THESE TIMES

Items left at the used bookstore

Kirk Ericson | Oct 12, 20230

We eventually become what we’ve left behind.

I was at a bookstore in downtown Olympia two weeks ago to buy a book for Mrs. Ericson, and I found a paperback copy from one of her favorite authors, “Bel Canto” by Ann Patchett. While standing in the fiction aisle at that bookstore — Last Word Books — I flipped through “Bel Canto” and found a lavender-colored note containing a name and a phone number.

I walked the note up to the fellow behind the counter and suggested he keep the note, in the remote chance the person returns looking for that phone number. He dropped it behind him in a box brimming with scraps of paper. Since Last Word Books opened in 2002, it has squirreled away items found in used books and in boxes of books brought in by customers.

I returned to the bookstore last week and that fellow behind the counter, Jeremy, allowed me to pick through two cardboard boxes of discarded and forgotten items. Here’s what I found — all of it wonderfully analog:

■ A letter from a dad, dated Sept. 22, 1989:

Dear Tricia,

Thank you for your letter. I want you to know that I feel very badly about your anger and pain and I would like to help you find relief, but I am not certain what you want me to do to help you.

In the past I have never perceived myself as a negligent or unsupportive father and it was not my intent to make you feel that I didn’t care.

This is not to minimize your feelings and perceptions but only to say that I am not sure of what you expected from me in the past or what you expect of me today and in the future. We are both victims of the same tragedy. Unfortunately, the past is history and we can’t change it but if you are willing, we can improve the future. Love, Dad

■ A short note: “Don’t

worry. Trust me. I know exactly what I’m doing. Party. My place. Friday.”

■ A sent postcard:

My dear sister Gaia,

Happy birthday in advance. You inspired me so with your stories about getting in touch with our Narragansett + Matinecock heritage that I thought you might enjoy this. There is a First Nations two-spirit group out here that I’ve been slowly involving myself with. Alcatraz Island, pictured on this card, was occupied by Indians of All Tribes from 11/20/1969 until 6-11-1971. 19 months of solidary + freedom.

■ An unopened package of Sylvania Blue Dot flashcubes.

■ The premiere edition of The Rebel Woman, dated September 1973. Cost: 15 cents. Readers were advised to contact Charlene at 2026 S.E. Yamhill Apt. B in Portland. Charlene had the lead story, headlined “The Working Woman.”

“Living in this capitalistic economic system of America, women are oppressed both as women and as workers; and if a woman is of a minority group she is exploited still to a further degree. To be truly independent both men and women must have co-operative control of the economic means of survival otherwise we will continue to be dependent upon parasites to feed our children and ourselves.”

■ Poems were a common find in the boxes. Here’s one dated June 30, 1931:

I am ever present to those

who have realized me in

every creature

Seeing all life as my

own, they are

never separated from me

They worship me in the

hearts of all, and all

their actions proceed

from me

Wherever they live,

They abide in me.

■ The proposed bylaws, complete with scrawled addendum suggestions from its founders, for Last Word Books, LLC, created in preparation for its birth more than 20 years ago:

“The mission of the bookstore is to contribute to the general literacy of the public through the dissemination of information, thereby increasing the burden of awareness in the individual and the community at large through a collectively owned and operated sustainable organization relying on consensus decision-making.”

■ News obituaries on yellowed newsprint for the authors Richard Brautigan —“Author Brautigan, 49, found dead” —and Charles Bukowski – “L.A. poet Charles Bukowski, 73, ‘Barfly’ author.” The last graph of the Bukowski obit sums up the man’s feral approach to life: “As a boy, Mr. Bukowski was bullied by other boys and rejected by girls, attracting only what he described as ‘idiot friends.’ At age 13, he discovered alcohol – the answer to beatings, boils and rejection – in the family wine cellar of one of those friends.

“ ‘It was magic,’ ” he later wrote. “ ‘Why hadn’t someone told me?’ ”

■ An unsent postcard that reads: “The greatest act of environmentalism is to stop creating demand” and “The greatest act of resistance is to stop consuming.”

■ A letter from Sunday, Feb. 23, 2014, addressed to Last Word Books. The letter-writer had recently visited the bookstore. “… I was under the influence of a recently finished book; it’d been less than 2 hours since I finished reading the ‘The Kite Runner.’ I don’t know if you have taken this book in yet, but whoa nelly, it’s important. And like so many works of literature, I’ll never be finished with the book because it’s stitched to the fabric of my soul. It’s part of me now.”

■ A postcard dated June 21, 1973, from Suzy to Paul in San Mateo, Calif.:

Dear Paul,

Sorry I haven’t written for a while. Still holding down the job. Managed to save a little money. I got an IUD put in yesterday. So far everything is all right. Not too much pain. My mom gave me a few bucks for my birthday which is out of sight …”

■ A poem written in careful block letters:

Wounded woman … she tries to pretend that she is something

but he keeps telling her she is not.

How can she know who to believe?

Herself

or the one who is supposed to love her?

Friends ask how she is

can’t they see she is

bleeding?

She tries to be brave

but only pieces of her seem alive

She coasts on automatic pilot