I never thought closing our Borders would mean the bustling book store on Glades Road in West Boca Raton. Growing up in West Boca, Shadowood movie theater was a popular hang out for me and many of my peers. When Borders Books and Music opened in 1995, the real magic in my literary life began. I was 15-years-old and remembered purchasing all my required summer reading for Spanish River High School there. I’d sit in the cafe, sipping coffee and it was there that I was first introduced to Atticus Finch, Hester Prynne and The Invisible Man. I opened my first pages of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar in the magazine section and It was in that cafe I wrote some of my first newspaper articles for my high school paper, The Galleon. It was in that wonderful, wooden seat that the possibility of becoming a writer when I grew up seemed so real.
I had a cell phone but it was only for emergencies. There was no texting or Facebook–no pressure to Tweet my every move. I was free to download whatever thoughts I wanted in my mind for free and no one had the option to like it or comment on it. I miss the simplicity of that life dearly. I remember walking through the aisles of that store with my dear friend, Melody Carter, and we’d buy leather bound journals and notecards and write each other snail mail when we went off to college.
So on Jan. 6 as I sat in the cafe on a chair that had already been sold to someone else, I looked at the thinning shelves around me. My friends, my memories–the beloved books were all 40 to 75 percent off. I wanted to cry but I couldn’t. I went into a panicky hoarding mode. I must save the books! I must save this table, I thought to myself. I walked up to the store manager and pleaded, “Please sell me this chair. I need to take a piece of this store home with me.” The woman smiled and replied that the stuff had been sold and claimed a month ago and it was too late. All that was left to purchase was the mammoth magazine shelves. At $20 each and buy one, get one free, it was an incredible deal, but there was no way I could ever fit something that ginormous in my apartment. I then tried to buy the Borders sign hanging behind the cash register, but it was a no-go too. My memories would be all I could take with me.
As I purchased one final journal for 40 percent off, a coffee table book from Cher’s latest movie, Burlesque, and a quirky notebook titled Love Listography: Your Love Life In Lists, I texted Melody, who is now in New York City, so we could say goodbye to one of our sacred high school hangouts together.
On Jan. 7, Borders in Boca Raton closed its doors for good. In a final and depressing conversation I had with a clerk there, we lamented the death of book shops across America in general. “People don’t want to lug around books anymore. And they don’t want to spend $25 for a hard cover book when they can download it to an e-reader for $9.99.” While I have an iPad, I actually don’t love reading books on it. I enjoy reading magazines on it, but books, not so much. I miss the musty smell of an old book. I miss the texture of a dog-eared page beneath my fingertip. I miss seeing a stack of my old friends on the backseat of my car. But most of all, I miss the idea of something I could learn from that doesn’t need to be plugged in, recharged or updated to work.
Print will never die, regardless of how many buffoons try to argue that. When cassettes replaced records and CDs replaced cassettes, music didn’t die. But I want to make sure this generation understands that once upon a time, there was much more to read than Facebook. RIP dear Boca Raton Borders. You will remain open for business on the shelves of my heart.
