Store. For me, these stores are sometimes fun – bargain hunting – and sometimes seem haunting to me.
If you are open to new experience, new experience finds you. In my time in Washington County, I’ve been drawn into the world of my farm, into the powerful struggle of dairy farms, county fairs, the world of livestock, hospice work, the Adirondacks.
Now, in my life with Maria, I have been drawn into what is for me the curious world of Thrift Stores, a key element in the struggling rural economy, and an important part of my wife’s life. They have their own niche, bigger than boutiques, smaller than department stores, places that institutionalize the American pastime, the pursuit of the bargain. Places that give poor and struggling families a chance to clothe themselves. This morning we went to the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Queensbury, N.Y., and my fascination with these places deepens. These “stores” defy class – you see rich and poor people there. Maria has been shopping in Thrift Stores for much of her life, sometimes because she had no money, sometimes because she loves bargains, sometimes because it fits her artistic notions of dress, and most recently, in search of material for her quilts, pillows and potholders.
Tomorrow we are heading to another store in Schuylerville. I always want to go along, partly because I love being with Maria, and in part because I want to take photos that try and capture the eerie, lonely, sometimes frantic atmosphere of these places. Veteran Thrift Store shoppers tear down the aisles like buzzards on a country road, picking the racks clean. Maria scored this morning, an armful of future fiber art for $16. I heard a father telling a clerk that he needed to clothe his two young daughters, as they wanted to go to a party and he had been out of work for a year. Behind him, a well-dressed suburban matron was plowing through the women’s dresses aisle, hauling out dresses to try on.
On this grey day, in this place, it seemed sad to me, and the photos reflected that. I will keep hanging out in these intriguing places.
Two years ago, Frieda was locked up in the barn because she tried to eat all of the animals and dogs on the farm. Now she is my writing dog, taking up position outside my office and making sure I am not disturbed. I have never felt safer or more protected. She likes being by the wood stove, too, a far cry from her time wandering in the Adirondacks.
I am beginning to focus on my E-book initiative. First,an E-book original, “My Life With Rose.” I am also mulling some video bedtime stories for kids from the farm. Toots, the strange hen might be the first. I’m doing the E-Book with Random House, but I like the idea of doing smaller, quicker books on my own, charging perhaps $1.50. I like the Ipad App approach – low price, high volume. The blog and the photos would, of course, remain free, and the main focus of my writing will be paper books (which will also be sold as e-books.)
I do not share the view that e-books threaten writing in any way. I concede they threaten my income, although not my readership. And they have helped spark a revolutionary return to story-telling among all kinds of people, all age groups. Many of those people are turning to brick-and-mortar bookstores for information and community. This cannot be bad for writers or writing. I do not even begin to comprehend the notion that e-books are not books. The form and content of stories have been changing for centuries. I love the story, not the technology it comes in. For those who say they are old-fashioned and want paper books, I would say, great, then get them, as I do. But I am in awe of any technology that brings my work into people’s homes and living rooms in a minute for less than $10. It hurts my checkbook, but stirs the heart of this writer. A miracle.
My decision is not to ever whine about Amazon or tablets, but to get going creatively, and make sure my work is something people want. That’s my job in the information revolution, and to present it in any form people wish to receive it. I don’t need to take sides, and this is not a battle in my mind. I love my Ipad and I love my bookstore, and spend money on both.
It will not, I think, be one or the other, but both. It does not need to be a battle of choices and lifestyles. Nobody, I think, will have to choose between one or the other.
That’s my game plan as a writer, and I will share this new chapter with you, paper and digital.
Thursday, I went to the Battenkill Bookstore to prepare a video of Connie and Marilyn talking about their astonishing holiday season – best ever for the store – looking ahead to 2012, to more projects together, and to Connie and Marilyn’s own ideas and feelings about running a small independent bookstore. I’ve been encouraging Connie, as she points out, to use her blog to bring all of us into the experience of running a bookstore today.
Both of these women are trying to make sense of the Battenkill Experiment, something all of us are trying to sort out. Connie says the experience has redefined her notions of community. I see it as an affirmation of individual creativity. Like having a farm, many people thinking running a bookstore is a simple fantasy, and a perfect life. There are wonderful things about both, and very challenging things, and Connie is resolved to begin telling that story. Marilyn is also thinking about her role – perhaps doing more book reviews and commentaries. She projects very well on the small screen. In addition, a number of local writers – me and Jenna Woginrich of Cold Antler Farm to begin with, are working with Connie to steer our readers to her store, as often as possible. I’m working to see that my E-book Original on Rose can be sold on Connie’s website.
The challenge, then, is to keep the Battenkill Experiment going, to make it a permanent, not a seasonal, reality.
I loved the video – nearly brought me to tears, really – and I couldn’t bear to edit it much, so it’s a bit over five minutes long, one of the longest I’ve done. It’s worth it, for what is says about courage, individuality, community and the great challenge in contemporary American for institutions like bookstores and people like Connie (and me, too, I suppose) to survive in the corporate nation. You all do want to deal with human beings, and support them. Bookstores don’t have to disappear, you all have proven that.
So come and see and hear for yourself. I don’t think you will regret the time.
