The first bookstore I ever visited in Northern Michigan was Apollo Schultz Booksellers located in the Swiss Village Mall on Gaylord’s Main Street.
Duke Bliffert owned the eclectic book and record shop for 18 years, opening in 1976, the same year I moved to the area. During all that time and all those visits it never occurred to me to ask Duke what or who in the heck was Apollo Schultz. Some things are best left unknown I guess.
The bookstore, as well as the other stores which made up the Swiss Village Mall, had a kind of fading hippyish vibe — smell of incense wafting through the stores, clunky jewelry and funky hats and clothes for sale. A somewhat disconcerting vibe for the late 70s, but, hey, it worked.
Duke, who was into yoga and all things concerning Song of the Morning retreat and yoga center in the Pigeon River area, had a large section, for a small town bookstore, on Eastern philosophy, something which held an interest for me, and we engaged in occasional conversations about Buddhism and other aspects of the far East.
Sometime in the 1990s the mall and Apollo Schultz faded away and Gaylord was without a bookstore until 1998 when Jill Miner opened Saturn Booksellers at the Alpine Plaza, which was then anchored by Glen’s Market and now Family Fare. Being located in a strip mall the store resembled similar bookstores from the Detroit suburbs and Lansing areas of my youth and young adulthood. Harsh fluorescent lighting and carpeted floors. The rows of books though were extensive and varied; a welcome addition to Gaylord.
Saturn really came into its own as a community bookstore when it moved to Main Street a few years later and where it remained until its sad closure in 2022. And Saturn was indeed a well-loved local book shop hosting live music, visiting authors and yoga classes during its 24 year run.
It was my go-to place to shop for birthday and Christmas presents during my kids’ growing up years. They had a comprehensive children’s and young adult selection of books and it was always a pleasure for me and my kids to browse.
It was indeed a sad day when it closed although there was hope the following year when Gaylord got yet another bookstore — Plot Bound Books which, unfortunately, soon closed its brick-and-mortar location, although it does continue as an online entity.
Much as I enjoyed our two bookstores when they were doing business here I was equally passionate about two used-to-be stores in Petoskey: the Book Stop, which had a shared location with the bus station, and Horizon Books, which closed in 2017 after 50 years providing an excellent variety of new and remaindered books. Horizon Books was preceded in closing by the Book Stop in 2013, which offered reasonably priced used books, including an extensive collection of classics. They are both equally missed.
It’s no surprise these, and other bookstores are quietly fading away. A recent survey by NPR indicated less than half of adults read a book in the past year. That is a sobering statistic for a lover of books such as myself. These days most people get information from their phones delivered in little snippets and seem to lack the attention spans necessary to plow through an entire book. They seem content to have foregone the patience required to read a book and for that we are all the poorer.
The fact of the matter is these four bookstores and many others have shaped my life in such profound and wonderful ways. These stores helped me learn how to grow vegetables, identify wildflowers and birds of Michigan, cook a quiche, repair a leaky faucet, and gave me an outlook on life I will always be thankful for. Without the power of books my life would have been all the poorer without the information, knowledge and enjoyment they conveyed through their pages.
Just entering one of these “knowledge centers” has always filled and continues to fill me with joy and I would give anything today to be able to enter the doors of these four former bookstores from my past just one more time
Michael Jones is a columnist and former staff writer for the Gaylord Herald Times. He can be contacted at mfomike2@hotmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Keep it Simple: Bookstores from the past | Opinion
Reporting by Michael Jones, The Petoskey News-Review / The Petoskey News-Review
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By Michael Jones, The Petoskey News-Review | USA TODAY Network
