Call Me Harry

Maybe it was luck, or perhaps, Providence, the good Lord’s hand pushing me in the direction of the book section.

There I was, minding my own business, trying to stay out of the way in Target, while my wife shopped. We needed shampoo, toothpaste, mouthwash—the usual stuff—for our trip east to visit my mother who was in her nineties and recovering from a fall.

As for the book section, let’s just say Target is no Barnes & Noble, Powell’s in Oregon or the Strand Bookstore in NYC—it is much, much smaller, almost an afterthought by comparison. As I stood with my back turned at the end of an aisle—laundry detergent to my left, chips and salsa to my right—I backed up to let a young mother with a stroller pass by.