Canals

Communications from Borders: Ann Arbor’s New Acquisitions Department has received my request for national distribution and I won’t hear from them again unless I am approved. Darkness. Total darkness. If declined (and I can only assume this after a couple of months of silence) I’ll never know why. On a little smaller scale I heard from the Barnes & Noble store in Bay Shore. No go. They don’t carry my book and the policy is “No carry, no event.” Any questions? Makes me feel like a young job seeker who finds that without experience I am not eligible for a job. How do you get experience if you won’t hire me?

I needed to have a little fun today so I went to Whitehall, NY. Located on the Champlain Canal, it is the birthplace of the US Navy—factoid of the day. Growing up in the area, I had no interest in the locks and canals of New York. They were subjects in my seventh grade history class, and anything studied in a history class made it ancient. I always thought these were defunct waterways. After all, once the railway came into its own the mule teams were retired, and the canals became nothing more than breeding places for mosquitoes—or so I thought. Now leisure boats cruise the extensive waterway system, and towns and villages lining the canal ways are capitalizing on tourism.

Whitehall is located on lock 12, has a museum and the wooden hull of the Ticonderoga, a couple of marinas and a musty smelling bookstore. It is a town on the brink of boom or bust, I could not tell which.

Playing on the marine theme I approached the museum the marinas and the bookstore, and while I had some interesting conversations with several people, including with some boaters cruising the canals, I sold no books. However, I managed to get my first venue. It took a few inquires at the town hall and museum, and a phone call to Vernon who referred me to Farmer George Armstrong. I got a hold of his wife, left a message and tonight, once he returned from the back forty, George gave me the thumbs up. “Now this is not a big market,” he informed me. I don’t care. I’ll make your little farmers market famous someday. I don’t expect to sell more than two books. It is suppose to be in the nineties again tomorrow. I’ll probably melt. But if I sell a book, I’ll jump into the canal.

Don’t forget to bring a camera.


Some days are harder than others, and today was a tough day. Let’s face it. I ended the relationship without so much of a whimper. Change the name and move on. But there are days when I become weak and wonder what he is doing. Hanging around marinas and water ways, albeit fresh water, I kept thinking of him. He would have liked the setting. I hope his dream comes true—to build that old-man boat and do the rivers. I got to get my grip back.