Happy May Day – and Buy Indie Day too

I saw the first cowslips of the year on my way to Elk Rapids this morning.  I forgot the camera and I was running late anyway, so you’ll have to be content with last year’s pictures.  The cowslips look exactly the same this year.

They cheered me up tremendously.  Happy May Day.

I am reliably informed that today is also Buy Indie Day, as in please patronize your local independent bookseller because otherwise how will that delightful institution be there the next time you need it?  Which in my case is often.  I have rather a lot of books, thanks to an independent bookseller who was strategically located between my Detroit office and my Detroit parking garage a hundred years ago.

Chuck Lewis introduced me to Louise Erdrich, ordered every new Margaret Atwood for me, made sure I got autographed copies of Mitch Albom’s first book, and Coleman Young’s memoir, and Ernie Harwood’s Harwell’s reminiscences . . . and Walter Mosley’s Gone Fishin’.  [Update 5/2/09: Ernie Harwell, the Voice of Summer, the finest broadcaster in baseball history.  See why writers need editors?]

In celebration of Buy Indie Day that one is going to go live in Northport with P.J. Grath. She admires Walter Mosley and I need to make space for the Arnfields’ new wildflower guide, which I’m going to have autographed if I can only get over to PJ’s Dog Ears Books in the next hour and a half. I’m pretty sure I can make it. Bye.