The book seller (3/7/2023)
He must have been in his mid-fifties when I knew him, and I only knew his last name. I doubt if anyone knew his first name.
Let’s call him Mr. N. He owned a small bookstore on the corner of a busy street. It was an old building and you had to go up two steps to the entrance.
He specialized in antique and vintage books with emphasis on local art and history. It was the to-go place for people who were looking for something specific.
The place used to be a house, and as such it still had different areas which used to be the living room, bedrooms and such. The small kitchen was still there, with just enough space left for the coffee maker.
Moving from one section to the next could be a challenge. The place was always jam packed. There were not enough shelves to hold all books and tall stacks of them were all over the floor. One wrong move and you would topple one of those piles.
Terrible ads (2/14/2023)
Regularly I visit Craigslist and Facebook to check if there is anything for sale that may be of interest to me.
And often I shake my head when I see poorly worded ads that lack essential information, ads full of spelling- and grammatical mistakes accompanied by photos that are so bad that you really cant even see what the item is.
Just yesterday I saw someone offering a Nikon. That’s it, no mentioning that it is a DSLR camera with a lens. No model, age, condition. For the amount of $500 you may expect all the relevant information to be provided.
The seller probably doesn’t even realize that the post will not show up in the results when someone does a search on the keyword ‘camera’.
And at the same time, it is clear that the seller is either completely ignorant or plain lazy by not wanting to put any effort in to it.
I remember Anna. (1/12/2022)
Anna and I went to school together from 1960 to 1966.
She lived less than half a mile away and outside school I saw her frequently as well, partly because I sometimes hung out with her brother.
She was a cute blonde with a spritely personality, and I have to admit that I had feelings for her. But what does that mean when you are twelve years old?
Then we started going to different schools and she disappeared from sight. A few times I saw her from a distance, she might never have noticed my presence.
In 1968 we moved to a different town and that was it. I never saw her or heard from her again.
Just a few days ago I found a Facebook group about the history of the small town we had lived for only ten years. Somehow it felt that it had been a lot longer.
Don’t trust your tools (1/4/2023)
My dad was in his shop adding a shelf to a small cabinet.
He measured the inside of the cabinet, then measured the board and cut it off with the hand saw. I expected it to fit perfectly, after all, he was a skilled carpenter and woodworker.
To my surprise he had cut it half an inch too short. I think it was the first time I had seen him make a mistake like that. He shook his head.
Luckily he had another piece of wood that would work, and he went through the same routine. Measuring the cabinet, measuring the board and making the cut.
Again, it was half an inch too short. He couldn’t believe it and mumbled something about getting senile.
Then suddenly it struck me, he had used two different tape measures. May be one of them was off.
