Bookstore Adventure

Last weeks flying adventure was a bit out of the ordinary.  Day One consisted of an Orlando, Florida turn-around out of New York's LaGuardia Airport, and then one leg to Detroit, Michigan.  Day Two was Detroit to Atlanta, Georgia, and then on to Tampa, Florida.  Day Three was simply back to LaGuardia---by way of Detroit.  On the surface it seems like a fairly ordinary trip, so what's the big deal?  Normally, flying in and out of Florida in July . . . it is usually one giant thunderstorm deviation.  The same can be said for the entire east coast, actually.  Not last week---at least not on Friday and Saturday. And we only had to use the weather radar once on Sunday; a slight deviation around a dissipating thunderstorm in eastern Kentucky.  I can't remember the last time I saw three days of dry air in late July!

The layover in Tampa was also somewhat out of the ordinary.  In thirty-one years of corporate and airline operations I have never had a layover in downtown Tampa.  Not earthshaking news, but it is unusual, considering the fact that Tampa is a regular layover destination at Big D---just as it was at Eastern and Pan Am.  I've had plenty of airport layovers though.  Airline old timers will surely remember the old Westshore Plaza Hotel.

Hotel map of downtown Tampa.

Saturday afternoon I donned my walkabout outfit and set out to explore downtown Tampa. Two and a half blocks from the hotel I stumbled upon the Old Tampa Book Company.  The sign on the window announced: Used, Rare, & Out of Print Books.  Now I'm sucker for used bookstores.  I've been known to spend half a day, or more, at Powell's City of Books in Portland, Oregon.  Powell's is probably the gold standard when it comes to used bookstores, and their aviation section is massive.  The Old Tampa Book Company is nowhere near as large as Powell's, but the storefront looked inviting, so I stepped inside. I'm glad I did.  Their aviation section is quite impressive.  I saw aeronautical textbooks with charts and graphs---stuff I suspect Brother Baker understands---and coffee table style books with small words and big pictures---for the average line pilot . . . and everything in between.

For me the adventure of a used bookstore is the hunt for unknown treasures.  More often than not, sections are loosely organized.  Richard Bach might be parked next to some Russian aerospace engineer.  The only way to really know what's available is to look at every book in the section.  Now my eyesight is not what it used to be.  My distance vision is still 20/20, but like many folks of a certain age, I have to use reading glasses for the up close jobs.  When I started my walkabout Saturday afternoon I had no idea I would be searching through stacks of books in a room full of shadows---or that bifocal sunglasses are not suited for such an endeavor!

As I worked my way through the stacks I caught a glimpse of a biplane on the spine of a book.  From the sweep of the upper wing I thought:  That's a Great Lakes!  A closer inspection confirmed my suspicion.  A Great Lakes Biplane with a blue and cream vintage style paint job.  Sticks & Wires & Cloth, by Anne Hopkins---I was pretty sure I had found my treasure.  The first sentence on the front end flap reads:  "Sticks & Wires & Cloth is about escaping into the skies of a bygone era with a 1929-design biplane."  That was enough for me---I bought the book!