Last week was a record breaker, albeit not much of a one. I actually posted here four days in a row. But then the weekend came and, for once, I succumbed to life’s summer pleasures. That isn’t to say that there weren’t books involved – there’s almost always books involved – but I was barely in my office for two whole days.
Saturday morning found my friend Nancy and me strolling in the sunshine around Medina’s picturesque town square (which Nancy calls Star’s Hollow with a nod to the Gilmore Girls), reusable shopping bags slung over our shoulders, perusing the organic produce at the town’s weekly Farmer’s Market. Ever since I read Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle last summer my awareness of food chemicals and the carbon footprint left by the importation of produce has strengthened my resolve to buy local and organic as much as possible. Blue potatoes, purple peppers, heirloom tomatoes (a rhapsody in red),tiny strawberries that explode with flavor, thornless blackberries the size of your thumb, fresh baked breads and pies, homemade jams….. What to choose? What to choose? I ended up with a loaf of whole wheat bread, two heads of Bibb lettuce, a mixed lot of heirloom tomatoes, green and purple peppers and a paper bag brimming with green beans, all of which inspired more than sustenance cooking two nights in a row – another record! Suffice it to say that Eric very much likes it when the bookseller cooks.
Maybe that’s why he was up and ready to roll to the Medina flea market at seven a.m. Sunday morning.(See? I told you there were books involved!) I love this flea market, but sadly, it’s become the Incredible Shrinking Flea Market. The winds of change -- oh, how I hate the winds of change -- have blown in favor of a monster flea market in Litchfield that I wouldn’t go to even if it meant never going to a flea market again. Call me a flea market snob (Eric does), but I do not care to walk over rocks to peruse cut-rate canned goods and dilapidated garage junk in hopes of ferreting out hidden treasures. Anyway, there was a day when the Medina flea market was so amazing that in 2003 I bought Vinton’s Anatomical Model of the Mare for the bargain price of $50. I’ll tell you – the angels sang THAT morning. And not just a couple angels either. We’re talking whole choirs. Seraphim AND cherubim.
Well, there’s nothing like that these days, but every once in awhile I find a nice vintage catalog or a decent book or two. This time I immediately bought a good railroad book and a very good railroad book from the same guy. I’d had the latter once before, so I knew that a mint signed first edition was a good buy. After that though it sl-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-wed to a crawl, so much so, that I left Eric sorting through old tools while I went ahead in hopes of a finding a big box of paper items to entertain me. Alas, I did not. I was about to find him and suggest we head to Hinckley and walk around the lake at the Metro Park when he caught up with me and immediately pointed out a box of books under a table.
“Did you look through those?” he asked.
“Yes, but there wasn’t……" And then I saw it. "OH! Tell me that's what I think it is!”
I’d looked at the low-end needlework books maybe five minutes before, but since then they’d sold a few and the dealer had added a couple new ones. There, second from the top, I spied the queen of knitting books,the goddess of knitting books, the BIBLE of knitting books! And in first edition, near fine with a very good dustjacket. For the ridiculous sum of two dollars I bought it and we departed for Hinckley.
No angels visited us Sunday morning, but the lake sparkled in the sun and choruses of birds warbled sweetly. I couldn't swear to it, but I'm pretty sure their morning hymn was Beethoven's Ode To Joy.
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