Summer Days Are Very Full

 

Always perky in the mornings -- and most other times, too.

This first photo is out of sequence, because Sunny Juliet is such an attention magnet. Our mornings, however, start much earlier, in the 5 a.m. dark, when Sunny's dog momma makes herself a first mug of strong coffee. 

Mug from the U.P. Do you know that place?

The sky is growing light. We can get up now and start out into the world.

Most often when Sunny and I have little mini-vacations before my work day, we head south (go to my photo blog to see the most recent morning south of M-204), but when the morning includes an agility session out in Cherry Home it makes more sense to go north, and stopping at dear little Woolsey Airport is a temptation there's no reason to resist.

Helpful hint: August 2nd will be a good time to visit Woolsey Airport. Get there early and watch the planes come in! Another reason to be an early bird is to get your pancake breakfast before the line is too long. 

After that stop, I ducked down a nearby unpaved back road. These are some of my favorite places -- what I call Leelanau insolite!  I learned that French word--in the context of travel--to mean out-of-the-way or off-the-beaten-path. Only today did I stumble on the fact that it used to be part of the English language too but is now considered obsolete. Interesting. 'Insolite' is obsolete....

Off the paved road, anyway --

We still had a little time before our agility session appointment, so returning to the morning-quiet "highway," I drove as far as the old original Cherry Home. It had been years since I'd been out that way, and the buildings looked beautiful in the morning light. That was where we turned back, but it seemed very worthwhile to have gone that far.

The road continues to Leelanau State Park and the lighthouse.

But now let's turn to books, because my bookstore is where I spent six summer days a week. My "ancient" section of children's books got a shot in the arm the other day with half a dozen Walter Farley books, all first editions and only one lacking its colorful dust jacket. (There are a few newly arrived Happy Hollisters, too, but horse stories that excite me more.) Bookstore inventory changes on a daily basis, the new as well as the used. I am delighted to offer some great titles in reprint from David R. Godine and can personally vouch for Jane Brox, Laurie Lee, and Clémentine. 

An older title illuminates the London Blitz in letters from one who was there.

I wrote about the new books above, along with Respectfully Yours, Annie, on one of my other blogs, so you can learn more here.

In the evenings--at least on an evening when it's neither raining nor does grass need mowing--my old farmyard is a place where I can relax in the shade, tossing tennis balls for Sunny to chase and sharing the occasional potato chip with her while currently the blossoming linden trees (basswood, to be more specific) are humming and thrumming with bees. Sometimes, of course, I'll take a book out there, too.

What’s in a Book?

 

Better (at least more interesting) Than Money

 

“Do you ever find money in old books?” I’m often asked. In 28 years of bookselling, I haven’t found so much as a single dollar bill, and it seems unfair, too, considering my own long-ago habit of hiding 5s and 20s in volumes on my shelves at home. It’s been a long time since I did that, but somewhere in the world there may be paper currency inside the pages of a book that once belonged to me. 

 

But dollars are interchangeable. One is worth as much as another. What I found recently in an old book, on the other hand, was something unique. Since it’s a little hard to read soft pencil, especially in a photograph, here is my transcription:

 

Empire Mich Dec 13, 1897.

Mr. W. Benjamin

Leland Mich

Dear Sir: It is snow

ing fast today.

Our school has just 

had examination

and did fairly will.

Hoping you will

come soon I remain

Very Respectfully

Neddy Drow

 

Did young Ned ever send this letter to Mr. Benjamin? What were their respective ages? Their relationship? Can you believe this little epistle in pencil is almost 125 years old? Doesn’t that have much more interest (and intrinsic value) than a dollar bill?

 

 Books I finished reading since my last post:

I should explain that I am often reading several books in the course of a day, which means that the reading of one is often interrupted by reading others more quickly finished. Anyway, additions to this year's list since my last post --

 

102. McAnulty, Dara. Diary of a Young Naturalist (nonfiction

103. Washington, Mary Helen. The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s (nonfiction)

104. Hicks, Joyce. One More Foxtrot (fiction)

105. Roberts, Tanya. A Little Italian: A Journey, A Family, and St. Francis (nonfiction)

106. Levi, Primo. If This Is a Man (nonfiction)

107. Smiley, Jane. Perestroika in Paris (fiction)

 

Despite the many ways in which these books differ (and they differ very widely!) from each other, I found all full of life and passion and humanity. And on the subject of life, passion, and humanity in books, I must note that my first shipment of Ellen Airgood’s new novel, Tin Camp Road, is here now, with another case arriving later this week.

 

Better Late Than…

 

My sad, dwindling selection of postcards should be beefed up with colorful images this week, too, since I finally located my “postcard lady,” who hasn’t visited the shop for three years but does have an online presence. Stay tuned also for a new line of notecards I hope to have before summer is over!

Because summer is racing by pretty quickly, fields filling with blossoming coneflowers and Queen Anne’s lace and spotted knapweed -- yes, that last an invasive alien, but it’s hard not to appreciate the lavender color it lends the hills – as September keeps appearing here and there while August is still here. Don’t you smell September in the rain? Feel it in the wind?

Peasy doesn’t take much note of wildflowers, and while this is his first round of spring-summer-fall in northern Michigan, he seems to be enjoying it. We love his joy, too. A dog’s happiness: irresistible!