The Archerland Journal

Volume 1, Number 1

November 2004

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Archerland Journal: What’cha Readin’?

In this Issue:

1. Changes at Archerland by Nick Archer

Over the next month and as time allows, you will be seeing some major changes at Archerland.

Some writers will be going away. This is NOT a reflection of their writing. Alex and Reid have already been removed; Alex because he is busy with college and not writing, Reid for other reasons. Papyrophile has requested that HIS Gardens be removed and I will honor that request. Jay will be removed because he is not writing and I don't have a workable email address for him. I haven't been able to contact him in more than a year. (If anyone knows of an active email address for Jay, let me know.) Once again, I want to emphasize that the removal of these writers is not a reflection of their writing and/or content. I wouldn't have invited them if I didn't think they were good writers. It has only to do with the contactability of the writer and their activity level.

Some writers will be placed on a new page called The Incubator. The Incubator is a new concept solely for new writers who show promise but perhaps need a little work. Their works will be short. As they write more, improve their writing and/or editing skills, they may eventually move to their own page. (The title Incubator is a reference to the 1933-34 Century of Progress fair where most of the art deco graphics come from. At the fair, they had live babies in incubators. It seems kinda ookey to us 70 years later, but it was one of the most popular exhibits at the fair.)

I have made the decision not to post Java Biscuit's writings to Archerland. Dabeagle offered them to me after he removed them from his own site. But she has never responded to my emails and from what I understand, she has not responded to anyone else's either. After our discussion about writers responding to email over the summer, I think it would be inappropriate to post her stories here, not to mention that I don't have her direct permission.

Most of the galleries are being removed. They were an afterthought and not part of the Archerland mission. They also take up a lot of "virtual real estate."

Archerland is again actively seeking new authors to add to the family. In the past, I had the requirement that authors must not have their own web page. I have eliminated this requirement. We are especially looking for stories in other genres such as: Sci-fi/ fantasy, mystery, humor, military/uniforms, camping/outdoors/rural, college, and athletics. However, these three topics remain taboo: water sports and/or scat, intergenerational sex (boylove), and rape. Archerland does not feature celebrity or boyband stories.

2.  Recipe  Jayne’s Paradise By The Dashboard Lights Meatloaf

I have to admit that I was never a fan of meatloaf (the food) until Jayne gave me this recipe. It’s moist and delicious and makes great sandwiches. It makes a big loaf so it will feed a whole tribe, or if you’re single like me, it will last you a whole week!

The secret is Stove Top Stuffing® instead of breadcrumbs. The mix of seasonings is just perfect. You must use Pork Flavor. Although I’ve never tried it, Jayne reports that other flavors will not work.

There are a couple of optional add-ins: Soy sauce, ketchup and garlic. I like soy sauce because it adds color as well as flavor. I don’t like ketchup in the meatloaf, I prefer to add it to a sandwich afterwards. But some people can’t live without ketchup so there it is. Garlic is a natural with pork, so if you’re using ground pork in the recipe, go ahead and try it!

You will need:

Optional:

Preheat oven to 350. Put the cat in another room. His interest in your meatloaf will be mercenary. Spray a 9x5 loaf pan with cooking spray. Mix all ingredients by hand. (Be sure to wash your hands thoroughly afterwards!) Pack mixture firmly into the pan, unless you like crumbly meatloaf. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes. Drain off excess fat after removing from the oven. Let stand for 10 minutes or so before slicing.

3.  Essay: Super Moms In Spandex by Sara Bell

Recently, I signed my daughters up for swimming lessons. I don't have the patience to teach them, and since I subscribe to the theory that everyone should at least know how to swim enough to save themselves, I hunted around until I found a wonderful woman was gives instruction from her backyard pool. Lessons started yesterday, and the girls and I were excited to start. Little did I know, we were walking into a nest of super moms.

You know the women I'm talking about. Those rare breeders who've given birth to four children and still look like cover models in designer clothes and Ray Ban specks. Super moms use cloth diapers on all their children, make their own baby food from organic vegetables, and name their children Mitsy and Clive. A super mom never raises her voice, nor does she allow her children to interact with the demons of soda and chocolate. Super mom would never bribe her child with the promise of say, a Hershey bar, should said child step out of line. No, super moms approach their children with reason and logic. In short, folks, super moms are of the devil.

Case in point: My youngest, Baby Bell, has maternal attachment issues. That's the politically correct way of saying she's a spoiled rotten Mama's baby who tries to glue herself to my side and is not above throwing a fit to get her way. Yesterday, Baby B. decided she wasn't going to take lessons unless I got into the pool, too. Now, I may have lost 57 lbs, but I still have a ways to go, and stripping down to my bathing suit in front of all those skinny women in spandex is the closest thing to anal probing torture that I can think of. I very politely told my daughter that she was on her own, to which my doe-eyed child responded by throwing herself on the ground and pronouncing, "I'll go into that water over my wittle, dead body." The girl has such a flare for drama.

The swim instructor, who apparently has dealt with Baby B's kind before, told me to pick her up and hand her into the water. That worked until the lady turned her back, at which point Baby B climbed over the side of the pool and made a straight line for me. Again, I picked up the dripping, soggy, wailing mass that was my child and took her back to the pool. This time, though, Baby B was prepared. When we reached the pool's edge, she grabbed two handfuls of my hair and tried to pull me into the water with her. To be fair, she wasn't trying to hurt me. She just wanted her mama, and that's what she thought she was going to get. I was able to keep myself from going into the water, but I now have a bald spot.

But, I digress. Back to super mom. This particular nominee for the Mommy Hall of Fame was sitting off to the side, watching the whole scene with sadistic glee. The moment I took my seat, she leaned over and said, "I see your youngest has some attachment issues."

"Uh huh." When a talker like me is reduced to two syllables, it's best to back off. Apparently, super mom didn't get it.

The woman's eyes all but sparkled. "Have you tried a series of behavior modification techniques? It worked so well with my third child."

That did it. I may not be a super mom, but no one on this earth loves her babies more than I do. To be given parental advice by this walking advertisement for Parent's Digest was the last straw. Putting on my most serious face, I said, "Behavior modification? Is that where I pick up a stick and tan her tantrum throwing butt with it?"

Super mom's eyes popped. "Good heaven's, no!"

How I kept from smiling, I'm not sure, but I was able to keep a straight face as I said, "Then I haven't tried it." At which point, I pulled out my notebook and started writing the first sex scene between Shane and Seth. Wisely, super mom attempted no more friendly offerings of advice.

Okay, so I fibbed a little bit. I've never beaten my children--with a stick or otherwise. Heck, I'm not even a spanker. I'm more of a time-out, take-away-their-television-programs kinda person. Still, super mom left me alone, which was the point of the whole thing to begin with. I feel so powerful right now, I may start in on those skinny women who take aerobics classes, next.

Love,

Sara Bell

4. Movie Review: Latter Days

By Papyrophile

Monday I received my copy of "Latter Days" and I think I've watched it four times already. If you're not familiar with the story, it concerns a closeted gay Mormon missionary and how he comes to terms with his sexuality. Some of my nit-picky issues with the film...

Those points alone would drag down the movie's grade to "C-minus", but there are some noteworthy performances also...

Fortunately, the pluses outweigh the minuses here. So much so that I've elevated the movie's final grade to a solid "B".

Checking IMDb's site, it looks like the movie almost broke even, presuming those figures are cumulative rather than discreet. So if it's going to make money, there's got to be a lot of video sales in its future. I'm just happy to know that I've done my part.

"Closing time - You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here."

Few people mourn the passing of a retail store. You shop at the local K Mart for fifteen years; you know the layout. You know where they keep your favorite brands of toilet paper and candy bars. You know where the clearance items are displayed. You never know what might be there at the clearance aisle. Maybe it’s that CD that you’ve been wanting but has only the one song you’ve heard on the radio and liked - the rest of the CD is an unknown quantity. And you don’t want to pay full price for a CD that has only one good song and the rest is garbage.

And then, seemingly just like that, they announce that the store is closing. Your shopping habits are changed. Maybe you attend the Going Out of Business Sale. In your mind, you plan alternatives. You think that once the store closes for good and you’ve finally run out of the 24-pack of Charmin that you bought at the Going Out Of Business sale, you’ll have to bypass the carcass to park far out in the parking lot at Wal-Mart and wait in interminable lines to get through the checkout.

You never think about the people who worked there. You never think about the front-end manager who runs out of one-dollar bills on a holiday weekend. You don’t know about the store manager who worried about the next district manager visit or running out of an item advertised in the Sunday flier or how he’s going to run the store with so few employees. You never question where they went. Did they go to another store? Did they leave retail all together? Maybe they went back to school.

And what of the building? In a mall, the space is usually recycled pretty quickly. Most of the time a new tenant is in the space before the next Christmas season. If the store’s in a strip mall, it can languish for months before it’s filled again. If it’s a stand-alone store it may never be recycled. It may sit and quietly rot until moss and mushrooms grow on the floor like the old Goldblatt’s store in Park Forest.

In any event, there seldom is any evidence that the old store was there. Just memories. There’s no memorial or testimonial to the people who labored there or the people who shopped there.

I was a retail manager for ten years. I managed a B. Dalton bookstore. It was different from other retail. It took brains to manage a bookstore. It took knowledge and intelligence. At least that’s what I told myself.

B. Dalton was started in Minneapolis by Dayton-Hudson in the mid-sixties. Store Number One was in Southdale Center outside Minneapolis. The earliest stores featured a large globe in every store as part of the displays. The original stores were orange because the color orange suggested a "festival" atmosphere. They expanded slowly (at least by today's standards) until the early-to-mid-eighties when the chain exploded. Malls were opening everywhere and B. Dalton was right there with them. Incidentally, the name B. Dalton was chosen because it sounded literary. There is no one named B. Dalton. And the B. stands for nothing. Although, one Christmas a series of ill-advised television ads featured a geeky-looking Waldo look-alike who chirped "You can call me Books."

There were so many stores opened in 1984 that management referred to them as the ‘84 stores and we all understood what they were talking about. By the early eighties, B. Dalton stores were still orange, but a lighter shade of orange. Most of the brown and fake woodgrain was replaced with beige. The 1980's vintage stores had an Information Desk about halfway in the store, almost always on the right side of the main aisle. By the mid-eighties, the color scheme became maroon and beige and by the mid-90's, it became the wacky blue and green with highlights of red and yellow.

Unfortunately, they did not always make good real estate decisions. In the Chicago area, there were B. Dalton stores in some rather odd places. There was a short-lived B. Dalton in Old Chicago, the long-gone indoor amusement park and mall in Bolingbrook, IL. Talk about dead malls! B. Dalton had stores in Forest Park Mall, St. Charles Mall and Park Forest Plaza (where I was first assistant manager.) They had stores in strip malls in Villa Park, Hanover Park, LaGrange, and Highland Park. There were even freestanding B. Dalton stores such as in Lake Zurich. On Roosevelt Road in Glen Ellyn, there was even a store in a former Jack In The Box! The drive-through window was still intact, although it wasn't used. We managers used to joke about it a lot. ("Would you like fries with your Tom Clancy?")

By 1986, with overexpansion, lots of unprofitable stores, and heated competition from discount chains such as the now-defunct Crown, Dayton Hudson was looking to sell B. Dalton. The book business is notoriously tough and book buyers can be fickle. Profit margins are slim. Although Dayton Hudson understood customer service and merchandising, they didn't understand books. During Christmas of 1986, they tried a Santabear promotion. Santabear was hugely successful in their department stores, but it was a failure at B. Dalton. This is one illustration of how DHC didn't really understand book buyers.

When Len Riggio bought B. Dalton in 1986 there were over 850 stores. This is compared to over 1100 stores for Waldenbooks. B. Dalton was always #2 but there were some areas where B. Dalton predominated, such as Florida, California, and the upper Midwest. B. Dalton had stores in every state except Vermont, Rhode Island and Hawaii. There was a huge store in Alaska and two in Puerto Rico.

Although Barnes and Noble took a hand-off approach -- at first -- to the low margin stores, they started making other changes immediately. They established a distribution center for the chain. They divided their stores into the Mall division (B. Dalton) and the superstore division. They expanded their Marboro (now Barnes & Noble Books) of exclusive bargain titles (and high margin.) Many B. Dalton stores were tailored the inventory to their community. They streamlined the ordering systems and computerized inventories.

Barnes & Noble didn't stop the buying spree with B. Dalton. They purchased the Bookstar/Bookstop chain in Texas and the Southeast. To the Mall Division, they added Scribner's and Doubleday as upscale bookstores. Most Scribner's and Doubleday stores didn't discount in any way.

Barnes and Noble began expanding, first in the New York/New Jersey area, then in the Northeast, then to major metropolitan areas and finally nationwide. The first Barnes and Noble in the Chicago area was in Wheaton.

At the time, they reassured us that B. Dalton was here to stay, that the two divisions would co-exist and they had no plans to close the B. Dalton chain.

They were wrong, of course. The superstores were destination stores where serious book buyers could be certain of finding more obscure titles in stock. The superstores also discounted everything at least 10% -- which they no longer do. Lots of employees were jumping ship, too, to the more secure Barnes & Noble. The mall division stores found they were selling books only to the mall shoppers who bought fewer books.

B&N started closing B. Dalton stores, starting with the unprofitable stores. In the Chicago area, five B. Dalton stores were closed right after Easter of 88. They just closed on Saturday night and didn't reopen Monday. Apparently, they were so unprofitable that it was easier to just break the leases than to keep the stores open.

But the Easter closing was an exception. Closings were steady through the 90's. A lot was taken into consideration. If the lease was up and the mall owner demanded a big increase in rent, B. Dalton would close. If there was a Waldenbooks in the mall that dominated, B. Dalton left. Of course the proximity of a Barnes & Noble would be taken into consideration. It was said that Simon preferred Waldenbooks in their malls. The leases of many B. Dalton stores were not renewed by Simon Properties, even if the store was doing well. B. Dalton 103 in Northwoods Mall in Peoria is an example of this.

About this time, Publisher's Weekly, the book industry standard, accused Barnes & Noble of "eating its young," meaning they were expanding B&N at the expense of B. Dalton.

Some B. Dalton stores were replaced with a Barnes and Noble in the mall or attached to the Mall itself! Hawthorne Mall in Vernon Hills is an example. At Mayfair Mall outside Milwaukee, they installed a huge 2-level Barnes & Noble with it's own outside entrance. It replaced both a large B. Dalton and a Scribner's.

By the Millennium, the writing was on the wall. B&N became very aggressive about closing B. Dalton stores. They were closing 30 to 50 stores a year.

After Christmas 2003, B. Dalton closed 30 more stores. Included in this closure were the Lake Forest and Lincoln Mall stores, both which had been open 30 years.

I read a press release that Barnes & Noble is finally admitting that they "are phasing out the small-format stores." Meaning: they are closing B. Dalton down.

There are less than 200 B. Dalton Booksellers left, mainly in small markets not big enough to support a Barnes & Noble. Think: Nampa, Idaho, Presque Isle and Bangor Maine, Houghton, Michigan, and Mt. Vernon Illinois.

My own story with B. Dalton Bookseller started as a part-timer. I was teaching in a Catholic school for slave wages. (They justified the low wages by reminding us that we were doing it for God. Unfortunately, God didn’t pay my bills.) In my first full year of teaching, I contracted hepatitis B and I was out of work for a month. When I started to feel better, I applied at the Glen Ellyn B. Dalton, which was a short walk from my apartment. My application was bicycled to the Villa Park B. Dalton where I started.

Like many newly minted college graduates, I moved around a lot in the early years. I worked at Stratford Square, Xerox Building (a store I would manage later) Century City Centre, and Lincoln Mall.

It was while I was working at the Xerox store that I found out B. Dalton was opening a new store in Park Forest. I was ready to go full-time so I interviewed for the full time position. The store manager had already been selected. Roxanne told me in the interview "You are the one I want to be the Assistant Manager."

One of my best memories was Grand Opening day. We earned over $3000 that day, which was a huge sum at that time and for a store of that size. Oh, it was so much fun. The store was beautiful and well-stocked and we were proud.

After the initial excitement died down, sales slowed considerably. There were days we just barely made $500 the entire day.

I learned a lot from Roxanne in the year that I was assistant manager and the slow sales gave her time to teach me. I probably wouldn’t have learned as much if we has been in a busy mall store.

When Roxanne left to take a job closer to her home in Indiana a year later, I became manager.

At that peculiar time in the company, managers were encouraged to be creative to increase sales. As long as we could justify it and it would increase sales (and it didn’t cost any money) we could do it. At Park Forest, I created a Contemporary Fiction section which consisted mainly of trade paperbacks. It was a failure, but at least I tried. Another fond memory of the Park Forest store was a group of adolescent boys who used to stop in after school. They sometimes distracted me from my work but I figured that a bookstore was a safe place for them to hang out and I was, in a way, providing a community service.

The Park Forest store closed two years later, and I helped pack the remaining computer books to return to the publishers. Years later, the whole Park Forest Plaza was "demalled" and a street was paved down the center, where a flowing fountain used to be. The B. Dalton store was partially demolished for a connecting street.

My next store was in downtown Chicago in the Xerox Building. It was a very plush store. There were lockers and a kitchenette in the break room. It had a mezzanine where we displayed the children’s books. It was meant to be the District Manager’s office but the DM had moved from there, wisely, before I got there. The store was a mess when I inherited it. I spent the first two months just cleaning it up.

It closed a year later. My district manager called me at home on Tuesday night and told me the store’s last day of business was Friday. My staff and I packed everything up and it was trucked to the dusty fifth floor of the Wabash store. I had been blindsided but I learned a lesson, or at least I thought I did. Retail is never permanent and the only constant in retail is change.

That store remained vacant for a short time then it was remodeled into an investment firm.

My third store was in Yorktown Mall, near Montgomery Wards. It was a healthy store, nonetheless. Still, on summer weeknights I could have rolled a bowling ball down the center aisle not hit a customer. While I was still there, Woolworth’s closed its huge two-story store directly across from B. Dalton. It hurt business, especially since we had to stare out at the empty windows for the last nine months I was there.

Still, the Christmas Season at the Yorktown store was huge. From Thanksgiving to New Years I was in survival mode. Even with vacant stores across the hall, we managed to do $16,000 on one day before Christmas. It was here that I developed the dubious tradition of getting sick as soon as Christmas was over. I think that my body was trying to tell me that something was wrong but, as usual, I was ignoring the signals.

Barnes and Noble had opened their first Chicago-area store in Wheaton, just a few miles west. I was ignoring the writing on the wall again.

For my last store, I transferred to Bloomington. I had attended ISU, so I knew the community. And there were no superstores. Yet.

Within the first year I transferred, Barnes and Noble announced plans to open a store. It opened by the time my first year anniversary in Bloomington rolled around. I held tight. I didn’t want to transfer to the superstore division. Besides, my store was being remodeled.

In May of 95, we packed most of the store up and moved it to a temporary store in the Bergner’s wing. The store was expanded and remodeled from floor to ceiling in the new purple and sea-foam green color scheme. It was such a beautiful store.

But by that time I was burning out. I had had enough. I wanted weekends off, like normal people. I refused to see the writing on the wall. I denied that there was a problem and kept holding onto the illusion that retail is permanent.

The end came on a bright October day with a surprise visit from my district manager. Unsubstantiated accusations were heaped on my head and unpleasant words were exchanged. He gave me a choice - an untenable set of working conditions or quit. I chose the latter. Suffice it to say the parting was not magnanimous. To punctuate my decision, I threw - really tossed - my store keys at him and told him to run the store through the Christmas season.

Seven years have passed and I found out that the store in Eastland Mall was to be closed. I really had mixed feelings about it. I was saddened but not surprised. Part of me grieved and part of me wanted to skip and sing "Ding, Dong The Witch is Dead."

I wanted to make one last trip to the store. I planned on it. They were having a Going Out of Business sale and perhaps I could pick up some bargains. I had only been in the store once since that day in October 1997. About a year after I quit, I stopped in while Sears installed new tires on my car. The last day of business was July 30, 2004.

I never made it. I was not working on July 30 but I was tired and needed a day just to vegetate.

I realized that I wouldn’t know anyone working there. And really, I didn’t want to see the store again. .

Still, I wondered about some sort of memorial. Some kind of testament to the people and hours, worry and sweat that had been invested there.

One Sunday in September, I went to the Bloomington Public Library. There was a book that I’d wanted to read and we couldn’t check out any books from Borders because inventory was coming up. Our library is open on Sundays and I was surprised at the number of patrons on this beautiful, sunny afternoon.

In the middle of the aisle on the adult side, there it was in all its purple and sea-foam green glory. We called it the foursquare display. B. Dalton had obviously donated it to the library.

As I sat down at the computer to look up the book that I wanted, I spotted several other displays, some of them still empty as if they had just been moved into the building. They looked out of place in the main circulating room, which dates from the mid-seventies. The purple and green shelving units clashed with the orange carpet and the original dark wood shelves. As I went to find my book, I spotted even more shelving from the store. The entire Young Adult section made use of the shelves from the store.

I smiled to myself. I smiled from ear-to-ear. Here was the memorial. These shelves were being put to good use. Even if the library decides to discard them in three years or open the branch that they’ve always talked about (providing they ever pass the referendum) they will have served a good purpose. They have provided more shelving for the library and they will remind everyone that there was once a B. Dalton store in Bloomington.

Swinging my book and with a smile still on my face, I stepped out into the bright sunshine. And I remembered that nothing is permanent. Not even in retail.

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end."

6.  Work In Progress: Forest For The Trees

Benjamin Disraeli wrote, "When I want to read a good novel, I write one." That was the idea behind Forest For the Trees. Camping is extremely sexy but all the stories I was encountering at Nifty were just awful. So I decided to write one of my own. The problem is I just don’t know where to go with it.

Read it and tell me what you think:

http://archerland.disbelieve.org/Shorts/forest.htm

That’s it for the first edition! Thanks for reading!

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8.  Contact Information

To contact the editor, Nick Archer, please use the Hotmail address

To submit a story, article, review or essay, please use the Yahoo! address.