Schnook Looks at Books

After spending my entire life (so far) in the Mon-Yough area, it amazes me that there are still places that I've never been.

Case in point: The old Potter-McCune warehouse on Walnut Street in Our Fair City, which I've been passing on a weekly or daily basis since I was an infant. Saturday's "warehouse sale" by Book Country Clearinghouse, which now uses the old Pomco building, was as much an excuse for me to poke around inside as it was to buy books.

Though the book bargains were pretty remarkable, too. I walked out with $150 worth of books for about $38, including some recent bestsellers --- like The Trust, Alex Jones and Susan Tifft's history of The New York Times and the family that owns it, and Taken For a Ride, Bill Vlasic and Bradley Stertz's unpacking of the Daimler-Benz takeover of Chrysler Corporation. Also, some P.J. O'Rourke, a biography of John McCain, and a bunch of reference books.

There isn't much inside to tip off the building's heritage, by the way, though some of the signage clearly dates to the 1960s or '70s, or even earlier. Inside, it's a fairly standard 1930s-style warehouse --- oiled wood floors and factory-sash celestory windows in the roof. One room (if I recall correctly, it had children's books stored there) was covered with tile and had several holes for water pipes. I suspect it was either a shower room or a food-washing area.

The warehouse floor was a little daunting; the books were stacked in piles in every room that seemed to have no rhyme or reason. One of the Book Country employees tipped me off; the books were sorted by publisher, and then stacked alphabetically. If you didn't know the publisher's name, they were more than happy to look titles up on their computers.

I was also amazed at the memory recall of the employees; one lady asked if there were any books on knitting, and a Book Country employee rattled off several titles and their approximate locations. I asked about one title, and the staff person was able to give me the exact aisle where it would be located. (There were no copies left, alas.) As someone who can't remember where my car keys, eyeglasses or checkbook are from day to day, I was impressed.

Of course, as a wholesaler of remaindered books --- titles that were returned, unsold, from bookstores --- the pickings could be hit or miss. There were 2004 World Almanacs for 75 percent off, but there were also quickie celebrity biographies of people whose 15 minutes of fame is long since forgotten. Do you want a copy of Bushisms, a collection of the President's malaprops? Book Country has an entire pallet-load --- or did, as of Saturday afternoon. Maybe they were all sold by Sunday.

I didn't realize that Book Country has sold off its retail stores, including the location on Rodi Road in Penn Hills. According to the employees I talked to, they deal strictly wholesale with other retailers now. If a discount store needs a mixture of low-priced hardcovers, they call Book Country, and an order gets pulled and sent out.

They also fill orders for large bookstore chains that find themselves suddenly out of a popular backordered item. I won't mention the names that were dropped to me, but you've heard of them. It's nice to know that such a business has found a home in Our Fair City!

Also, the Book Country folks were apparently gratified by the amount of community response that the weekend sale generated. The big parking lot at the warehouse --- which can accommodate many tractor-trailer rigs --- was packed, and folks were parking on the street. Several employees told me that the company may hold additional warehouse sales in the future. Watch this space for details.

...

Seen at Book Country, by the way: Brad Grantz, a Republican from Elizabeth who's challenging Democratic state Rep. David Levdansky in the 39th House District, which represents parts of Allegheny and Washington counties. Grantz is blogging his campaign at VoteGrantz.com.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I have worked with Grantz on some volunteer activities in the past.)

I don't live in the 39th District, but if Grantz is shopping the 75 percent off sale at Book Country, I guess we can assume he's for fiscal responsibility. And literacy, come to think of it.

...

As for fiscal responsibility, I should have exercised some this weekend and stayed out of Book Country, among other places; I spent more money than I expected to this weekend. Sunday, I took my own advice and went to a ham radio swap meet in Butler County, where I picked up a 1960s German-made Grundig shortwave set. It was cheap, but I still felt a little bit guilty driving home. There are things I need to buy more than another damned radio.

It's called a Grundig "Melody-Boy" (do you think that, perhaps, that name doesn't translate well into English?) and I can find next to nothing about it on the Internet. As you might expect, the controls are all labeled in German, and I had to largely guess what their functions were. ("Ein" means "on.") But it worked well; in the middle of the afternoon I was pulling in FM and AM stations from all over Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.

So, I put the little set to good use as I worked around the house Sunday night, and checked in with a program that used to be a regular habit. Johnny Lightning's "Radio NewYork International," a potpourri of samples from pirate radio broadcasts, political rants, juvenile humor, 1960s radio jingles, international phone calls from all manner of lunatics and music. Lightning (not his real name, obviously) is himself a former pirate broadcaster who works a legit job now; "RNI" is as close as you can get to real, raw pirate radio on a licensed frequency.

Since it's broadcast over shortwave and (supposedly) isn't intended for a domestic audience, it's free from FCC obscenity rules. That means it's often vulgar; but it's also often very, very funny, even without the crudities. In fact, its funny moments are more spontaneous and its serious discussions are more thoughtful than 90 percent of what passes for commercial or public radio in the U.S. right now. They finally have a Web site, but you can check in live (if you have a shortwave, and if the weather conditions are right) on WBCQ (7.415 MHz) between 8 p.m. and midnight Sundays.

...

Speaking of radio, a reliable source phoned me Saturday morning to tell me that Clarke Ingram mentioned this Web site on WWSW-FM (94.5) Friday night.

If this was a shameful attempt by Clarke Ingram, heard from 7 p.m. to midnight Friday on 3WS, to get a plug, then it's not going to work! Sorry, Clarke, but Tube City Almanac doesn't give plugs that easily!

Nice try, though, by Clarke Ingram, who's also heard evenings and weekends on WKHB (620) in Irwin and sister station WKFB (770) in Jeannette.

...

In the comments to Friday's entry, Alycia points out that CBS News is rather (ha! ha!) forcefully defending its use of the National Guard memos that many people suspect are forgeries. And, as Alycia says, the typeface or "font" in the memos has been around since the 1930s, meaning that it's not inconceivable that the memos were produced in the 1970s.

All this is true, but unfortunately, the entire controversy detracts from the real issue: the President is attacking his challenger on his military record, when in fact, the President's military record is spotty, at best. Reliable sources --- not faked memos --- contend that his father pulled strings to get him into a Guard unit that was flying obsolete planes that had no chance of being used in Vietnam. And he didn't even show up for his physical in 1972, which means that he couldn't even be cleared for duty in those obsolete planes.

And that detracts even further from the real issue: What does it matter what the President or John "Yawn" Kerry or anyone else was doing 30 years ago? I'm more concerned what they've done for the last four years, or what they plan to do for the next four years.

All these "made-for-TV" dustups accomplish --- whether the Swift Boat nitwits or the doofuses at CBS who can't recognize an obvious fraud --- is to distract us from real issues: the outsourcing of American jobs, the ballooning deficit, the ongoing war on terror, and the war in Iraq. The latter two items are different, in my opinion, despite the best efforts of the incumbent to blur them together.

If I was a real cynic, I'd suspect that the President's advisers want us to be distracted by nonsense like faked memos for just a few weeks longer --- say, at least until Nov. 3. And it doesn't take too much of a conspiracy theorist to wonder who faked the memos in the first place ... perhaps an overzealous opponent of Bush's re-election?

Or was it maybe a Republican operative hoping to discredit Kerry, a la the "Canuck letter" that Nixon's campaign planted in 1972 to discredit Ed Muskie?

Karl Rove's helpers, after all, are the folks who planted rumors that John McCain was "mentally unstable" after having been a POW in Vietnam, and that Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in that war, was a "coward." Would you put some faked memos past them?

Or, maybe it's time to call the doctor; I think my lithium has stopped working.

...

Nice story last week by Chuck Gibson in The Daily News about the new commanders of the Salvation Army chapel in Our Fair City, Capts. Chris and Aubrey Stephens. The Stephens met at a Salvation Army function in 1978, Gibson reports, and they have two children.

...

Tomorrow: Almanac mailbag.