View Of The Book & Bean!

An artic evening.  Parking is surprisingly difficult with many cars already downtown taking choice spots.  A long black coat is drawn tightly around me as I tread carefully yet swiftly down the street, stepping over gutters that are wide with dirty snow and trash.  Lights and beautifully mural-ed burgundy walls welcome me through the book store’s big windows.  A glance in before entering.  The tables are full of people young and old engaged with rapt attention; focused as one. 

Heavy old door.  It swings in to invite my entrance.  I have interrupted a musical group playing by the door to my right.  No problem…I am greeted mid-song with an exuberant “How are ya?” from one of the musicians…a burly bearded lumberjack plucking a banjo.  Returning a grin and nod in greeting, I spot and achieve a chair.  Mingling aromas of freshly brewed coffee and soup in crock pots compliment the character of the store, enhancing the sense of welcome one feels upon entering.

An unusual mixture.  The men playing are graying lumberjack in plaid, and to his left a clean cut and trim school teacher, next to a larger, very young man with straight sweeping hair covering his eyes as he leans over his instrument.  Guy Clements , Mike Snell , Joey Artibee …this is a group?

A song begins.  Eyes closed, I am transported.  I hear and feel the blues of a jazz singer.  Eyes open and the blonde boy-man is singing with his heart on his sleeve.  Providing back-up, the others wear pleased smiles as the audience is astonished at the gift of the young singer; he moves in a jazzy style as he croons.

Outside, fading light.  People occasionally hustle past hunched against the weather.  They are going to the bar next door…their cigarettes and exhalations trailing a desolate smoke making it seem even colder and darker outside.  

Inside, bookstore paradise.  Books of every shape, size and topic line the walls and shelves.  Enough to make a schizophrenic reader collapse with pleasure.  The atmosphere is glowing with warmth … emanating not just from the heat vents, but from the friendship of the audience and delight beaming from the musicians.  As a few additional stragglers enter, the cold does not enter with them.

A joyous trio.  Banjo, guitar, and fiddle make a treasure of “City of New Orleans ” in a cheering folksong style that would make Guthrie proud.  Next, the lumberjack, unlikely with a small mandolin strummed like velvet in his fingers, joins the others with their guitars…all three intoning melodically and  deeply the western ballad “Ghost Riders in the Sky” with each Yippie-I-ay done with grins a mile wide and mirth; reminding one instantly of Elvis’ laughing version of “Are you Lonesome Tonight?”

Laughter now fades. A low, slow, heart wrenching “Long Black Veil” by young Artibee takes flight.  Weaving lyrics as a net he pulled the audience into the emotion of the story…we were spellbound, captured by the very air that held his sad words.

Instruments changed often. With each song a switch, as a woman who cannot decide which dress to wear.  Sometimes a banjo, sometimes a guitar or mandolin.  Often an electric guitar or fiddle purred in expert hands.  Even a harmonica showed up at the party.

It’s after 8 o’clock.  The place should have closed by now…no one is willing to leave.  Finally, a last song, warm words to the audience and we were done.  A fast exodus as all, dreading the cold, hasten to get cars warmed up to escape it.  Music not fading, but carried out as joy by the audience, to be resurrected later, time and again, in conversation and spurred memories of a favorite song.  The lights of the Book Nook dim. 

By: Valerie K. Rabe ,