Our grand book adventure was perfectly timed. Not set for Thursday, when I had the “2 hr drive-hangover”, and not later Friday after a long bike ride which would, undoubtedly, have left us pressed for time. Instead we had the leisure and energy to find two bookstores, the first of which caused me to laugh quietly upon entering because it had to be a joke. Over-priced used (very used) paperbacks does not a bookstore make; it had all the ambience of a used car lot. With some navigational help from dad through the miracle of the cell phone, we quickly headed to destination two, the Germanically-named Duttenhofer's Books, at 214 W. McMillan Ave on the U.C. campus. The guy behind the desk looked like a Duttenhofer and lamented that he has “more books coming in than going out”. (Since I have this fancy cellphone I figured I might as well use it. When in Rome... So I snapped a couple pictures with it and those are the ones you see in this post.)
It was love at first sight, or smell, for it’s hard to recall which came first when entering the book-lined palace full of the pixie-dust of forgotten voices. Specializing in the rare and antique, there is something exhilarating about browsing in a place that the owner himself couldn’t tell you what he has. It’s like there are unexplored lands that even his computer couldn’t detail. And oh the Ohio books. And the fiction by authors from a hundred years ago. And the Miami books. And...well, perhaps one could substitute old bookstores for universities in this ode:____
Flower-sprung from mesas
of the prairied land.
Star strewn along the hills
and by the seas-
the quiet-bastioned citadels
of Peace
and gunless fortresses of
freedom – stand the universities.
-- Percy MacKaye
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