My Dad loved mystery books. Kate's was a funky, funky mystery book shop located on the first floor of an old Victorian house. Birthdays and holidays I would rumble around looking for something unique and interesting he might enjoy. later when his old lion eyes needed a little help, I would go to Kate's and dig through old piles of books looking for large print mysteries, which she sold to me cheaply in generous portion. Kate was good people.
Quirky and a lot of fun, she had a thousand cat chachkas placed happily around her book store. There was probably a real cat or two padding about somewhere, but I don't remember and I definitely didn't see any real felines the last time I was there. On my way to a seminar today I passed her old Victorian which has been sold and she herself has moved on to a new life somewhere far away from the madding crowd. I last saw her a couple of years ago. It was the holiday season and she looked a bit tired with a diminished life drive. I must say we were in a similar place. My Dad was very ill and I too was tired and had zero interest in celebrating the holidays. She and I spoke briefly, I knew she had been trying to sell her old Victorian and my gut told me this was our last visit. She talked about not feeling present in her urban living environment. She was not going out exploring restaurants, or attending social or cultural events. As she put it she wasn't taking advantage of what the city has to offer. She packed up her life and moved away shortly after. I myself moved out shortly thereafter, having found myself with zero interest for all things urban. As I drove past the sign, which has been neatly painted over and now blank, I began to think about what I knew as a city when I lived there and what city meant to me. Partly it meant what every city means, crowded, expensive and always moving. But then there were individual aspects that were perhaps generational. Things whose time has come and gone but made the urban experience special and fun. Places like this little book shop, or a Wiccan store I used to find herbs and esoteric books, the acupuncturist whose office was in a funky old arcade next to a sex shop, the guy who rewrote my resume for a fee on an old typewriter when I was a newly minted undergraduate, the big all Latino grocery market, the lady who rented a room to one of my graduate students who supported herself teaching tap dance classes. All special, all gone. I don't need to list them all, but just as an example, the Latino grocery market is a whole foods store now. I think that about says it all in a nut shell and perhaps explains in part why I have moved on.
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