Did You Boscov Today?
In 2017, my cousins and I published a book about our grandfather. Did You Boscov Today? is an anthology of memories about Albert Boscov, the retailer and philanthropist, as told by the people who knew and loved him. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are a couple thousand words, visually-speaking, to describe the unique and loving person I knew as Granddaddy Al.
If you've never met Albert Boscov, he was a teddy bear, the Barnum and Bailey of retail, as warm and silly as he was hard-working. He grew his father's corner store into Boscov's, a family-owned department store based out of Reading, PA. When he passed away in February 2017, thousands of letters arrived from the community by mail, email, and Facebook, sending love, prayers and, in those letters, hundreds of stories.
My cousins and I published a collection of those stories a few weeks before Thanksgiving in 2017. Sharing the book was one way we hoped to thank the community. When our grandfather was sick, so many people shared their memories and, through those stories, we got to live with our grandfather a little longer and learn from him.
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At its core, the book celebrates community. Throughout the book, drawings by two local Reading, PA artists (Abby Ryder and Jessica Santucci) highlight various lessons we learned from everyone's stories. In life and in how I go about my writing, I cherish those lessons.
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Read my Journal Entry about publishing Did You Boscov Today?
