John Ford. We met when I told him he had the name of a poet.

I complain a lot. And I do so without prejudice. But bitching sometimes leads to good things.

John Ford and I met at the store about 8 months ago when he came in to buy his Players light large regular and his reading time snacks: two chocolate bars. John's been coming in for years but it's only after bitching about the bookclub that he came into focus as more than a customer.

This happens a lot at this store. Chatting away as usual to anyone and everyone - to pass the time and due to curiosity - I realized awhile ago that my regulars and I talked about the details of our lives in a surprisingly neighbourly way. Val brought us a box of fabulous Dundas chocolates for Christmas this year and the outpouring of real sympathy (the unexpected kind, one of the best kind) for our family last year brought this fact home. But we talked without ever sharing our names. When you can't say 'thank you' because you can't put a face (or a regular purchase) to a card signed "Samantha Lowe and Family" you know something isn't right.

Anyways this is all beside the point.

John Ford, from what I have gathered, is a 55+ divorced guy who has lived alone for some time now. He would in and buy his chocolate/cigs. I'd bitch about wanting to read more. And he'd recount stories of reading Cannery Row (Steinbeck) alone outside his knee high tent in a family campground under the old mountains of in Alberta surrounded in a sea of campers and trailers. ("Haha! I freaked out all the family campers laughing. Parents probably told their kids to avoid the crazy man.")

While talking, I'd reached under the counter and pulled out my copy of a book (this time Paksanarrion) for him. He'd pass over yet another book and tell me to hurry up with his copy of a book (Horatio Hornblower because there were twenty-odd more to go) because I was slow reader "for someone who went to university." Then, more often than not, he'd run home (or to Chapters) and return with a book we mentioned.

I don't know much about him except that he has that blue collar humour i love but with a literary twist. He has his confessions too. It's these whispers over the register that keep me going. For John, he can't help but think a girl at Chapters, a girl after his own bookish heart, is 'an ugly mongoloid.' He always reports this with a sad shake of his head, as though it is too bad.

As an 'Asian' I should be horrified but it makes me giggle - the audacity - even to rewrite it here. He knows he's being bad.

Anyways, after much give and take, John and I have founded our own little Scenic Bookclub! It's not official but easy and fruitful. He's introduced me to Steinbeck and loaned me his precious Hornblower series. And I've lent him all my old Goodkind and G.G. Kay. John's a man after my own 13-year-old-boy's bookish heart but he's completely uninterested in my beloved Austen or E.B. Browning.

Oh, and the club is growing. I'm also reading Gwynne Dyer's Future: Tense (The Coming World Order) lent to me by other customer. Hm. I've got to learn his name.