A bookstore in California

I've just returned from Moe's in Berkeley where I spent more on books than an unemployed writer should spend. I bought one book I needed to get, another I went wanting to get, and two I had thought a lot about buying. As I said on the phone earlier this week, Delayed Gratification Zac is gone.

As I strolled past the 'F' section I noticed a hard-cover version of "Everything is Illuminated," a book I've always told myself I wanted to read but have never bought or borrowed. I slipped it off the shelf and flipped toward the copyrite page to see if it was a first printing, which it wasn't, then flipped toward the first blank page to see what price was etched into the top right corner in pencil. I would find out in a few moments that it was $10, but first I saw an inscription.

It read, in a sloppy yet still feminine handwriting that was half printing, half script:

A late fathers day gift

To Kevin from Linda
To the best dad in the
whole world - July 2002 -
Ben is so lucky to see your
face every day & to have
you as his dad

I couldn't imagine selling a book, especially a book that was a present and certainly not if there was an inscription.

In my head, Kevin and Linda had a baby boy in May or June of 2002. Her saying he was the best dad in the world was based more on assumption than a proven track record of fatherhood. She thought he was the best husband in the world and, of course, would make an excellent father.

He probably was, and I picture him, mid-thirties with tousled short hair, walking around his and Linda's hardwood floors in his pajama bottoms on a Sunday morning with seven-month-old Ben leaning on his shoulder as he watches the 49ers game across the room.

But something happened, Ben got sick or there was an accident. It was no one's fault but it's a painful memory. In late 2007 Kevin and Linda are moving, probably out of Berkeley, maybe back to her home town, when he recognizes the book as he's boxing up their shelves. He re-reads the inscription for the first time in more than five years and just about cries again.

He wants to get rid of it but doesn't want to throw away the story of a young man searching for his grandfather's past. He considers donating it to someone but he wants someone to want it. He takes it to the used book store and makes a little bit of cash, which he'll add to the annual donation he and Linda make to the foundation for curing the disease his son died from (I've decided it was an illness).

I will show that inscription to everyone I show my books to and ask them what they think. The book will sit on my small bookshelf that I usually reserve for my favorite, highest recommended, or rare books. After I read it.

The end of Time

All my life, or at least for the portion I am able to remember, I've loved calling POPCORN. I used to beg my parents to let me call after a blackout or earthquake so I could be the one to hear the exact time and set the clocks. My family referred to 767-2676 as "Time," and it was so familiar, the woman's voice so comforting. Good evening. (so polite) At the tone (ah the tone), Pacific Daylight Time (I always preferred hearing her say "daylight" over "standard") will be seven, thirty two, and forty seconds (ever notice it was in increments of 10 seconds?)... boop.

In an age of cell phones that have their clocks set automatically via satellite, lithium ion batteries that keep computer clocks artificially ticking forever, and Web sites such as www.time.gov brought to you by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, there is, apparently, no need for a familiar woman's voice on the phone. I didn't call as often as I should have the past couple of years, but it was nice to know she was there, waiting to answer my one question accurately and promptly.

Now a different voice, though similar enough that it seems they tried to pull a fast one on us, rather curtly tells callers that "Effective September 19, 2007, the Time announcement information service has been discontinued. We apologize for any inconvenience."

But there are so many questions left unanswered by that answer. For years, I'd call to learn the time but that simple answer prompted so many more questions that the recording would never be able to provide on it's own. Who are you, voice of Time? How was your voice chosen? When did you record all those fragments of dialogue? How long did it take you to record all those numbers? Did you have any creative differences with the guys recording you? At what time of day did they decide to switch from "good morning," to "good afternoon," to "good evening," and then back to "good morning"? It would be strange to call at 12:55 and 10 seconds and hear "good morning." 1:00 am is still evening to everyone I know. And who is the they? Who funded this? Who is the we that is apologizing for my inconvenience?

This new message prompts even more disturbing questions. Does the fact that this never-ending loop ended somehow disprove the theory of time travel? Or prove that the universe is bound to end too? We thought it was a never-ending loop, but it was just such a big circuit we couldn't see that it had an end point.

It was only recently that I learned I've been living in a world without Time. I knew life was different while traveling, and often I would say that the day of the week didn't matter. The day Time was discontinued, I was in Berlin. But Berlin seems like another time, but was such a good time it's still timely. I thought things would return to normal when I got back, but time has been flying and dragging at the same time. I have so much time yet run out of time all the time. It will take some time to adjust to a world without Time.

The absolute worst part is that future generations will now never understand the scene from Full House where DJ, on her first day of junior high, alone at lunch and scared, takes her food into the phone booth, drops a quarter as if she were calling a friend but hears only a voice. They won't crack a teary smile or feel her pain and isolation because they will be hung up on trying to comprehend why some woman's voice would tell a caller the time of day twice in 20 seconds.

That voice was a friend. To DJ, to me, to people without watches but with access to a phone, and to scared preteens everywhere.

Good bye Time. I wish I had more of you, but I'll always remember the good times.