Endings

I apologize in advance for the length of this post. I got a little nostalgic while writing it and had trouble putting on the brakes.

Thursday night we went to Borders for possibly the last time ever, depending on how long their going-out-of-business sale lasts. When I walked in, I was hit with that unique new-bookstore scent (which is different from the equally lovely used-bookstore scent), that combination of brand new books and coffee. It was like going to a wake: I'd see an employee who looked mournful, then I'd hear other employees joking with each other and laughing and I'd want to grab them and say, "Don't you know what's HAPPENING here? How can you laugh at a time like this?" But of course they know what's happening. They're losing their jobs and are coping with it however they can.

The day Borders opened, I remember wandering around the store in a daze. This was the largest selection of new books we had in town: obviously bigger than Waldenbooks, bigger than the indie store downtown, and bigger than Hastings, which used most of its floorspace for CDs and DVDs.

"I'm just so happy," I remember saying to Adam, who was perusing the periodical rack. All these books at my fingertips! And the store had a coffee shop where I could sit for hours on end, leafing through books and magazines, deciding at leisure which ones I wanted to buy!

Throughout my years in graduate school, I spent hours at Borders. I still spent plenty of time at the other bookstores in town, too--they were fairly spread out and each was convenient depending on where my errands took me on any particular day. But Borders started to become my favorite place to go. For one thing, they were open late. I could take my homework there, settle down in the cafe, and make quite a bit of progress before they made their "store closing" announcement. They carried my favorite magazines and had a good selection of both fiction and nonfiction in my areas of interest. They also had excellent bargain sections, where I could almost always find something interesting for a good price. I hardly ever left Borders without buying something. Oh, who am I kidding? I hardly ever leave ANY bookstore without buying something!

This was our second trip to Borders since they announced they were going out of business. On our first visit, I ran into a longtime manager of our local store who'd also worked at the Waldenbooks at the mall for several years.

"What are you going to do now?" I asked.

He replied that he would work on his resume, but he was hoping the Borders gig would last well into September. We chatted for a little longer--he remembered me from my college days, when I would spend every penny of my disposable income at Waldenbooks. He talked about the staff at his Borders store, about how they were truly experts in their fields. The manager of the children's department, for example, had a master's degree in library science; and a former history professor worked in the nonfiction department. He seemed upbeat for the most part, but as our conversation wound down, his face drooped a little. "This is a sad day," he said.

Apparently our local Borders was in the top 50 for sales, which didn't surprise me. This is a college town, and the store was almost always busy when I was there. When I was in graduate school, this town had four bookstores that sold new books--Waldenbooks, Hastings, Borders, and an independent bookstore downtown. Waldenbooks closed toward the end of my college career. I later learned that they were on a one-year lease and there was a laser golf store that wanted their spot in the mall and was willing to sign a three year lease. The mall management, who are not exactly renowned for their stellar decision-making skills, kicked Waldenbooks out despite the fact that they were one of the most successful stores in the mall. Three years after the laser golf store moved in, it closed. That storefront is still empty two years later.

After graduate school we moved to Washington DC for four years, and when we returned, the independent bookstore downtown had closed its doors. I was very disappointed about that because they'd had a stellar children's section with lots of books that don't often make it to the big chain stores.

A few months later, Hastings closed. This was a complete shock: there'd been no advance publicity; we just drove past one evening and they were gone. When I'd been in the store shortly before closing, the employees certainly didn't seem to have any idea that the store was closing.

So Borders was the last one standing. Once they're gone, we'll be left with a small, less than inadequate used bookstore and the two university-affiliated bookstores, which focus primarily on textbooks and collegiate clothing.

I hope either Barnes & Noble or an entrepreneur who wants to start up another indie bookstore will realize that although this town has lost four bookstores in the past five years, at least two of them closed not because of poor sales, but because of reasons beyond their control. I'm not holding my breath, though. For now, I'll keep making the most of our excellent public library system and save my book shopping for when we're traveling.