Free and open to the public, the anniversary event will take place at the bookstore, which is at 101 Washington Ave. The festivities will include refreshments, prizes and a raffle, as well as the annual fall open house and holiday preview.

There will be discounts on all regular priced items on that day as well.

For more information, please call 815-7640 or e-mail info@presenttensebooks.com.

On my way north on 63 near downtown I see the Pok-A-Dot is open for lunch business. The Pok-A-Dot is a 40s lunch counter, a tent of a building erected for temporary shelter but surviving into a new century. It must be nice in the summer because you can order your food, then sit under shelter off to the side of traffic to eat it up. In the winter, it seems to be made mostly of glass, and everybody crouches over the heat sources at the stove top, grill, and deep fryer. Almost all the patrons are men, and most have their coats and hats still on. All the cooks and servers are women.

In the Pok-A-Dot, there are six or eight tables and a counter seating twelve or fifteen that bends around the grill. I sit at the counter, nearer the heat. The waitress never offers me a menu. She just comes up and says, “What will you have?”