A return to a bookstore in Paris

Visiting Shakespeare and Company

This last fall in Paris I had the opportunity to visit the iconic bookstore Shakespeare and Company.  I had visited many years before as a child but had forgotten the name over the years.   Now, however, you can find anything on the internet, and I was thrilled to be able to map my way to the store.  On the store’s website I found that they collected stories from bookstore patrons over the years and just for fun I wrote up and emailed a little story about my visit.

Dear Shakespeare and Company,

In 1971, the summer I was nine my parents took me to Europe.   My father, a young college professor, had left home a month earlier to teach a seminar in what was then Yugoslavia.  My mother and I were to fly over the cheapest way possible (Icelandic), pick up a new Volvo in Luxembourg, and drive to Yugoslavia to meet my father.  My mother was only 29 at the time and I don’t think she had been out of the United States before.  While my younger sisters were left to vacation with grandparents, my mother later claimed that she brought me along to ensure that she stopped for meals and found nightly lodging on her drive across several countries.

At nine I was already a voracious reader and my mother had underestimated the number of books that would be needed to keep me entertained during down times and I was reduced to rereading the small collection I had with me.   Fortunately, as the oldest child who had grown up in college atmosphere, I was well equipped to sit at the table and add my two cents to adult dinners.

By the time we had toured Yugoslavia and driven through Italy, we had added two more college associates to the group making for a full car. Eventually we reached Paris and found an inexpensive hotel where I had to sleep on the floor on a pile of blankets (this really was the era of “Europe on Five Dollars A Day”).  While not every stop in the city made an impression on my nine-year-old mind I have a vivid memory of the whole group finding a bookstore that I would later remember as being not too far from Notre Dame.

This was a group of readers, so everyone was willing to stop for a bit.  My mother and I wandered through the downstairs shelves.; my father was back near the entrance talking to a gentleman who must have been the owner.  The story that my father later told (and my father was known for embellishing a story for effect) was that the owner was quite impressed that my father was the only man traveling with 4 women (well, 3 women and one girl).  What I remember is that my mother and I were told we could go upstairs – so we did.  To my great joy I found some children’s books in English. (Perhaps I should be embarrassed that this was my introduction to Enid Blyton’s books – but I’m not.)  And I do remember finding on the wall the list of ‘rules’ for staying at the bookstore.  Though we didn’t stay overnight I was quite prepared to read a book a day!

As we paid for our books the person checking us out – possible the owner- gave me a postcard that declared I was entitled to a free book when I came back at age 18 (or maybe it was 19).  I held on to that postcard for years until it eventually got lost in a move.

I didn’t get back to Paris for years.  When I was there in the early ‘90s (before the internet) I made a brief search for a bookstore I remembered from childhood.  While I did find a bookstore that reminded me of the past- it wasn’t the one.

 

Now, years later, while planning a trip to Paris for the fall, I ran a quick internet search for that bookstore that I remembered.  To my surprise I quickly had a result that matched my childhood memories of book shopping in Paris!  I’m looking forward to visiting Shakespeare and Company again! Too bad I lost my (long, long expired) free book postcard.

 Kara Strite

February 2018

A Mini-trip To Beat The No-Travel Scheduled Blues

Long distance travel is the thing that we plan for, wait for, and talk about but sometimes a close-to-home mini-trip can help keep that travel bug at bay. So when an invitation came to spend a weekend with family exploring some of Dallas we jumped at the chance!

Our first stop was the Dallas Record Show in the Richardson Civic Center.  While this show wouldn’t have been on my radar (I gave up on vinyl a long time ago) one of our party is an avid audiophile with an enviable record collection.  While not a huge convention, the large room was neatly set up with rows of tables each holding bins of records.  The serious shoppers sorted through their favorite artists and negotiated deals; I just wandered down memory lane looking at covers of albums that I once owned.

 

Next stop, lunch.  To make things easier we all piled into one car and headed to Pie Tap Pizza.  Unfortunately, we weren’t specific enough with Google Maps and, not realizing there were several branches, ended up at the wrong one.  Back to the map … and a short drive across town.  Once there we split several pizzas which were tasty; the dipping sauce was flavorless and not worth the extra couple of dollars, but overall lunch was good.

When going into lunch we noticed the Hass Moto museum across the street and after lunch we crossed to road to check it out.  Opened in the spring of 2018, Haas Moto Museum is the creation of Bobby Haas.  With over 130 motorcycles displayed in a beautiful setting, Haas has collected and created a display that tells the story of the motorcycle.  The museum offers free admission to both military and first responders.  (We didn’t notice this when we paid admission for our two veterans – when I mentioned that in a review, praising them for the offer while lamenting that we hadn’t noticed, the museum responded with an offer to refund the cost of the two veteran tickets which they did graciously and promptly!  Wow!)

The Moto Museum is part of Dallas Design district and an array of antique type stores was next on the plan.  While there were the usual ‘antique malls’ with dozens of individually stocked booths, there were also a number of shops featuring the now very popular ‘mid-century modern’ look.   And my favorite stop was not an antique store but a yard and garden shop feature statues and outdoor rooms and a very comfortable bench swing!

 

We finished off the day with dinner at Pappadeaux.  This popular chain has several restaurants around the Dallas-Fort Worth area.  They are usually busy on a weekend evening and they don’t take reservations, but we found four empty chairs around the bar and the half hour wait passed painlessly.  Pappadeaux features New Orleans style cooking – spicy and tasty.  They also use a lot of shrimp which I’m allergic to so I played it safe with a simple grilled fish meal but everyone else enjoyed their alligator, jambalaya and Etouffee.

Praia on Terceria Island, Azores

‘Coming Home’

While we have met quite a few Azoreans who have lived overseas and have moved back to the island at retirement age, neither my husband nor myself were born in the Azores.  However, my husband spent several childhood years on Terceira and has always wanted to return.  For him, a military brat and a wanderer at heart, Terceira was the best place he lived and, in a sense, ‘home’.

Each of our trips to Terceira has been both a joyful rediscovery of childhood haunts and an exciting discovery of new places.

Praia in the early 1970s -- horse carts were still in use right
right along with cars.

 On our most recent trip to Terceira we wanted to use the local transportation system instead of renting a car and because Lajes Airforce Base is closest to the town of Praia and that was the town that my husband knew best as a child, our first bus trial was the short trip from Angra to Praia. Although we didn’t find a copy of the bus schedule until the next day, we did get directions to the bus stop from our hotel front desk folks. 

Overlooking the town of Praia and its harbor

Looking down one of Praia's
shopping streets

While the bus to Praia did make a bit of a slow trip, it was actually a great way to look at some of the small towns along the way—and we were on vacation so what was the hurry?  Once we hopped off in town, across from a school and next to a fire station, we were only a two-minute walk away from the main shopping street in Praia.

Although the town has changed some since my husband’s childhood exploration – the hardware store owned by an older Chinese man with a Fu Manchu moustache and long curling finger nails is gone, part of long stretch of beach turned into a zone of commercial buildings, and the old fort is hidden, enough of the old bones remain.  The center square in town where Saturday night Zorro movies played on an outdoor screen is still there.  The court building is still used but the below ground jail where my husband remembers buying ice cream for an inmate and handing the treat through the open window has been sealed up.

Down on the lower left of this building was a window
for the town jail.

 

Now when the cruise ships come to Terceira, Praia is where they stop and town can feel quite busy but on the day we were exploring no ships were in and the streets, while not empty were quiet.  Down at the water’s edge there are the usual beach town cafes and souvenir stores though many of the goods seemed to be from mainland Portugal.

As we explored town, we took a quiet look in one of the churches and wandered up and down the cobblestone streets.  At lunch time we found a table in a charming walled park. 

On a weekend evening the town square
would be filled with kids both from the
Air Force base and town.

  A small auxiliary restaurant in the park took orders while its sister restaurant across the street supplied the food.  We made a short detour into a little market alcove where one shop had a selection of locally caught fish.  The produce stop was right across the way.  They had avocados (which answered the question as to availability) and as we discussed fruits and vegetables with the owner, we found that most of the vegetables came from the family farm, some fruit came from other islands, and a few items were imported from farther away.  All good to know for the next trip when we have a place with a kitchen!

When we finished with our exploration with town, we headed back to the bus stop that was now busy with teenagers who were getting out of school.  As we once again looked like slightly clueless tourists, several kind bus passengers made sure we got to the right bus -- just a little help after a visit ‘home.