This time next week...

Lynne Patrick

As John Denver used to sing, I guess I’d rather be in Colorado...

And this time next week, that’s exactly where I’ll be. My good friend Chris Nickson will be my designated deputy blogger, and if you’ve tuned in to his posts before, you won’t be in any more hurry than I will for my holiday to end.

But end it will, and I’m planning to make it end well. On our last day we’ll be back in Denver, and I plan to spend most of that day immersed in books. I discovered the Tattered Cover bookstore years ago, when there was just one of it; now there are three to choose from, so clearly indie bookselling is far from dead. Marilyn, I’m sorry it can’t be your store this time, but at least you know there are some of us diehards left: the ones who not only refuse to give in to the blandishments of online booksellers who shall be nameless, at least in this post, but also browse and buy in the same place. I hope you also know that if I was going to be within driving distance of Flemington, it would be your store. And not for the coffee.

What I don’t understand is this: people drive into a town, having paid for petrol (gas if you prefer); these are probably the same people who grumble loudly at the cost of said fuel. They then pay again, this time to park their car. Then they visit a bookshop, inspect the books and decide what they want to buy, and order it online at an often only slightly lower cost – having already paid more for fuel and parking than the difference between the online and shop prices! And they either have to pay for postage or wait several days and trust the postal system. Go figure, you rude and thoughtless people.

I once found myself commiserating with a friend whose teenage daughter, going through One of Those Phases, had been caught shoplifting. The girl’s excuse was, ‘The stuff was in a shop – it didn’t belong to anyone. That’s not stealing.’ My friend reined in her anger and carefully explained to her daughter how the retail business works, and the kid was suitably chastened and to my knowledge never did it again.

The girl’s reaction kind of throws light on Marilyn’s point: that a lot of people simply don’t make the connection between the shop itself and the shop owner’s need to make sales in order to pay bills and buy food – or even keep the shop running. It doesn’t excuse it: it just illuminates it a little.

I don’t know how we change this mindset. The majority of people get their income from faceless corporations or government-funded organizations of one kind or another; the connection between the money and the making of it is tenuous at best. Those of us who provide a service and take our (variable) income directly from its proceeds are few and far between. People receive a salary paid into the bank by a computer far, far away find it hard to conceive of anyone who doesn’t get a salary paid by similar means.

But if one salaried person reads this post and has a lightbulb moment which makes them think about the realities of owning a small bookstore, and as a result that person goes into a small bookstore and actually buys a book – well, maybe I won’t have posted in vain today.

See you in a few weeks, my friends.