Bye Bye, Blue Heron
Today is my wife, Carol’s, birthday. She keeps having them but, to tell you the truth, I can’t see where she’s getting any older. Anyway, Saturday her parents took us to her favorite restaurant to celebrate. The Balaton. It’s a great Hungarian restaurant in Shaker Square, a cool old shopping area on the edge of Cleveland and Shaker Heights. The legendary Cleveland bookseller Richard Gildenmeister used to have a bookstore there. When he could no longer make a go, he moved on to work at another independent bookstore in the fancy-schmancy suburbs. When that closed, he took a job at a tiny little bookstore, The Appletree, in Cleveland Heights. Then the Joseph-Beth chain opened a huge new bookstore at Shaker Square, and Richard came back to sell books there. Three years later it closed when Joseph-Beth moved out to a new fancy-schmancy mall. So every time I go to The Balaton for schnitzel, cabbage rolls and strudel, I think of Richard Gildenmeister and the bookstores that are no longer.
Sunday I took Carol out to lunch in Peninsula. It’s a tiny, New England-style hamlet right in the middle of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. We ate at Fisher’s, a nifty little mom &pop pub. There is an independent bookstore right across the street called The Blue Heron. Make that was. Sunday was its last day, after just four years in business. I had a great signing there a couple years ago.
There aren’t too many independent bookstores big or small left in my neck of the woods. There’s still one in Hudson called The Learned Owl that seems to be going strong. I’ve had a few events there. The bookstore in Medina where I did my very first signing ten years ago, The Village Booksmith, closed two years ago when a Borders came in. I did three signings there.
But the independents aren’t the only bookstores in trouble. I read just the other day that Borders has announced that it might be “interested” in selling to somebody.
In the future will we writers be doing our signings at Target and Sam’s Club? Will we be doing them electronically in some way? Will we be doing them at all?
Times change. Things change. And it’s a mistake to be afraid of the future. Writers and readers will find a way, I’m sure.
But I just wanted to note the passing of another great little bookstore. The owner, Debbie D’Andrea, put so much into making The Blue Heron a special place. It was friendly and comfortable. It had a great children’s section with a big old tree right inside. It had a cool snack bar and a beautiful outdoor patio in back. It beautifully reflected Peninsula and the national park that surrounds it.
So, thanks Debbie.
