I stood in the Harry Potter line.  Well, not quite.  My friend and I went over to Borders at Santana Row just before 9:00PM last night to check out the action for the newest Harry Potter novel.  We were surprised to see no lines other than the short line to confirm reservation for the book and get a wristband for the midnight madness.  The first floor had the normal amount of traffic that you would expect for a Friday night, with people crowding around the magazine racks and teenagers sitting on the floor in the magna department.  Masking tape on the floor outlined the line to cash register, starting at the romance paperbacks, running around the aisles of horror, science fiction and fantasy paperbacks, and the last mile was loaded with Harry Potter merchandise and candy.

The upstairs seem normal enough as we made our counter-clockwise prowl of the floor.  The children department had way too many young schoolgirls to be hanging out for that time of night.  When we got into the nook and crannies of the computer department where young couples hide out to make out, did we find witches, wizards and more schoolgirls. There was a line outside when we left.  I was glad to be out of there before someone mistaken me for Rubeus Hagrid because of my long beard.  The last thing I needed was a bunch of schoolgirls chasing me down the street.

We drove briefly by the Barnes & Noble on Steven Creek Boulevard to check out the Harry Potter line over there.  No line but one heck of a Harry Potter party for the kids inside the children department.  The last time we drove by this location was when Bill Clinton was signing his memoirs in June 2004.  As it happened, traffic was a mess with the Secret Service vehicles and the Clinton limo trying to get out of the parking lot that night; Bill and Hillary stepped out to wave to everyone for five minutes before the traffic jam was cleared up.  We were three cars away from the former first couple.  The closest I ever got to another president was a quarter-mile from George H.W. Bush in San Francisco when my Dad and I drove home from our construction jobs in the city just hours before the Loma Prieta earthquake.

I never got caught up in the Harry Potter craze enough to read the books.  I saw the movies, including Order of The Phoenix last week, that I thought they were all entertaining even if I didn't understand some of the details.  I been reading too many other books series in recent years, including Stephen King's The Dark Tower (seven books), Jim Butcher's Dresden Files (eight books), Kim Harrison's Hollows (four books), E.E. Knight's Vampire Earth (four books), Karen Traviss's Wess'har Wars (five books), and various re-readings of fantasy classics from David Eddings (16 books) and Terry Brooks (six books).  A rare joy to find a book that isn't part of a series these days.  Now that the last Harry Potter book is out, I'll wait until the paperback set of all seven books come out for Christmas (hint, hint) before I start reading that series.

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