To The Screen Door:  A Dedication in One Sentence

I dedicate this sentence to the Bookloft’s screen door and to all the readers of books passing through this entrance, who will appreciate what artist Steve Arment has created to cover the tallest doorway in all of Oregon – to keep the flies at bay and to represent the uniqueness that is the Bookloft and the Skylight Gallery, the oldest existing art gallery in Wallowa County – displaying the work of local and northwest artists including Ted Juve, whose “Olaf” cups are portrayed on the screen door in the hands of two armadillos (Proprietress, Mary Swanson’s favorite animal), which are reading Little Women andWalden – classic titles that any bookstore should have on its shelves, as this one does, along with the best of Native American, especially Nez Perce titles as well as tales of the Oregon Trail, particularly the diaries of the women pioneers, who while bypassing this corner of Oregon in 1843 for the Willamette Valley, surely encouraged their descendents to explore this remote wilderness in later years, and names of those early pioneers pass though this very door today buying books they have always wanted to own such as – all of Wallace Stegner and Gretel Ehrlich and Michael Dorrance and all the mysteries of Martha Grimes and the westerns of Louis L’Amour, readers all, but there are those who will pass through this screen door desiring only the rich cup of coffee available in what is known as “Judy’s Kitchen” where plain coffee or espresso drinks are served in Olaf mugs along with bakery treats and good conversation with all the Bookloft regulars for whom it is their second home.

Jan Bailey

8/17/93