1971 was just the beginning.

Loading a U-haul truck with 3,500 used books in upstate New York in 1971 was just the beginning.

After a stint in the Army and an apprenticeship with my father in the fur market in New York, I still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. A family friend xx I learned the business from Sol Felpirn who worked for my father had secretly wanted to be a bookseller, but the money was too good working for my father. Seemed like a good business idea

There was an estate and it was a publishing company, Free Thought Press Asooc, devoted to atheism. They reprinted classical works of our American founders. If you can find a customer for these, I can sell you the contents of my office, which was more

That became the nucleus of my store, along with books I purchased at estate sales the previous year. My firend helped me load the U-haul and I drove to Atlanta, the sleepy town where I had finished college.

My first location was on West Paces Ferry Road in Buckhead, a tony part of the city with a rent to match. When I sold a grand total of $10 the first month, I broke the lease and found a much cheaper location on Piedmont Road near Ansley Mall. The rent was $125 a month, including electricity. A bargain.

During my three-year stay there, Pat Conroy walked in. It was the beginning of a friendship that lasted 45 years.

$8,000 down and a 30-year mortgage on a purchase price of $30,000. And, I could live there.