By Tim Mallon This is about preparing for school in Maitland, about gift buying and shoes - it appeared in the Mercury in 2012… It’s Saturday morning, the shops are almost shut, and I need to buy a gift for my niece and nephew; so for me - and therefore for them - it’s always a book. It’s an unfortunate habit this - not the book buying - but the leaving of things until the last moment. I tend to meander, like the river, until a looming deadline sharpens my mind, makes me less likely to engage in activities which I shouldn’t be engaging in: like knitting a beanie, or shepherding ants into corrals in the driveway. The book buying thing is something I’ve long been in the habit of - my unfortunate nephews and nieces know what is in store for them when the gift giving season approaches; a tome of some description comes forthwith, and with it some subtle, or not so subtle message lurks in the sub-text, in the title - something said in the words that my dumb tongue couldn’t say... And so it was again on Saturday once more, a gift for the offspring of my dear sibling’s offspring - and so it goes. And like many, I go hurriedly - to McDonalds Book Store in High Street. And I am immediately happy to still find, a shop like this, a place like this in our town. And they don’t make them like that any more really. Most are too big, [or too not there anymore], too uninterested, too snazzy, too busy looking good but delivering not much, too ‘now’ - and no where near enough ‘then’. Searching the stalls for a book for the kids and I’m loving the magnificence of the shelving, the brilliant bursting of the clutter - this is a real bookstore, a real Maitland, High Street shop with character and commitment, with charm and bricks and flood mud in the floor-boards - and I’m home here. And I know this place has been here since I can remember. I know I came here in Primary school for my pencils, texters and Perkins Paste, for my exercise books and brown paper to cover them. By the time high school rolled around, I came back again for my Jacaranda School Atlas, for a compass set which came in a metal case, a protractor, and for an Oxford pocket dictionary. And thankfully, sensationally, the place still seems the same, it still feels as it did then, it still has what I want, what I need - it still stands strong in the High Street, in my mind and memory. And in there, if I choose, I can still remember how I was, how it was - and Maitland’s like that... Across the road, at Johnston’s Shoes, I remember mum getting my school shoes, Bata Scouts in primary - complete with animal prints on the souls - and pull on elastic-side boots for the Marist Brothers. And the giant boot on top of the shelves, the shoe horns and the proper fitting - and it still goes today... Or down the road at Ken Lane’s; because of the place, because of their intent, of how it is, and how it is done, I can still find what I want, and find myself, down there in High Street. So, I found my books, I kept the tradition alive, and I found that in the High Street, despite popular belief, that so much of what was wonderful and unique in that street of all streets, is still the same - it all still goes and we can have it if we desire. So it goes... Goodnight.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 07:40:33 +0000
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