April 9, 2010
Dear Friends,
What a difference a year makes. Several big snows. Torrential rains. And now 90 degrees! And we are still open, thanks to a ton of very good friends, neighbors, and customers. Not all of you may know, but last October, we were closer to the precipice of closing the shop than ever. We put out a call for help and support and the response was incredible. People emailed friends to come and shop. People came and bought gift certificates and mountains of books. We had special holiday events with big crowds. And we ended up having the best holiday season ever, thanks to you folks. And the icing on the cake was that ten bands that play in our summer concert series suggested we have a fundraiser, The Lutheran Theological Seminary of Philadelphia generously hosted it and on a January Sunday, in pouring rain, we had a hugely successful concert that raised enough money that the financial cost of running the concert series dropped from our shoulders. We’ve paid our outstanding bills and we’re back in the game. Thank you so much. We are deeply honored and touched by your support and will keep on keeping on.
     We are glad to say we now have a wonderful, fun, accessible website, walkacrookedmilebooks.com , thanks to the generous help of our new friend, Rachel Polisher of livealbum.org. There are many features, including a calendar that is already jammed full of free concerts, shows, and yard sales like those below.
    No big vacation for us this year. Instead, my only daughter Jesse is getting married on August 14th and we’re saving up for that wonderful event. We’ll be closed on August 13 and 14 for the wedding.  One more piece of personal news is that we may have to move out of Glen Fern, down on the banks of the Wissahickon, where we have been caretakers of this lovely old house and where I’ve spent many hours working on restoring the surrounding forest. If you know of any similar caretaking jobs or great housing opportunities that might fit us, please let us know.
         As usual, we have a full schedule of spring events – come to one, come to all!
    Sunday April 17 and 18 We’ll again be at the Philadelphia Book Festival at the Main Library on Saturday. Our friend Amy Ignatow, will be signing her smash new young adult book The Popularity Papers, 1-2:30 both days, in our booth. Details at freelibrary.org/bookfestival/
    MONDAY APRIL 19 – SATURDAY MAY 22 ALL BOOKS IN THE SHOP ARE 30% OFF. As always, we need to clean out our stock and you’ll find bargains galore.
    Saturday April 24 and Saturday May 8 are our spring Yard Sales. Fun, fun, fun!
    Saturday May 1, we will be exhibiting at Mt. Airy Day, at Cliveden on Germantown Ave. 
    Sunday May 2, we’ll be at The Chestnut Hill Home and Garden Show, for more info go to chestnuthillpa.com/events/home-garden-festival/  
     Friday & Saturday, May 21st and 22nd There is now a book show in Philly, The Philadelphia Book & Ephemera Fair. We’ll be there with some great books.
      We are restarting our fabulous free concert series with the goal of having great music, once a week, from now through October. Check the website or we’ll notify you by email, if you ask to be on our list.
              Fri. April 16, 7-9 p.m. Mt. Airy legend Tom Gala, with Ray Duffy
              Fri.  April 23, 7-9 p.m. five piece band - Saint Mad
                Fri.  May 7 7-9 p.m. Singer songwriter - Aaron Mitchell 
                Fri.  May 14, 7-9 p.m., Singer songwriter - Phil Bennett and friends
. Come to one of these myriad events and say hi.         We miss you.                              Greg and Cynthia

(reposting this letter- out of date sequence)
September 2009
Dear Friends,

These have been interesting months since last I wrote. We’ve had to clean out the drainage ditch that keeps our little valley from going under in some of the heavy rains we’ve had. Brought back memories of books floating in the basement during floods of 7 or 8 years back but so far we’ve stayed relatively dry. We and our concert performers have been frustrated more than once as the concert date and the rain date were both rained out. We even had one group, Elgies Kitchen, that started to tune up and then huddled at the back of the port cochere during a deluge. When it was all done, they ignored the lake in our parking lot and did an “unplugged” acoustic concert to their faithful fans. It was magical. The roller coaster of our economy is being felt in our little corner of the world. One month we feel like the train is leaving the tracks and run around trying to figure out whether to stay on board or jump and the next month we do well. We’re keeping our seatbelts on and counting on hard work and grace to keep us going. We do appreciate your continued patronage and hope we can lure you for a visit in October to sample one our myriad events and to buy bags of GREAT books at 30% off.

Our Fall Extravangaza line-up:
•    All of October, 30 % off all books.
•    Saturday October 10 and Saturday October 24, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m., Community yard sales, $10 for a space if you want to sell. No charge to come buy!
•    Literary events Saturday, October 3 at noon, David Kairys, Mt. Airy resident and law professor at Temple, will read from his October 3 recent book, Philadelphia Freedom, Memoir of a Civil Rights Lawyer. Book signing as well. Saturday, October 17 at 2 p.m., Justin Vitiello, a retired professor at Temple and poet will read from his own works (he has many volumes of poetry) and host an open “mike”.

•    Concerts Saturday October 3, 7-9 p.m., SAINT MAD, fresh from a “gig” at the Tin Angel, bring their quirky and delightful sound back home to Mt. Airy.
•     Friday October 9, 7-9 p.m., PHILADELPHIA AREA SONGWRITERS ALLIANCE will feature their members doing their favorite pieces.
•    Friday October 16, 7-9 p.m., ACCOUSTIC BLENDER will perform originals and covers with their tight harmonies and great musicianship.
•    Friday October 23, 7-9 p.m., THE FRETNOUGHTS, with mandolins, dobro guitar and wonderful vocal work will close out our season with a bang.

I hope we’ve tempted you to come visit. See you soon. Happy reading. …

Greg and Cynthia

We are very excited that we are going to be able to have a benefit concert on January 17 at the Brossman Center of the Lutheran Theological Center in Mt. Airy. This is a beautiful spacious hall, with room for lots of people, a stage where bands can play and parking for over a hundred cars. It is perfect !  And the Seminary is making it available to us out of the goodness of their heart. How cool and neighborly is that?  We don't have all the details worked out yet and don't know yet what bands are playing but we had several bands approach me over the last couple of weeks asking if we could do such a benefit and now we're making it happen. We're tentatively calling it Walk a Crooked Palooza ! Stay tuned for more details.

We had another great day at the shop today, with new customers coming in, old customers buying gift certificates and people of all stripes buying lots of books. I am exhausted and delighted. So this is what Christmas retailing is supposed to be like. I am so grateful for all the support we have been receiving and increasingly optimistic that we may actually be able to stay open. Still have to get to mid January or early February and see how things look but there has been an astonishing turn around in the last 4-5 weeks. Thanks to everyone - it's really astounding. Like floating in a sea of support and grace.