It’s been a busy, busy week here in the Proofreader’s Cave, and I haven’t had the time to even think about blogging, let alone actually do any (very frustrating, especially with today’s pair of celebrity deaths — one expected, the other shockingly not — practically screaming for my attention). But I would like to briefly note the passing on Tuesday of one of Salt Lake’s leading citizens, Sam Weller, whose eponymous Sam Weller’s Zion Bookstore has long been the literary epicenter of the city. Sam didn’t actually found the store, but he did change its name when he took it over from his father in 1946. In a painfully ironic twist, he was forced to retire 12 years ago — leaving the store in the capable hands of his own son, Tony — after losing his eyesight. That’s always struck me as an impossibly sad fate for a bookseller, and just a little too uncomfortably close to that old Twilight Zone episode that starred Burgess Meredith. You remember, the one called “Time Enough at Last,” the one where the bookworm survives a nuclear war and looks forward to finally catching up on his reading now that there’s no one around to bug him, but then he drops his spectacles and they shatter, leaving him blind as a bat. Ugh…
Anyhow, you can read more about Sam’s life and his store here. He was 88 years old. I have more to say about my own experiences with Sam Weller’s Zion Books, but it’ll have to wait. Like Burgess Meredith pre-apocalypto, I simply haven’t the time right now…