THE ARGO BOOKSTORE

Everyone called him Mr. George.  Students, my high school English teacher, old men, young women, dear friends, maybe even his mother. Everyone, that is, except my father, and by extension, me. We called him John.  My father, a 23 year-old lapsed-Irish Catholic-socialist-hippie-draft dodger from Boston, came to Montreal on July 14^th, 1969 (Bastille day), and promptly made friends with the owner of the bookstore across the street from the bar where he worked. Named after Jason’s great mythic ship, the Argo is a Montreal institution - a tiny crammed store, with ceiling-high shelves, full of literary classics, modern literature and novels by Canadian writers. Many college professors would order their course books through the Argo, and its downtown location and proximity to the 2 English universities made his store a popular favorite.  Even after all these years, the Argo remains, seemingly impervious to the giant chains such as Chapters or Indigo, (4000 copies of The Da Vinci Code? Check! Mediocre coffee-cum-dessert? Check! Taylor Swift’s latest oeuvre? Check! Heroine by Gail Scott? Ummm…. Better check the Argo), unobtrusive and modest, yet holding steady against the storm .Yet all the store’s charming merits would have been for naught were it not for the warm and reassuring presence of its owner – John George.

In 1976, I started kindergarten at F.A.C.E.S., an alternative elementary school located right downtown in a grand old building called Victoria School.  I was the only child who lived in my neighbourhood, so the school bus would either only pick me up or drop me off, and then only 3 days a week. How or why this arrangement seemed satisfactory to my parents, I cannot guess. But it meant that if I were in the morning group, I would get picked up, but there was no bus to bring me home. I would have to wait for someone (either an aunt or uncle) to pick me up and bring me back. This would have to be done after work.  A dilemma indeed.  So when Leona Hersovitch, our teacher-cum-tormentor sent us packing, Jeffrey Casselman (what ever happened to him? I wonder if he remembers me…) and his grandfather would walk me across the street and around the corner to the Argo.  Now, to say I was a hyper child is putting it mildly. However, I was fiercely intelligent (no false immodesty – I was already reading at a grade 4 level) and profoundly curious, qualities which must have appealed to John, since taking care of a 5-year old at his store must not have been that conducive to good business. John would promptly affix the “Back in 5 minutes sign” and we repaired through a natty old curtain to the back room, where we would have a little snack of tea and ginger snaps. So, what other wonderful things do I remember? I remember learning to count on his old-fashioned cash register (which to this day occupies a place of honour on the shop counter), pushing the levers and guessing what the totals would be. I remember being particularly entranced by the ‘No Sale’ lever, and wondered what it was for. I remember reading “Where The Wild Things Are”, and wishing I were Max. I remember the Dover colouring books in the rack by the counter – fascinating in content and unattainable (my parents will have to confirm this, but I’m sure I must have asked for one every time someone came to pick me up. I did get one occasionally as a special treat.). I remember the fact that my father had a running tab, and would order books from John that no one else carried. I remember the giant tomes entitled “Books In Print” that were published every year that sat to John’s right. I remember his calm manner, his gentle stammer, his hushed, breathy high pitched voice with a hint of a sing-songy prairie accent, his bemused laugh, his bulbous red nose which got redder and redder as he got older, his absolute devotion to Charles Dickens (and the twinkle he got in his crinkly eyes when he talked about Great Expectations), his fierce intellect, and above all, his unabashed, unparalleled love of books.

John died a few years back, and there was a lovely tribute to him in the Montreal Gazette. I felt guilty that I hadn’t popped by to see him more often. For on the rare occasion that I did, I was always greeted with a warm smile and some words of wisdom, and I felt truly happy. John had insisted to my parents that I had no need for school – that everything I ever needed to know was readily available to me on those shelves. He was probably right. And as much I love what I do, as much as I’ve enjoyed and learned from my travels, I think – No. I know - I would be just as happy behind the counter at the Argo (perhaps happier? Why quibble?), for I can think of no profession as marvellous and as noble than that of bookseller.  



PIC 1 - My mother, John George and me, Île Ste-Hélène, Summer 1971.
PIC 2 - Argo bookstore interior