eddvick

We are back from a week in Texas, guests of my brother and his family. Ron, his wife Lana, their daughter Emily, and Emily's son Adan live in Bedford, one of the 'mid-cities' between Dallas and Ft Worth. They were excellent hosts; and it was particularly great seeing my great-nephew, now two years old and quite possibly the loudest screecher on the face of the planet. Unusually, all four of Ron's children were there (I can't say "Ron and Lana's" because some of them are from Ron's first marriage), so we had a big cookout with Patrick, Preston, Lisa, and - of course - Emily.

Ron and Lana have a pool, where Katie spent as much time as possible. From being a passable-if-tentative swimmer she went to jumping off the diving board and racing across the pool. This happifies me.

We visited many bookstores, as is my wont. This included two of the most amazing ones I've ever seen, both new to me.

The first is Booked Up in Archer City, a two hour drive from Dallas. This is the store owned by author Larry McMurtry, who travels all over the country buying up private collections. It's located in four separate storefronts scattered around the center of town (a very small town), and I only saw three or four employees altogether. We'd find some books in one location, put them in our car, then drive to the next a block away. I expect a lot of people do this, as the temperature hovered around the three-digit mark. Nobody seemed to have a problem with us doing that.

The first location only had a few sections I was interested in seeing, but an entire two walls of shelving were given over to miscellaneous books. It was pretty frustrating. There are very few mass market paperbacks, but I did actually purchase one of them to help complete my Dell Mapback collection.

The second location specialized in novels printed before 1925 as well as foreign language books & foreign-language-in-translation. Imagine twenty or so sets of shelves, ten shelves high, filling a wall with old leather-bound books. That's how amazing it was. This was where I went a little bit crazy, spoiling my appetite for John Kendrick Bangs and Don Marquis.

The third store contained literature, history, art, and the rare book room. It was supposed to also house the SF, but Amy had to get directions to where the section was. There were only a few shelving units devoted to the genre. The stock certainly reflected McMurtry's interests. It was in the lit section that I found a couple of Alexander Woolcott books I didn't have.

Then it was on to check out in the fourth store, where the most expensive titles were kept, as well as the mysteries, religion, Texana, lit crit, etc sections. This was also where books were priced, so again there were forty or so shelving units of miscellanea that had been priced and were awaiting distribution to their sections. I could have gone crazy here, but settled on just a couple of books, a Dunsany and the Hakluyt edition of Edmond Halley's journals. At check-out we were told that anyone who spent more than $100 could have free shipping, a service both Amy and I accepted.

Then friends Bobb and Debbie took us to Recycled Books in Denton (the Home of Happiness). While not as esoteric a location as Booked Up, they certainly had every bit as wonderful a selection. Usually in a bookstore I can scan the SF section in a couple of minutes then be off to look elsewhere. Here I quickly filled a basket with many unusual titles, some of which I'd never even seen at conventions, like the Olympia Press edition of Barry Malzberg's first novel, Screen. Their prices were pretty decent for having such a marvelous collection, and I regret that as much time as we spent there I never even got to the lit section.

Okay, it sounds like all we did was go to bookstores. We did more, including going to a Loose Confederation of Fandom meeting on Saturday night. I helped found Loose thirty or so years ago, and Bobb had told a few friends from that era that he had a surprise for them. It was great catching up with old friends Marye, Kat, Buddy, Cameron & Allison, etc. The BBQ wasn't bad, too.

Monday was a high point. My brother was an air traffic controller for a few decades. Now he's semi-retired, which means he spends his time training new ATCs. I asked if we could get a look at one of the control towers at DFW airport, and he arranged it. We started out in the simulator room, which only went live late last year. Imagine ten large screens at eye level circling your point-of-view about 210 degrees, with the usual desk, radio, and other equipment an ATC would have. It was very cool. One neat aspect is that it's evidently difficult to manipulate the airplanes directly; the instructor had to tell a pilot he had clearance verbally before he'd take off.

Then we went upstairs to see the real deal. We were up about ten stories high, with a great view of about half the airport. DFW had a single central tower, but the construction of several hotels obstructed their view enough that now the airport has an east and a west tower. We were in the west one. We hung out and asked questions for a half hour, watching quite a few planes take off and land. One of them had filed two flight plans, so had to be queried as to which one he actually meant to use.

Our last place to visit at the airport was TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control). It's the federal facility where air traffic is monitored farther out. Security is high there. We had to drive through four gates before we could even park. On the monitor screens it's easy to get a bigger picture of how air traffic is directed in the area. Imagine a square centering on the airport with a radius of 40 miles. Flights enter at the corners, while departing flights are directed to one of four routes on the sides of the square. That way collisions are less likely, though there are always VFR pilots to watch for.

And we did still more: rewatched the movie Up with friends Guy and Jeff, bought Katie some riding boots for horse camp later this summer, ate way too much great food.