Endless Knots

Time for the Larry story again

I've told this one in different forums since it happened in 1995-ish. A recent incident prompts this version.

Back in the days when Harvard Square was one giant bookstore, a corner of two floors was occupied by Wordsworth. Always jammed, knowledgeable clerkery, books, books, and more books, the place where it was easy to walk out with two shopping bagsful of books.

"The TeamNet Factor is faceout at Wordsworth," Daughter #2 said in 1993. It was a star from Kirkus at the time, an acknowledgement from the arbiter of good books that this was worth reading.

So I went to take a look and there it was, third shelf up faceout.

I gasped and the man next to me said: "What's wrong?"

"That's my book!"

"Great book," said he, "I read it. And have you read my book?" He reached across, a couple of shelves down to hand me Managing Information Strategically, inadvertently pushing me into the woman just beside us.

"Oh, is that your book?" she said. "Well, this is my book, or I mean his book," pointing to the man to her left. "I'm just the editor."

Rewind: The author who reached in front was Jim McGee. The man with the editor was Charles Handy.

Jim and I chatted for a while; he mentioned that he was at Ernst & Young; we exchanged contact info; and I formulated The Bookstore Theorem: The only people there are authors.

Fast forward a year or two to the mail dock at Bear Island where I spotted a couple looking for directions. They wanted to find the girls' camp that their daughter had gone to; they were staying nearby at the Appalachian Mountain Club on Three Mile Island; they'd just paddled over.

Me: "The girls' camp is close to our cabin." Off we went, following the red trail, chatting, who are you, what do you do, until eventually the husband said, "I work at Ernst & Young."

Perfect entre for my book-story to which he had the perfect rejoinder.

"I'm Jim McGee's co-author on that book," said Larry Prusak.

Fast forward again to very recently. Two good friends decided to go to the AMC camp on Three Mile for the weekend so we visited, got the tour of the camp (go, that's all I can say, it's beautiful).

Outside the dining hall was a list of those present for the weekend.

Guess who?

Yes, Larry, who, by the way, is reading Jonathan Franzen's new one, Freedom. "Beautifully written," he says.

And, staying current, Larry and Tom Davenport are working on a new book of their own on judgment. On which subject, they have a post on HBR Blogs, "If Only BP Knew Now What It Knew Then." Great title, guys.

 

 

Granite on the brain

"Granite State of Mind" for those for whom Loudon, the Kancamagus, the Old Man, and Bode are sacred.

From Bear Island to Betelgeuse

Richard Laronde, local originally to Newton, Mass, and now of Walpole and Bear Island, NH (explaining how I know him), is heading out, by which I mean way out, as in outer space: "Newton native books ticket on one of the first commercial space flights."

We're all expecting a full report at the next BICA meeting, Richard.

Fall dispatch from Bear Island

Ossipees - a study in red

Belle waiting for a stick at The Carry

Golden fern near Camp Nokomis

Here comes the neighborhood

My hubby has been coming to this paradise since he was four; I started when I was 23, which means we’ve been walking from the east side of the island, just above The Carry, to the Mail Dock (where the M/V Sophie C, the US mail boat delivers the daily post), on the west side, for 37 years. The first time each of our kids made the trek across the island is recorded in pencil on the window jam.

There is no bridge to the island, no roads, only footpaths. Back in the day, Bear Island was a destination for wealthy summer vacationers. A train from Boston brought people to a ferry, which was met by a horse carriage that transported guests up the pine path to the wide wrapping porch of the Bear Island Hotel.

Its foundation and a scattering of wrought iron frames and stoves remain strewn in the forest, a fire of dubious origin having burned down the hotel in the Great US Depression in the 1930s as its owner was seen leaving the island.

When we put in a phone in the early '70s, we were one of only two camps in our "village" with such links to the outside world (the other at the lovely camp of "the doctor" on the point)--and our neighbors made fun of us. I thought we'd justified the installation by choosing a red phone - for emergencies only. That I regarded a phone as more important than indoor plumbing, which we didn't acquire until 1989, reveals a bit more about myself than perhaps I should :).

So yesterday, imagine this: high-speed internet was installed in our chicken coop, literally, yes, a chicken coop, hauled over sixty years ago on a barge by my father-in-law and his friend Seth, whose children "live" next door and remain our very closest of friends.

Yes, folks, wireless in paradise. Or is that an oxymoron?

(And if I've sufficiently intrigued you, you can learn more about Bear Island by purchasing Bear Island Reflections, now in its second edition and published by the Bear Island Conservation Association, that a group of us, including moi, worked hard to produce. Proceeds from sales benefit the Bear Island Conservation Association. To purchase, a check for $27.50 USD payable to Bear Island Conservation Association, and send c/o Capron, 278 West Street, Needham, MA 02494 USA. Or contact Richard Laronde at <[email protected]>)