My Daughter Kristina said, “You owe Nikki a blog.”

I said, “Yes, I do, long overdue.”

I didn’t grow up in Pasadena. My formative years were in Monterey Park, a few cities down and over. But I spent the eighth grade in a house on Hill Avenue just above Washington Boulevard, around the corner from Longfellow Elementary where I taught my first classes with the Pasadena Unified School District, just across the street from the Catalina Library. We rented the bottom story of a house just a couple doors up from Octavia’s Bookshelf which wasn’t there yet. This was even before Nikki was born.

A lot has changed in the past seventy years, some in name only. I used to walk to the Catalina Library, carrying an armload of books I would exchange for a new armload of reading for the next few days. I had a side door to my room, a floor lamp by my bed, pillows fluffed for an afternoon of reading anywhere in the world. Reading was part of my life.

That’s why I got so excited not that long ago to hear about the opening of a new bookstore on Hill Ave., just doors down from my old house.

Kristina and I went to check it out. The door was closed and locked. The store was still getting ready. There were people inside, cleaning, putting books on shelves. One young woman came to the door, opened it, said, “We’re not open yet,” and let us in to look around.

We talked. We were excited, then progressively more excited. Nikki wasn’t there, her friends were filling in, doing the get ready.

We arranged to come back, and did. And there was Nikki High. We had already established our love of books in absentia, and there was hugging all around.

The store, a tribute to Octavia Butler, is, let me see if I can get this right, the first in Pasadena, maybe in the state, a black woman owned (Wonderful!) young adult oriented (Wonderful!) fantasy science fiction focused (Wonderful Wonderful!) bookstore, checking all the boxes. You don’t have to eat the apple to recognize Paradise, it’s right here on Hill Avenue, curated just for you.

Of course we had to partake. Kristina got me a notebook much like the one I’m writing this in now. She got a special cookbook and has been influenced by the recipes. We were happy campers and we weren’t even camping.

Another woman helping with the books, overheard my name and volunteered about my wife, “I was her student in the ballet school over on Lake, I went on to join dance companies…”

It was like family and homecoming. I asked Nikki if I might donate some books. We talked briefly about Shirley’s death, my Daughter saving my life from despair, fixing the house, clearing the storage to stop the charges that were literally killing me, the need to find homes for everything we had collected, 60,000 books for the store we never found an affordable location for, and finally, because everyone was overwhelmed by the magnitude – bookstores, charities, friends, libraries – and, it breaks my heart to say it, so much by default to the dumpster just to stay alive. I’ll never get over it.

And would she like could she take relevant donations from what was left, we just didn’t have room. She said yes, of course yes. And Shirley would have wanted it that way.

So I brought books which I thought would fit her wider focus, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou. And then things currently relevant, signed copies, Tavis Smiley and Cornel West and John Lewis, some inscribed to us.

I didn’t want to impose my own collecting on her more focused inventory, but I wanted to do whatever I could to support her vision, which was also my vision. I was thrilled to hear about her efforts to reach young children learning to read. She was continuing my life-long efforts, and I felt renewed.

I was so sorry that we were out of town and missed her Grand Opening, but we read about it on line and in newspaper accounts – hundreds and hundreds of people around the block, dignitaries, cameras, postings.

I loved the little cushioned nook where you could nestle and read. I loved the cart with book offerings, later positioned on the sidewalk outside, low prices, then free, passersby looking, reading, and when I was there encouraging them to step inside to the wonders therein.

Even when we were in the Bay Area, we were not far from Pasadena. We went to the Berkeley Book Fair, a smaller version of L.A.’s grand event, and were given a book listing the best bookstores in California. There was Octavia’s Bookshelf! We pointed it out and talked it up to the people around and they wanted to jump in their cars and drive right down to Pasadena.

As I’ve said so many times, my wife Shirley had collected everything. Nikki welcomed the African sculptures and gave them prominence of place.

I always wanted to come by more often and stay longer. We were mostly in the Bay Area, and when I was able to come by, too often Nikki was elsewhere expanding her empire, preparing for her representation at the L.A. Book Fair. I had good talks and visits with her surrogates, enthusiastic young men and women to whom I gave my card proclaiming my blog, a cultured gentleman friendly without being obtrusive, the perfect balance.

We talked about the need for more space, the possible move to next door larger. Then, on another trip to the area, we found she had moved to that larger space, more room, lectures, classes, events, a real community center as a center of the community.

Nikki is now a life-long friend, I hope to call her a close friend as time goes on. Her vision is my vision realized. She’s doing what I was never able to do. And she’s making the whole world better.

I’m not wearing a hat, because I’ve doffed it to her. If I had an altar to her, I’d light a candle. I’m still able to read, and she has the books.

I can hardly wait to go back and see her again.