So here we are in November at last, and I seem to recall something important should be about to happen, and it can’t be just that Thanksgiving is not happening this year, unless you call a turkey sandwich in a socially distanced Claremont parking lot — our family’s plan to get together with my 92-year-old father — Thanksgiving. Do they allow zinfandel in parking lots? We’ll find out.
No, clearly it’s that First Tuesday thing, and I sort of didn’t want to remind you, just in case you were planning on voting wrong.
If you’re voting correctly, and still haven’t done it, in spite of all the reminders and the crazy variety of options, by all means hie thee to a polling place on Tuesday, whether to put on rubber gloves and brave the machines, or simply to drop off your completed ballot that came in the mail.
That’s what I finally did last week, while my wife went in and voted the old-fashioned way. As she did so I roamed the parking lot, took a photograph that the security guard told me I shouldn’t have — he didn’t confiscate it — and marveled at the cars of my fellow Americans. One was a Maybach, with a chauffeur helping an elderly couple get inside; another was a massive black SUV limo with the vanity plate “Augusta” and the Del Monte Forest plaque on the grill, sported by those with homes near Pebble Beach.
“Wow!” I thought. “The rich really, really don’t trust the U.S. Post Office! Wonder if they got an insider tip not to use it?”
If you’re voting wrong and still haven’t done the deed, uh, here’s your plan: Put that ballot in the outgoing mail at your curbside on Monday. Sure, it might get there a tad late, but won’t the United States Supreme Court support your right to have your vote counted?
Sure it will. Best of luck.
No, I know the November thing I was thinking of. This is the month in which Americans start Christmas shopping in earnest, and I propose that you let me write your gift list. Simple: It’s books, and other stuff they sell at bookstores. The real kind.
After I wrote a column asking readers to shop at Vroman’s, Southern California’s oldest and best independent bookstore, which was battered by Amazon already and which had been economically floored by the novel coronavirus, I got a nice note from Allison Hill, the former president of Vroman’s, and now the CEO of the American Booksellers Association in New York.
“Thank you for the amazing column you wrote about my beloved Vroman’s,” Allison kindly wrote. “You have always been so supportive of the store and your column was the battle cry that was needed to save them. I hear the orders have been pouring in!”
Nice. And her ABA has launched a national campaign aimed at saving every American bookstore in the same fashion. It’s dubbed “Boxed Out,” to “draw attention to the high stakes indie bookstores face this holiday season in the age of Amazon and COVID-19.” The ABA notes that when “these independent bookstores close, COVID will be listed as the cause of death, but the pre-existing condition for many may be listed as Amazon. The brown boxes that have become ubiquitous in building lobbies and on porches are ‘boxing out’ bookstores and other small businesses all across the country, resulting in the loss of local jobs, local sales tax, community and support.”
“Connecting these dots, it’s easy to see that convenience has a cost and a consequence,” Allison says.
Indeed it does. So join me in a simple commitment this fall: Buy every single one of your Christmas presents at your favorite local bookstore. Some giftee doesn’t care for books? Buy them music or clothes or puzzles there. But join me in this simple and crucial crusade.
Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. lwilson@scng.com.
"save" - Google News
November 01, 2020 at 03:01AM
https://ift.tt/3mJsMnt
The crusade to save the American bookstore - The Pasadena Star-News
"save" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2SvBSrf
https://ift.tt/2zJxCxA
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "The crusade to save the American bookstore - The Pasadena Star-News"
Post a Comment