Jim Reed, on The Museum of Fond Memories....
My museum of fond memories is filled with triggers and unexpected alarms….
When you walk down the long hallway of Reed Books Antiques/The Museum of Fond Memories, you'll be surprised every step of the way. Passing by the front counter, for instance, a motion-sensitive black box plays the opening music theme to the Twilight Zone. Pressing a button on a small white square brings audience applause. Buttons on a seemingly innocent flashlight produce eerie screams and howls. A potted sunflower suddenly bursts into "You Are My Sunshine" and smiles at you. A mounted fish sings "Well, I'd Like to Know Where You Got the Notion," ultra violet lights make things glow unexpectedly, and an enormous record changer plays stacks of recordings of square dances, children's tunes, belly dances, Mister Rogers songs, Wagner operas. You may have gotten the idea by now that my shop is dedicated to the obtuse, the fun, the unusual...and you'd be right.
Take a look beyond the rare books and you'll see the Leg Lamp from the movie "A Christmas Story," note the fully equipped playhouse of Pee-Wee Herman, see the seven-foot tall Piggly Wiggly outfit near a stack of Uncle Wiggily books, note the dozens of Lava Lamps scattered about and bubbling. My place is not like any place you've ever been, mainly because it's designed like the interior of my mind. There's a life-size Freddie Kruger, a large Bat Man, a 500-year-old hand-written book next to a signed copy of To Kill A Mockingbird, a 1930's Doc Savage pulp novel next to an Anne George hardback, a Frankenstein Monster bearing two defibrillator plates and standing near special editions of Ray Bradbury books or books by such famous authors as Jim Reed and Craig Legg. And so on.
Now, why would a grown man fill up 6,000 square feet of space with one-of-a-kind things such as these? It's simple. To keep from being bored. To paraphrase the Pet Shop Boys, I am never bored 'cause I am never being boring. Reed Books Antiques/The Museum of Fond Memories is my place to find ideas for stories, my place to reign for a few hours in between life's crises. And I'm always willing to share it. Come on in and look around, first dodging JESUS IS COMING--LOOK BUSY posters and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie poster and the hundreds of old comic books, the thousands of old magazines and newspapers, the multitude of one-of-a-kind love letters and diaries and scrapbooks and postcards and old photographs I've accumulated. Run past them to your favorite nook of the store--you might be one of those customers who heads for the vinyl room, full of 16,45,33 1/3 & 78 rpm recordings...or the sports section where Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb and Mickey Mantle and Jackie Robinson and Joe Namath and Bear Bryant memorabilia hang out...or the newspaper room where you can read the dailies from the 1870's up till recently. And so on.
Come to my haven. It's not quite like any museum you've ever been to, since you can actually purchase what's on display. It's not quite like any store you've ever been to, since you can buy things you've never seen anywhere else, things you haven't seen since childhood. Things you've not seen since your mother threw them away. Time-travel with me back to your bliss, where you can find the artifacts and memorabilia you thought you'd never see again. Y'all come back in time, you hear?
www.jimreedbooks.com
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