THE ARGO BOOKSTORE

Everyone called him Mr. George:  College 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, 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 a college professor 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 rise of online shopping and the demise of the giant chains, unobtrusive and modest, and 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., an alternative arts school located in the middle of downtown in a grand old building built in the 1880s originally called Victoria School.  I was the only student who lived in my far-away neighbourhood, so the school bus was only able to either 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. Kindergarden in the Iron Age was half days, so because I was in the morning group, the bus brought me there, 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 after work.  A dilemma indeed.  So when Ms. Herscovitch 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 hyperactive 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 conducive to good business. John would promptly affix the “Back in five minutes sign” and we repaired through a natty old curtain to the back room to have a little snack of tea and ginger snaps. He always spoke to me as if I were a welcome friend.

What other wonderful things do I remember? I remember learning basic math 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 was particularly entranced by the ‘No Sale’ button. 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, though I did get one occasionally as a special treat. I remember 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 mischievious 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 loving tribute to him in the Montreal Gazette. I felt guilty that I hadn’t popped in 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. 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 marvelous 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