You know you are getting old when:

[belfastboy]

One secondhand bookseller friend has kept her one remaining store (she had four at one time) post-bankruptcy, and from the sounds of it that remaining place is hanging on by a thread.

Another friend shut down his retail store before the Great Bookstore Collapse of a decade or so ago and went 100 percent online.

I miss what most others miss about used bookstores — leaving the store with a book you didn’t know existed when you came in, or, at least something you hadn’t thought to look for. I was introduced to much of my favorite literature that way.

As to old periodicals and the prices they’re fetching (or asking, anyway) ...

I have a couple of boxes full of LIFE and Collier’s and a few editions of Look and Sunset and some others, mostly dating from the 1940s, some from the ’30s, and quite a few from the ’50s into the ’60s. I bought dozens, scores, maybe a hundred or more, for 15 bucks (as I recall) at a yard sale. The others I rarely paid more than a buck apiece for.

Having seen numerous online listings for old print advertisements I’m left thinking that that is part of what’s fueling this price escalation. Sellers are apparently buying up these old rags and cutting ’em up to sell the ads.

For the past 5 years my wife and I have been travelling the western states. We avoid cities but do stop into smaller towns to provision and explore. It has been heartening to see so many small to mid sized towns still have good used book stores. They are not hip or ironic or kitschy just a decent store stocked with old books at good prices. Often they will have a section devoted to local history. Las Cruces NW for instance has an enormous used book store that looks prosperous. We always go in and stock up on inexpensive reading material.

 

[tonyb]

Anyone here ever been to Larry McMurtry’s bookstore(s) in Archer City, Texas?

Last I looked, he’s open three days a week, for all of four hours each of those three days.

A person can’t help but think that if it weren’t that McMurtry is pretty well set financially, and it it weren't that shop space in Archer City can be had for lunch money, McMurtry wouldn’t be so well positioned to indulge his bibliophilia.

I was within 25 miles or so summer before last, on our way to and from Fort Worth. But I didn’t take the detour. I kind of regret that, seeing how I’m something of a fan of McMurtry’s work, and what I’ve read of the little book town has piqued my curiosity. I can’t imagine there’s anything else quite like it anywhere.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Like many young people I had a skateboard and while I was no Tony Hawk I would use it to get around when I was a kid. You know you're getting old when you discover that you've completely forgotten how to ride a skateboard!!!!

 

[GHT]

Like many young people I had a skateboard and while I was no Tony Hawk I would use it to get around when I was a kid. You know you're getting old when you discover that you've completely forgotten how to ride a skateboard!!!!

The only skateboard that I had, and this was as a child in pre-skateboard days, was a sizeable book, a roller skate, the strap onto your shoes type, the ones with steel wheels. Place book on skate, sit on book at the top of a steep hill, cast off. How we never came to serious injury heaven only knows.

I've joked about amnesia and the ageing process, but today I must be the best candidate for idiot of the month. On-line banking, what's that? I took my credit card statement, drove to the town where I bank, queued in line for nearly 30 minutes, because there's only one cashier working, a cynical way of getting you to bank online. Finally get to the front of the queue, present my statement for payment, still in the envelope, only it was my company pension statement, I had left the credit card statement at home. There's never a hole to swallow you up when you desperately need one.

 

[M Brown]

when....no matter what position you try your sciatica won't stop.

 

[Retired EE]

Anyone here ever been to Larry McMurtry’s bookstore(s) in Archer City, Texas?

Last I looked, he’s open three days a week, for all of four hours each of those three days.

A person can’t help but think that if it weren’t that McMurtry is pretty well set financially, and it it weren't that shop space in Archer City can be had for lunch money, McMurtry wouldn’t be so well positioned to indulge his bibliophilia.

I was within 25 miles or so summer before last, on our way to and from Fort Worth. But I didn’t take the detour. I kind of regret that, seeing how I’m something of a fan of McMurtry’s work, and what I’ve read of the little book town has piqued my curiosity. I can’t imagine there’s anything else quite like it anywhere.

As to another bookstore that's become something of an attraction.... if you're driving thru Quartzsite, Arizona you might stop in at "Reader's Oasis Books," which is a regular, general interest bookstore-- or so it seemed. I've personally seen the attraction, live and in the flesh. I hesitate to post a photo of what I'm talking about here. But Google the bookstore name, and you can see the images. Some of my colleagues couldn't believe what they were seeing.

 

[Retired EE]

You know you're getting old when things you've enjoyed all your life just don't have it anymore.

I've always loved second-hand bookstores, and for over thirty years I've been going to one about an hour and a half up Route 1, a mammoth affair set up inside a converted poultry barn, and over the decades I've gotten some pretty good stuff there. I usually get up there at least once a summer, and I took yesterday off from work specifically to make that trip. And I found that it just didn't seem as enjoyable as it used to.

Part of it is simply physical. My vision has deteriorated to the point where browsing in a store is actually very difficult for me -- I can't see what's on the shelves unless I'm standing a couple inches away, and I can't scan across book titles like I used to. The fun of looking over every shelf for a rare title is now hard labor, and it saddens me greatly to realize this. You can browse online all you want, but there's nothing like the feel and the smell of being right there among the books -- but if you can't read the spines, there isn't much point, is there?

And the other disappointment is that the stuff they have more and more of just isn't what I want. When I started going there, the twenties and thirties were well-represented on their shelves, with plenty of rare stuff if you knew what you were looking for, and their back-issue magazine department was the best in New England. There was always something there I could use, and the prices were reasonable.

But now, the shelves are crowded more and more with stuff that just doesn't interest me -- 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. I went thru the Entertainment Biographies section, and found multiple identical unread copies of bios of Fran Drescher and Diana Ross -- but nothing at all that I'd want to own or read or be able to use. And while the magazine department was still reasonably well-stocked, the prices have become ridiculous. Since when is any copy of Life, the single most common "old magazine" in the world -- and they have multiple copies in stock of every issue -- worth $25? What the hell? $25 a copy for *Collier's*? Who, besides a handful of people here, even heard of Collier's? $20 for Time? $18 for Better Homes & Gardens? Seriously? Since when? Those titles were under $10 as recently as last summer, and I thought even that was a bit much given the supply versus the demand.

I did find a couple of things cheap and obscure enough to interest me -- a nice first-edition of a Robert Benchley for $5, because nobody there knows who Robert Benchley was, and a rare in-jacket copy of "Redder Than The Rose," a blistering collection of columns by New Masses humor columnist Robert Forsythe for $12. And for $5 a 1939 issue of "Ken" with a fascinating article on European Jewish refugees illegally entering the US via small boats from Cuba.

But I'm still left with an unhappy taste in my mouth from the experience. Maybe that was my last trip. I hate to think so, but when the fun is gone, why bother?

Feldman's Bookstore in Menlo Park, CA had the interior vibe you've described above (which I think it still has, according to online reviews). Many years ago I'd stop by the bookstore when I was visiting Menlo Park. On one visit, in late October, I wondered if they had a copy of Bram Stoker's "Dracula". They did... an old copy published in the early 1940's. It was a good Halloween read on the flight back to the east coast. They had a fascinating collection of old books and printed materials.

 

[Tiki Tom]

As to another bookstore that's become something of an attraction.... if you're driving thru Quartzsite, Arizona you might stop in at "Reader's Oasis Books," which is a regular, general interest bookstore-- or so it seemed.

Had to Google it. LOL. Am assuming it’s a remnant of the era when some hippies realized they were losing the culture war and retreated into the desert. I love the desert Southwest. And part of the draw are those quirky rugged individualists.

 

[Retired EE]

Had to Google it. LOL. Am assuming it’s a remnant of the era when some hippies realized they were losing the culture war and retreated into the desert. I love the desert Southwest. And part of the draw are those quirky rugged individualists.

I love the desert Southwest, too. Quartzsite is a neat little town, particularly in the high summer (temperatures of 45C/113F) when few people are there. The town has a number of fossil/gem/meteorite-oriented shops that are fascinating. I prefer the landscape of New Mexico, however. I had a visually memorable drive from Socorro, thru Magdalena, to the Very Large Array (VLA) one summer-- very beautiful. At the VLA, you can see on the horizon what used to be the shoreline of an ancient inland sea. An experience that set me to contrasting an ancient landscape with modern radio telescopes observing deep space.

 

[tonyb]

Like many young people I had a skateboard and while I was no Tony Hawk I would use it to get around when I was a kid. You know you're getting old when you discover that you've completely forgotten how to ride a skateboard!!!!

If there ever were an advantage to never having been particularly athletic, it would be living with few regrets for the loss of my athleticism.

Which is not to say I haven’t experienced a clearly notable drop-off in my physical abilities. I can still lift relatively heavy weights, for instance, but don’t ask me to do it twice in rapid succession. My stamina is pretty well shot. Mowing my more or less average sized suburban lawn (gas-powered walk-behind mower, not self-propelled) is about all the exercise I wish without a respite.

 

[GHT]

Mowing my more or less average sized suburban lawn (gas-powered walk-behind mower, not self-propelled) is about all the exercise I wish without a respite.

That may be so Tony, but is your exertion really that warm?

 

[tonyb]

^^^^
Uncanny likeness, right down the color of the, um, pants?

 

[GHT]

You know that you're getting old when you're the only one that knows how to drive a manual gearstick shift.
When your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember them either.
When you quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the room.
When you have too much room in the house and not enough room in the medicine cabinet.
When you have more dead friends then live ones and your childhood toys are worth thousands.
You ask a grandchild or a neighbour's kid to open your childproof caps.
You're falling apart but going to the doctor is too much hassle.
Instead of looking for things to do, you look for ways not to do things.
You can't find your way around because signs have pictures instead of English, and in my case, satnavs are all in a foreign language, probably gibberish.

 

[Trenchfriend]

When condoms finally become "vegan".

 

[Trenchfriend]

When you feel really well on travelling in an modernized, old "m-waggon" in the Intercity from Deutsche Bahn. These waggons are up to 65 years old!

Yeah, 90s!

 

[Lean'n'mean]

When condoms finally become "vegan".

I think the ladies will always prefer a little meat in theirs.

 

[belfastboy]

The only skateboard that I had, and this was as a child in pre-skateboard days, was a sizeable book, a roller skate, the strap onto your shoes type, the ones with steel wheels. Place book on skate, sit on book at the top of a steep hill, cast off. How we never came to serious injury heaven only knows.

I've joked about amnesia and the ageing process, but today I must be the best candidate for idiot of the month. On-line banking, what's that? I took my credit card statement, drove to the town where I bank, queued in line for nearly 30 minutes, because there's only one cashier working, a cynical way of getting you to bank online. Finally get to the front of the queue, present my statement for payment, still in the envelope, only it was my company pension statement, I had left the credit card statement at home. There's never a hole to swallow you up when you desperately need one.

I missed a day long seminar on Aging and Resiliency as I got my Tuesdays and Wednesdays mixed. My wife and I were all dressed ready for our drive downtown to the venue. I checked the email to make sure I knew the address and room number and discovered the seminar was on Tuesday and this was in fact Wednesday. I apologized profusely to my wife and there we were ....all dressed up and nowhere to go.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

That may be so Tony, but is your exertion really that warm?
View attachment 176319

Someone, please, tell me what that town is so that I can put it on my list of places never to go.

 

[M Brown]

when...wait, what was the question?

 

[Zombie_61]

when...wait, what was the question?

I don't remember, but the answer is "42".