Greetings from Walk a Crooked Mile Books

October, 2010

Dear Friends,

     As always, there is much to report about what has been going on here in our little corner of the world and I'm delighted that it's all good news. We have had a marvelous concert season with 20+ mostly rain-free concerts, each with a different group or performer - the most we've ever had and perhaps one fourth of them are new to our series. And the money raised at last winter's Walk a Palooza concert funded the concerts, and thus gave us more breathing room to meet the shop's expenses and we've had a much more comfortable year. Thanks again for your support and stay tuned- we hope to announce a date for "Son of Walk a Palooza" this winter.

     Some of the federal government's stimulus money came our way in the form of funding for repainting our lovely 1882, Frank Furness designed building. The contractors were wonderful and really did a great job. It shamed us into retiring our furnishings, which really were well loved but shabby as the local squirrels pulled all the stuffing out of our chairs for use in their nest, and we were given and trash-picked a couple of great entrance chairs and a lovely bookshelf on which to display our books so we're looking pretty spiffy. Finally, we got some new sidewalks that allow visitors to avoid walking across the rough stone driveway and the sidewalks passed the flood control test in last week's storms with floating colors.

     We've also received some wonderful recognition in a variety of venues. I was touched to be given the Edgar A. Baker Community Service Award from the East Mt. Airy Neighbors. My goal has always been to enhance community and provide a place where recycled books and people can meet and I'm feeling pretty good that we may have found a way to do both. We also received national recognition as one of the six hidden treasures of Philadelphia on the CNN webiste. We were in pretty lofty company including the Morris Arboretum and the Rodin Museum. Wow!  We asked for your support in the My PHL Hot List Best of Philly and were in first place in the category of bookstores for a while but ended up in second -  guess we have to try harder.

     The biggest news of the summer is that my daughter Jesse returned home from Taiwan and in a lovely August wedding married Dan James, a Londoner, a huge Chelsea Football (that's what we call soccer) Fan, and a great guy. Jesse has found work at Welcoming Center of Pennsylvania teaching ESL and job skills to adult immigrants and Dan has been helping us move while scouting out the job scene in his social work field. If you know of any jobs, please let us know. He's a great worker. They've just rented an apartment nearby and we're delighted to have them close by.

    Cynthia and I did get a little vacation on a trip to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick with my sisters, and partners, who had come to the wedding. We had a great 5 day visit and trip and got rested and renewed before returning to face the task of moving out of our lovely home for the last four years, Glen Fern in the Wissahickon, where we've had the pleasure of being caretakers. The Park has found a lessee and we have been moving like crazy people. Needless to say we had filled the house with lots of books and we've now rented a 10X20 storage place which I think will fill with books. Thus, we haven't been accepting donations or trade credit books and won't until November. We were invited by Cynthia's 88 year old mom , Dorothy, to move in to her third floor and have, in fact, moved enough furniture that we're now living in the wonderful "Mt. Airy Village" community, by Weaver's Way Coop, in Dorothy's house on Carpenter Lane.

     Which brings us to now: BOOktober, (which our staff etymologist came across in one of our dustier tomes, -it's the Olde English name for this month which marked the thinning of the book crop.)

We're celebrating with our traditional 30% OFF, ALL BOOKS, ALL OCTOBER,

TWO HUMONGOUS YARD SALES,                     

SAT.  OCT. 9          &    SAT. OCT 23,        

with a couple of new twists,

LONGER HOURS 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.   &     

FREE MUSIC with a reprise of some of our summer acts,

& a BOOK TALK ON SAT. OCT. 16 at 1 p.m. Details on all these events can be found in our October Calendar. Check them out.

Finally we'll end with a variant on the Olde English: BooooOctober, with our traditional Trick or Treating at which we'll ask all of our costumed guests, "Would you like candy or a free book?" Bring out your costumes, and your kids!

Hope all is well with you. We hope to see you at one of our events or during the day filling your arms with our wonderful, and for this month, 30% cheaper books. 

Fondly, Greg and Cynthia                  and C.C. who is  tired of being asked if she's pregnant. She's curvaceous. And that box was already broken when she lay down on it !