Category Archives: Big Stone Gap

Meet Mark and Sally, Bookshop Sitters

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Mark and Sally Smith are watching the bookshop while Jack and I slip away for a holiday. They originally planned to come last October, when Little Bookstore was published and our original request for shopsitters went viral. In their Memphis house, Mark in the kitchen and Sally in the bedroom each heard on NPR’s Weekend Edition how we were looking for someone to mind the place while we went on book tour, and rendezvoused in the car on the way to church.

“Want to?” asked Mark.

“That would be so much fun,” Sally replied, and Mark fired off an email. Only, instead of sending it from Mark to Jack, he sent it from their Labrador, Red, to our Labrador, Zora.

Andrew at partyThat pretty much guaranteed we were gonna choose them, but it turned out the dates we needed clashed with some family commitments. So Andrew Whalen shopsat instead, and he was wonderful, and Mark and Sally said they’d get up with us next time.

Which is this week. Jack and I are flying to Istanbul for our 15th wedding anniversary, Christmas 2012 and 2013, combined birthdays and Valentine’s Day, plus celebration of Little Bookstore’s success. When we knew we wanted to go, we called Mark and Sally.

“You really want to?” Mark asked Sally, with his hand over the phone.

“In a heartbeat,” Sally said.

IMG_3644That’s how this couple rolls. Both lost their life partners several years ago, and Sally was volunteering as a docent at the Memphis Public Library, and attending a book club there, when Mark walked in.

“I don’t remember what book it was, I don’t remember what she said about it, I don’t remember a thing about that night except that Sally was sitting there taking up all my brain space,” he said.

He asked her out. Sally, primed ahead of time by friends, said, “I’ll drive myself and meet you there.”

15 months later, they formed a partnership. And they still go to book clubs. And out to dinner, but in one car.

They drove here Friday past to get their feet wet running the shop one whole day, before Jack and I abandon them to ValKyttie’s tender mercies and fly off. Since Sally has been staffing the Memphis Library’s secondhand books store for a few hours each week, and Mark never met a fuzzy creature he didn’t know how to charm, the place is in good hands. As Sally said, “I’ve always loved books, and I’ve always enjoyed people, so I kinda always thought I’d run a bookstore someday.”

And now she is. So come visit Sally and Mark if you’re in the area. They’ll stay through the last Saturday in April, then head back to Memphis because they have a hot ticket to attend the Annual Payroll Convention in Grapevine, Texas.

I know, but Mark says it’s wild fun. And we feel good knowing they’ll have no trouble computing sales tax.

The Water of Human Kindness

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I think I blogged about this a few months ago, but when you run an independent bookshop, people bring you stuff.

Last night I came home to a small pile of laundry on a chair in our shop’s front room. We try (and fail) to keep personal clutter upstairs, out of the shop zone, so Jack followed my displeased look and smiled.

“That wasn’t me,” he said. “J and D were in, and she said I looked cold, and went out to her car, and brought me this spiffy hoodie.” He held up a dark blue, thick and new-looking jacket. “And she said she bought those two undershirts for her husband, but they were too small so she thought of me.” Jack donned the jacket and instantly looked like a Scotsman in a hoodie (aka silly).

Awhile ago, a friend walked in and presented us with a door mat. On it a kitten slumbered atop a book pile. “Saw it in a catalog, knew you had to have it here.” She wouldn’t take any money for it.

Last Sunday, just as Quaker meeting was breaking up, the father of a hunting duo–no matter what season, they come in camo, deer jackets and ammo-logo-bearing ball caps–appeared with a sagging plastic bag in his hand and a smile beaming from his face. The smile faded as he saw the quiet, dignified people just getting up from the worship circle, and he tucked the bag behind his back.

I ran over to him. “Hi! It’s ok. We just finished. Come join us for lunch.”

Shaking his head, he held out the bag. Something dripped onto the floor. “This is what I brung Jack. Jus’ tell ‘im I brung ’em.” He held out the bag–which my hand seized in Quaker compassion before my brain recoiled in squeamish girly squeals and off he went.

Inside? Five whole trout, still in river water. We feasted that night, with fresh asparagus from another friend’s largesse.

It happens all the time: “made brownies and thought y’all would like some”; “my mama loved this baby doll but I just don’t have a place to display it and it’ll look nice on top of a book shelf”; and Jack’s personal favorite “me and the boys just finished the latest batch. Label this so nobody mistakes it for water.”

That not-water came in pretty handy about a month ago when I was going down with a sore-throat, watermelon-head thing. A gargle each morning, three days running, and I was right as rain. Water. Which that was not.

We love running a community bookstore.

Jack and Wendy leave Tuesday for Istanbul. While they’re away, members of the proud and secretive GGG organizations will be writing the blog. When Jack and Wendy return, there will be pictures and travel stories and silliness, oh my, but while the Guerrilla Grammar Girls have control, there will be side-splitting, coffee-spitting guffaws of laughter. Enjoy!