Waldenbooks

The rule at my house was, and m- neither of my parents are big readers, but the rule was I could buy unlimited books and unlimited journals, and I don't, I don't know why that was the rule.

My mom was just like, "Anything you wanna buy at Walden Books, like, go for it." Other things I couldn't buy, like I really wanted clothes from The Gap, like the rich girls had clothes from The Gap.

Yeah.

No, my clothes were from Kmart.

[laughs]

... at the Waldenbooks.

Um, so-

Sure

That's about as far as I went with it.

And actually there is one other detail that comes to my mind, and that is I remember the first time, this is the first of any number of times, when I went into a B. Dalton bookstore or Walden Books or one of the big book chains, and there was this presence for Harry Potter books, but also what I mostly remember is next to it, there was this massive section on witchcraft and here's how to cast spells and here's how to summon familiar spirits and witchcraft kids and that kind of thing.

That really gave me pause because I could see how even if Harry Potter per se was not necessarily directly leading kids into the occult.

It was a doorway that the books and authors and materials that did indeed want to lead people directly into the occult could ride those coattails.

That was a complete failure.

And then I got a job with Walden Books, selling books in the bookstore, in the mall, and followed that for... couple decades and got promoted up and ended up that's how we got to connecticut because they were headquartered there i got promoted to the headquarters and my wife and i moved there so so i did that that was my career and then uh then after walden books it was borders books which right uh were owned by the same company as it you know eventually and uh so we did that and then And then when Borders went south, I had some – at the headquarters had been involved in some software stuff.

And so I talked to the software company of the software that I had helped purchase and said, hey, you need any money? So I did that for nine years, I guess it was.

No, 13 years.

Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard.

Buy your copy at B. Dalton's, Waldenbooks, or wherever paperbacks are sold.

A fresh look at today's problems.

The book was an international sensation and would reportedly go on to sell over 20 million copies.

So I learned good lessons from the Honda giveaway comic book.

But then I also have my story where I went to Walden Books as a kid.

And I had an Oilers, a Houston Oilers football jacket.

And I obviously, you know, the sports ball, I talked about this, but it was a jacket and I got cold sometimes.

So I wore the jacket and I go to this Walden books and there was some like teenage girls behind the counter.

And they just think that I'm the cutest thing with my Nicholas Brady hair and my Houston Oilers jacket.

And they say, go to the Spinner Rock and pick one comic book for yourself.

It usually ends up being more practical to demolish the mall and rebuild from scratch on or near the footprint.

That looks like what they're trying to do with the Boulevard Mall now, but why are we giving private property owners who've reaped huge profits by collecting rents from outlets like Walden Books and Radio Shack back in the day? I also wonder why the mall that I think would be most suitable for such a conversion, the Main Place Mall, isn't even discussed.

People living there would have ready access to various institutions and services in the area as well as public transportation.

As I pointed out, there are many parts of the city with vacant space that could use the housing.

They later separated.

Sherri had worked at Walden Books and more recently at Harris Pizza Rock Island prior to her retirement.

Sherri enjoyed bowling and softball, participating in several leagues.

She was an avid reader who enjoyed all kinds of books, watching the St. Louis Cardinals and Indiana Fever, and loved spending time with her family, often playing different games where her competitive side would show.

The, the- these are-- to quote Peter Johnson, my good buddy Peter, who's with us, uh, uh, again, veteran of Skydance, legendary Fox.

Peter's like, "These are the books that made-- These are the illustrations that made me buy all of the, of the paperbacks." When we were kids, the premier bookstore, uh, was Walden Books.

Walden Books.

It was in every mall that I had been in in Southern California.

This is before the advent of Barnes & Noble, Borders, uh, Crown Books, Walden Books.

And Frank had been hired to do Battlestar Galactica covers, Tarzan covers, John Carter covers, again, At the Earth's Core covers, all of these fantasy covers and magazines.

He really was the artist that we would buy whatever, $1.95, $2, $2.50, just because he did that cover to Vampirella or that cover to that monster magazine.