This is going to sound really bad, but I have been so excited for this moment for a really long time. Don’t get me wrong, I am not excited that Borders closed AT ALL. Borders was amazing. Its smell was magnificent, the leather chairs were exquisite, and the shelves upon shelves of books were breathtaking. I could never have come close in the entirety of my lifetime to reading everything in Borders that I would have liked to, and I adored that feeling. Borders was a bottomless well of knowledge and entertainment, which was extremely comforting. A few years ago I even wrote a piece in this very space about finding new and wonderful material to read, and one of my pieces of advice was basically to go hang out at Borders.

My excitement over this loss is anthropological. I am finally old enough to participate in all of those conversations aging locals so enjoy starting: remember when so-and-so business was around? Remember that AMAZING taco place that used to be on Hastings or Water Street or wherever? Remember when we used to take the Model T to Woolworth’s? Remember that magical little shop that used to re-shoe the horses while we got our handlebar mustaches waxed? Well, I have now witnessed the entire life span of a major local business, and I can now play along. Remember when we had that huge bookstore? What was its name?

While some might not mourn the loss of Borders, as it was a corporate chain store, many disagree. No doubt, Borders was the kind of outfit that hardcore local-centrics love to hate – the home office was very far away, it looked about the same as nearly every other Borders out there, and just about the time it opened in Eau Claire, the movie You’ve Got Mail came along and turned large bookstore chains into monsters. Borders essentially killed loveable, quirky Meg Ryan (she dies in that movie, right?), and a lot of people could never forgive them. 

But unlike some of the other big chain stores around town, Borders didn’t seem like they were only there to funnel money out of Eau Claire into some fatcat investors’ pockets. No one ever rushed you out of Borders – you could sit, enjoy free wi-fi, listen to entire CDs, or read entire books, and they were OK with that. They invited local authors to do readings, and they sold local merchandise. They were the kinder, gentler sort of mega-corporation that we could live with.

And, like the increasing real estate of my bald spot, this is where my age is really starting to show. I remember when Borders really was the evil empire that Darth Vader fostered to kill off the Alderaanian natives. About the time Borders arrived, Eau Claire lost B. Dalton Bookseller in Oakwood Mall, Waldenbooks in Oakwood and London Square Mall, Little Professor Books in Shopko Plaza, and a true gem, the type of store that looked like something one would find in Diagon Alley with shelves of dusty books and the smell of the owner’s pipe, Book Peddler in downtown EC. 

It’s the economic circle of life. Now we all hate to see Borders go, but that opens the door for something even better. Maybe some enterprising local can open an amazing store downtown.

At the time, for me, the loss of Little Professor stung terribly. It was within biking distance of my parents’ house, and I used to go there to buy/read comic books. I would walk in in my overalls and straw hat and sneakily spin the wire rack of comics like I was checking out the titles, while I was really reading the new X-Men. Then the crabby store owner would yell, “Confound it, kid, if you want to read them, you have to buy them.” Then he would come at me with a broom, and I would respond, “Gee mister, you don’t have to get so sore!” Then I would run away, a little cloud of dust at my heels, to Ron’s Castle Foods, when it actually looked like a castle, and rent Flight of the Navigator on VHS for the 87th time. It was awesome. And now I’m all teary with nostalgia.

That is exactly why I will mourn Borders, but I refuse to get all bent out of shape about the loss of books as an art form, or the loss of bookstores as a foundation of the local economy, or whatever doomsday message someone may find in the loss of the store. Waldenbooks rocked, and no one likes to see a business close, but Borders was better. It’s the economic circle of life. Now we all hate to see Borders go, but that opens the door for something even better. Maybe some enterprising local can open an amazing store downtown like Borders with great selection and coffee, but also with some sort of attractive, unique character. Maybe instead of looking at e-readers as the conquering foreigner, we can build a shop around them, with loaners and deals built around in-store download purchases. Or maybe books can become a part of every local shop with subject matter matched to the type of store. I am excited to see what fills the gap. And someday, I will tell my grandkids, after detaching their data port head sockets from their space video games, about the cool book stores we used to have.