Hyde Park (Chicago) Used Book Sale, October 10, 2015

Every Columbus Day weekend, a usually fantastic Hyde Park Used Book Sale is held in the courtyard of the Hyde Park Shopping Center at the corner of 55th and South Lake Park Ave. It used to be run by the former Hyde Park Co-op grocery store to raise  money for non-profits in the area. After the Co-op went out of business in 2008, ending 75 years of operation, the replacement tenant, Treasury Island Foods, agreed to help facilitate the sale, which is now run by the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference. Trade paperbacks normally run for $1, hardbacks $2.

Hyde Park Shopping Center courtyard before 9 am, Saturday, October 10, 2015.

I first attended the sale in 1996 when I lived in Hyde Park, and since then I've tried to go back every year--all together more than a dozen times. I love exploring through the books and the excitement of finding something uncommon or otherwise interesting. The presence of academics connected to the university and other highly educated people living in Hyde Park of course makes the quality of donated books great for me. According to the organizer's website, nearly 60,000 books were collected for the 2015 sale, but the quality--at least in terms of what I look for--is key. Among my best finds were classic books about Chinese history, society, and thought. One was signed by the famous Chinese sociologist Fei Xiaotong. My best sociology find that comes to mind was the hardback "Green Bible" of readings, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, edited by Robert Park and Ernest Burgess. (The cover is green. A scanned copy is available through Internet Archive.) This year I picked up a US road atlas from the 1940s--interesting because of how the road network looked before the interstate highway system. Because of the tight space in the courtyard, most of the books are kept stacked in the boxes, making it hard to search.

Hyde Park Used Book Sale, October 12, 2013, a few hours after sale start
(Others create a mess of books while going through the boxes, so I try to order  
them as I search. Earlier in the day, the courtyard is much more crowded with people.)

Except for possibly one year, when I didn't attend, the weather has been pleasant during at least the first day of the sale (always a Saturday) in this century.

A few times I've driven from Madison, but I usually take the bus so as to arrive early and because driving back in the traffic can be annoying. So I end up using the hours before the 9 am start to try a breakfast restaurant in Chicago. This year, after arriving at Union Station around 5:30 am by the extremely cheap bus option, I tried the chicken and waffle breakfast at Daley's, near the corner of Cottage Grove and East 63rd Street. Afterwards, I walked north to the edge of the University of Chicago campus and then along the Midway to get to the book sale. At a later time I'll post my take on the breakfast meals I've tried in Chicago over the years.

Carl Linnaeus (Carl von Linne), "Father of Taxonomy"--
Monument moved to the University of Chicago in 1976 from Lincoln Park,
where it was placed in 1893 as part of the city-wide celebration of the World's Columbian Exposition

Worrying about groceries
I’ve had mixed feelings about posting the following story because it feels like a kind of boasting; however, I think that people who know me would be disappointed if I didn’t tell them about this short encounter.

One evening in fall 1996, while I was living in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, I was carrying a heavy paper bag of groceries and, in my backpack, a gallon of milk and other heavy items as I walked back to the apartment. Along 53rd Street some guy was handing out fliers. He said he was running for the state senate, so I decided to stop and talk with him--in part so as inform myself before voting but also because I felt alone in Chicago. Most people don't pay attention to such candidates, so another reason that I stopped is because I felt sorry for him.

With my arms wrapped around the grocery bag, I skimmed through his flier and noticed that he had been the president of the Harvard Law Review. I began talking with him about my experiences teaching law in China, such as that I used the ideas from Plain English for Lawyers, and about how I was from Kansas and had attended law school there so as not to go into debt. Otherwise, I would have been unable to teach in China while earning less than $300/month and having to pay back loans. He was one of the few people after my return who was interested in talking with me about China. After we had talked about various topics, I said that I'd definitely vote for him and that I was giving back the flier to save him some money. My bag was getting heavy--I didn’t want to risk putting it on the ground out of fear that it would tear--and I had to put some things in the refrigerator.

But, as I was leaving, Obama said, "Wait, I'd like to talk to you about something!" I replied that I had to put some groceries in the refrigerator and that my bag was getting heavy. As I walked further away, he shouted to me that he wanted to talk to me about something, and I repeated what I had said about my groceries. I think that Obama one more time yelled that he wanted to talk to me about something.

I want to emphasize here that it never crossed my mind that Obama was being impolite for pressing me; my impression was that he was a nice guy, but I was puzzled over why he didn’t seem to process what I'd said. Later on, I realized how stupid it was of me not to wait another minute or two.

Before the 2008 Wisconsin primary, over 15 thousand people showed up for the Obama campaign rally in the Kohl Center at UW-Madison. I just managed to get a seat, and as I looked at the crowd, I sometimes laughed to myself about once feeling sorry for how few people were paying attention to Obama. Throughout the campaign, I kept wondering what he so urgently wanted to talk to me about in 1996. It was about a year later that the reason came to me, but I think it's best that I not post anything about it in this blog.