Turntables, Eight-Tracks and Bookstores?

The woman behind the counter of Borders is incredibly amazing.  She's helped us hundreds of times.

She's not the sort of person who gives you a glazed over look because she's tired of you; tired of trying to find those titles and authors not quite complete in your thoughts.

Typical: "I'm not sure.  The author's name has something to do with breakfast.  I was just at Red's staring at my plate but I couldn't think of it."
"Could it be...Dave Eggers?"
"Yes! The title of the book is weird too."
"That'd be What is the What. I'll be right back."  She smiles. She's gone.

As I walk through the aisles thinking about this amazing clerk and this convenient store, my eyes well up.  I feel really silly for crying.

There were bright yellow signs everywhere saying 40-50% off, and price stickers on fixtures.  Everything must go.  I was listening to her talking about a wonderful, independent bookstore a couple of miles away when I had a vision straight out of Inception.


The carpet was sliding, book stacks falling, glass shattering, whirlwinds blowing: oh gravity...the whole bookstore was sucked into the vortex.  All moving.  Unremitting destruction. A whole industry is lurching sideways in a creaking hulk behind this little bookstore with a big, corporate name.

My attention turns to a lone shelf still wavering in the spiral.  Leathery-looking vinyl e-book cases are slightly wobbling.

She's telling someone about how she'll be okay.  She's going to stay home with her young son, and she's never been able to do that.  She's really glad it seems.

I can still hear her voice, as if she isn't already gone.

Mortgage Principal Write-Downs

The Riven Owler team was recently visiting Anytown, USA. There on a mission to help elderly residents by doing some interior painting, we entered a neighborhood that had obviously at one time been grand, with large homes built circa 1920. Everywhere though were signs saying "We Buy Homes." Rows of such homes were boarded up and dilapidated.

We have not given you the real name of the city we visited because we do not wish to denigrate a particular locale, but let's just say that the place was in serious decline. By the end of the week after getting to know and help our 93-year-old resident, we hoped and prayed she would be safe from the crime element we noticed.

Our African-American resident's husband is a 94-year-old veteran of two wars. They sacrificed for us, and then they sacrificed more so their children could each go to college. They are so proud of their children who all work in the medical field in four different far-flung states.

Why should people like this lose the value in their homes and neighborhoods? Where is the outcry from the American people? We are 751 billion underwater. Give us a candidate...Republican, Democrat, Independent...anyone who will put real value back into working and middle class homes.

We need a leader who will not let others define the conversation at our expense. We need a leader with true regard for the American people.