Fair’s Fair “For Book Lovers”

What could have been

But never was

Was never meant to be.

One of the great things about the book business is all the situations and possibilities it presents.

The lady who came in yesterday was a new customer looking for a book for a 10 year old boy, hoping to get him interested in reading.

Right away my mind went to what I was reading at that long ago stage of my life and leapt blithely past the obvious – 10 year olds nowadays have been exposed to much more than I had by a similar age.

I told her the joy of my discovery of Jack London’s Call of the Wild at age 13 and that after I had devoured all of his books I continued to read dog stories for a couple of years.

I don’t know why things happen at all, let alone why things happen at a particular time, but I’m happy I happened to be in the book store, and available to chat with her, when she came in.

Naturally, she purchased an annotated version of Call of the Wild but wouldn’t the greater gift to her son be to bring him in and have him pick out a book of his own choosing? At the very least, I should have made that suggestion and I will be kicking myself about not doing so everytime I think about it.

To myself, I later recalled my first real exposure to books was a couple of years earlier when I came down with measles while attending Sunalta School and received a care package of bundles of books from my fellow students. The memory had almost been erased from my mind but now I am touched by what the teacher who instigated the gift and the students who participated so openheartedly gave me.

Is that what started my love and appreciation for books? Up until that time I have no memories of a book in our home. Why was the memory lost all these years only to be recaptured by this lady’s query?

The lady gave a total stranger the gift of a quixotic memory – I am truly thankful but it is a thanks tinged with the regret I did not better serve her and her son’s  best interests.