"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."

~ Martin Luther King, Jr., America Civil-Rights Leader (1929 - 1968)

Sign on the Bookshop Door

Tomorrow: Some light-hearted humour.

Light at the End of the Tunnel ~

With outstanding fire-marshal orders and future uncertainty ~ not to mention the Rubbermaid bin full of water that came crashing through the drop ceiling ~ the bookshop will not re-open in the same location. We are packing our books.

We have been offered a commercial space just around the corner. We cannot divulge the details yet but we are very excited. Family and friends including authors and business associates have offered to help us move.

Photos of conditions we have been battling ~ Enough! Lorna

Re-entered the Bookshop ~

Everything is as we left it yesterday, except for more water filling a 17" x 22" Rubbermaid bucket in the middle of a wet carpet.

When the place was shut-down, Robert Yanch, the resident lawyer, kicked into action. Before anyone had time to say "no," he had a crew clearing huge rooms of combustible materials -- two dumpsters and two pickup trucks, to be specific. How he met the other specifics of the "Threat to Life" order from the Fire Marshall's office is a mystery. But I for one will never question Bob's will to get something done! Thank you Mr. Yanch.
The bookshop remains closed. Perhaps we have simply lost heart. We have had enough. We won't open again in this location.
Tomorrow: Light at the end of the tunnel.

The Neat Little Bookshop has been dealt a severe blow. The owner of the property has not complied with continued, long-standing orders from the fire department. The bookshop, along with our adjacent neighbouring businesses and upstairs tenants have been CLOSED by order of the fire authorities. The building has been issued an "Immediate Threat To Life" notice from the office of the Ontario Fire Marshal.

This is a great setback for us; however, as soon as we get permission to remove our store contents and can locate a new commercial site (We have some offers.) we will notify our customers. With the brief notice that we had to evacuate today, we attempted to remove books that were ordered for customers.

It goes without saying that we apologize for any inconvenience and hope to quickly relocate. We can still be reached at 905-577-5635 or e-mail lbwalker@shaw.ca Our sincere apologies to the authors whom we had recently invited to Meet The Author Teas: John Geddes, Neil Paul and Jose Penny. We will be booking again at the earliest possible date.

Thank you for your business and your understanding. Our gratitude to our fellow business people, our family and friends who came immediately to our aid.
Lorna and John

This event is postponed until a later date. A Meet-the-Author Tea ~ Everyone Welcome

In A Familiar Rain, neuroscientist, Alex Hemmer is committed to developing a drug that would enable subjects to relive their most treasured past experiences. If he could achieve success, it would mean that Alex could revisit his deceased, young wife.

A retired high-school English teacher, author John Geddes said,

"I love the idea of time travel...I wrote it into my curriculum ~ creating a Time Travel unit studying books from Jack Finney, H.G. Wells and others."

Geddes was fascinated by Wilder Penfield's* explorations of the human brain in which Penfield actually caused some of his test subjects to relive past events.

The backdrop for his book is Geddes' own alma mater, the University of Toronto, where his professors included Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye.
http://www.johngeddes.ca/

* (1891 - 1976) Canadian Neurosurgeon