We all knew this day was coming- but it was still really hard this afternoon when I saw the sign with my own eyes – Store Closing- Everything Must Go- Nothing Held Back. Sadly, the sign was not in the front window of a store I don’t care about, like Spencer Gifts or General Nutrition Center or Foot Locker. It was in the front window of the Border’s Book Store in Dubuque. And unfortunately, this is the story with every Border’s store across the country. Many have already closed, and those still open will not be open much longer.
I am grappling for words to adequately convey how badly I feel about this. It’s like an amputation. . . an eviction . . . an unconditional surrender. . . a death in the family . . . none of those images is quite right. More than anything, this signals the abrupt closing of a chapter – or is it more like the shutting of a door? All I know is that many of the very best moments I have spent shopping have been in Border’s stores, and nothing gave me more of that giddy kid-in-a- candy-store delight than walking into the enormous Border’s Store in Deerfield, Illinois. Once upon a time, there was a Border’s store on one corner and a Barnes & Noble store right across the street from it – sheer bliss for a bookstore nerd like me – but of the two stores, it was that Border’s store which was somehow more fun and exciting. Part of it was that there was something a bit staid and sterile about how things were shelved and labeled at Barnes and Noble, whereas the typical Border’s store seemed a bit less polished and a bit more unpredictable. . . which only enhanced the thrilling sense of uncovering buried treasure that nearly every trip to Border’s promised to deliver.
And the thrills were so potent that I can actually remember specific moments from twenty years ago when I came across something that I never even knew existed until I stumbled across it in the store. It was at least twenty years ago, while perusing the children’s videotape section, that I came across a tape with a primitively-drawn astronaut-like character on the cover that looked strangely familiar. It wasn’t until I noticed three menacing looking villains down in the corner that I realized that I’d come across a tape of a cartoon I watched as a young child . . . Colonel Bleep, which I learned many years later was the very first color cartoon created for television. In 1993, the year this tape hit store shelves, it had been well more than twenty years since I had last seen any of those cartoons, so to come across this tape felt like nothing less than a precious gift – a doorway back to a childhood memory that I scarcely remembered at all but was thrilled to revisit. And I had Border’s Bookstore to thank for that.
And that’s just the first memory that comes to mind; I could call forth dozens more between that store and the Border’s in downtown Chicago which has been my favorite destination when I’m there for the opera and have some time to kill. Fold in the Border’s in downtown in Milwaukee, the store by Southridge Mall in Greendale, and the Border’s up in Eau Clare and it adds up to a lot of purchases and a great deal of pleasure over the years.
It was back in early June that Kathy and I were up in Eau Clare for the wedding of Mark’s sister Wendy – a wedding for which Lorelai proudly served as flower girl. It was on that trip that I stopped in to the Border’s Store for a few minutes, and actually plunked down twenty bucks to renew my membership there. I did so knowing that the Border’s chain was already in very serious trouble (with many stores shuttered, including the aforementioned store in Deerfield) which of course made very little sense. . . as Kathy quite rightly pointed out. But such was my affection for the Borders chain that I felt compelled to express my support the only way I knew how – as though Borders was an entity like public radio – with the hope that others were maybe doing the same thing. But evidently there weren’t enough of us. Actually, I’ve heard that the biggest nail in Border’s coffin was their lack of success with eBooks, compared with Amazon or their big box store competitor Barnes & Noble. That may be the explanation, but because my own interest in eBooks is still so negligible, it makes it hard for me to accept that the chain could not somehow make a go of it. But I guess they couldn’t.
So Border’s is gone – or very soon to be gone – which leaves Barnes & Noble as the one big bookstore remaining, and I am rooting for its survival. . . along with that of smaller, independent bookstores . . . because when I have some time to kill and a little extra money in my pocket, there is no place I would rather go than a bookstore. (And I must admit that when I go into our local Barnes & Noble, I go a little crazy when I see people sitting by the magazines, reading without purchasing anything. It is all I can do to hold my tongue, because I am so tempted to say “listen bub, if you like coming in here and reading the latest issue of Dirt Bike Digest, you’d better do your part to ensure that this place can keep its doors open. Otherwise, there’s a place downtown called the Public Library that is happy to offer you free reading materials! ” Thus far, I’ve kept my cool and held my tongue.) Actually, I’m pretty sure there are still plenty of us out there who enjoy holding a book in our hands before buying it- who are not fully satisfied by the experiencing of pointing our mouse and clicking on something which looks promising. I suppose that makes me a dinosaur of sorts- – – and maybe that’s another big element in why the failure of Border’s is so bewildering for me: because it seems like one more firm confirmation that the world has changed so drastically in a remarkably short amount of time, and that I remain an analog guy in an increasingly digitalized world.
Boy, I miss the good ol’ days on Walton’s Mountain.
pictured above: One of the two bags of stuff which I purchased at the Dubuque Border’s store. I was capitalizing on some splendid sale prices, but walked out of there with a very heavy heart. I’m reminded of something my former boss at WGTD, Frank Falduto, would often say. He was a tough son-of-a-you-know-what in many ways, but he often showed his softest, most sensitive side when talking about how badly he felt whenever any business in town closed – even if it was something completely irrelevant to him like a beauty salon. He just knew that those boarded up windows meant that someone’s dream had turned to dust. I suppose that is most acutely true with a small, privately owned business, but I feel similar sadness even when we’re talking about Circuit City or or Chi Chi’s . . . and especially something like Border’s.