Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Favorite Bookstores #4: Collector's Bookstore

During the Thanksgiving weekend in 1978, Livia and I went down to Fulton, Texas with her parents for a short vacation. As always whenever I went anywhere, I was interested in hunting up the used bookstores, and there was one listed in the Corpus Christi phone book that sounded intriguing: Collector's Bookstore. (That was how you found bookstores in the days before the Internet: you looked them up in the phone book.)

So we drove over there on a cool, foggy November day, and before we found the bookstore, we stopped at a newsstand we happened to pass. Inside that newsstand, I spotted copies of the December 1978 issue of MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE, which, behind a garish cover that I've featured on this blog before, contained my first Mike Shayne novella, "Death in Xanadu". That was a pretty big thrill, let me tell you.
       
But there was more to come.

We drove on, following the directions I'd figured out on a map (the kind you fold up, not download), and there, sitting on a corner lot at an intersection, was a small wooden building with a sign on it that read COLLECTOR'S BOOKSTORE. It was open. We went in, the only customers at that particular time.

I had to stop and catch my breath. There were shelves and shelves of vintage paperbacks. Even better, there was a whole room full of pulps, the most I'd ever seen in one place up to that time. It was amazing.

Since we were the only customers, the guy who owned the place was very friendly and talkative. He introduced himself as Judge Margarito Garza, who in addition to being an actual judge also owned this bookstore and had created the first Hispanic comic book superhero, Relampago. I think at that time there was only one issue of the comic, and the judge had published it himself. That didn't matter to me. I thought it was extremely cool, and since he was selling copies at the store, I bought one, along with stacks of old paperbacks and as many pulps as I thought we could afford, mostly issues of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY, ARGOSY, and some coverless, digest-sized issues of DOC SAVAGE and THE SHADOW. Actually, I probably spent more than we could afford that day, but it was the biggest and best book haul of my life to that point. And the judge was a great guy, a colorful character, and a joy to talk to.

Unfortunately, I didn't get back down to the coast for quite a few years after that, but I always wanted to pay a return visit to the judge's place, as we called it. When I finally did, the store still existed, but it had moved into a different building and was primarily a comic book store. The paperbacks were all gone. The judge still owned the store, but he wasn't there the day I dropped in. I was sort of disappointed and discouraged.

But tucked away in a back corner was a small stack of pulps, all that was left of the stock that had been there on my previous visit. There were a few Westerns and maybe half a dozen bedsheet-sized issues of DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY. I bought them all, of course, and the guys running the place for the judge were clearly happy to get rid of them. So it was a bittersweet visit to say the least.

Even that incarnation of Collector's Bookstore is long gone, but I remembered the intersection where the original store was located, so a couple of years ago while I was in the area, I drove by. Where that little brown frame building stood in 1978 is now the parking lot of a McDonald's. That's all right, I suppose. Things change. Judge Garza died in 1995. All the books and pulps I bought there were lost in the fire. But I can still drive by there and see that building in my mind and hear the judge's laugh and smell all that old paper and remember the thrill I felt that day at finding such great stuff . . .

It is what it is, but I'll take it.

9 comments:

Rick said...

You certainly evoke the strongest memories I never had. I could hear the laughter and smell the old paper. Thanks.

Tim Mayer said...

The ghosts of bookstores past....
I've experienced the same thing traveling around the MidWest. Ohio used to be full of used bookstores, usually located near a college or military base. Most of the ones I haunted 35 years ago are gone.

Walker Martin said...

I guess that's why so many of us are readers AND collectors. We just love everything about old books, vintage paperbacks, pulps. We love the look of them, the smell, the feel, and we certainly enjoy reading them.

James Reasoner said...

In reading over this post today, I recalled going back to the cabin where we were staying, sitting down on the bed, and spreading out everything I'd bought around me so I could look at it again. I'll bet some of you have done things like that, too.

Cap'n Bob said...

I wonderful bittersweet memory.

Richard Moore said...

What a fine "booking" story! Those of us who have the deep love of books and bookstores have our favorite memories. Mine is of the Peachtree Book Store in Atlanta, just a block or two from the magnificent Fox Theater, which still stands. Alas, a car dealership took the old site and I have no idea what is there now.

I went there (via my mother) at age 12 looking for books by Frank Buck and Lowell Thomas and as a teenager bought sets (on a layaway plan) of Twain, Dickens, John Burroughs and others there.

But I also bought there my first issues of Amazing Stories and my first SF paperbacks--A.E. Van Vogt, Richard Matheson, Fredric Brown and Arthur C. Clarke as well as my first Gold Medal originals. Those paperbacks were two for a quarter.

That store was my place of learning and where I discovered the world and worlds beyond.

Prashant C. Trikannad said...

I still spread out my collection of old books and comics — a delightful pastime. A hundred-year old popular secondhand bookshop in South Bombay recently closed down. The space is used to sell BATA shows instead. I guess they literally kicked the books out. Happy Thanksgiving, Mr. Reasoner!

Lawrence Block said...

ciashA wonderfully evocative post, amigo. Puts me in mind of no end of serendipitous stops, in bookstores and antique shops et al. And that the stuff itself has vanished with the years is almost beside the point.

Anonymous said...

What a great story, James. As Rick said above, you really have a way of evoking images and making these memories come alive for all of us. That was a great trip down Memory Lane...thanks for taking us other booklovers along.

Ron C.