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| Jim Toole | |
Jim Toole, a Navy rear admiral "who commanded cruisers, destroyers and Mekong River patrol boats before taking charge of Capitol Hill Books, the Washington [D.C.] bookstore that became as well known for his endearingly grumpy presence at the front desk as for its stock of used and rare books," died November 11, the Washington Post reported. He was 86. Toole owned the used bookshop for more than two decades before selling it to a group of longtime employees in 2018. He continued to work there until his death.
Located across from Eastern Market, in a three-floor rowhouse, the bookshop was founded in 1991 by Bill Kerr, a former Jesuit priest who sold classified advertisements for the Washington Post. "Under Adm. Toole, the store grew until books filled nearly every conceivable nook and cranny: Fiction upstairs, nonfiction on the ground level, sports and science-fiction in the basement, where a cautionary warning was posted for customers: 'Lights hang low, are head-smackable,' " the Post wrote.
"He was the saltiest of dogs," co-owner Kyle Burk said, describing Toole as both a quintessential Navy man--his favorite book was Alfred Thayer Mahan's The Influence of Sea Power upon History--and a cultural omnivore, fond of bluegrass, the Eurythmics and the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha, as well as the poetry of John Masefield and Sara Teasdale, which he could recite from memory.
"When you walked into the bookstore, to him you were walking onto his ship," Burk said. "The front desk was the conn [conning tower] and he was piloting the store from the conn. When he would leave his ship, he'd say, 'Okay, lad, you take the conn.' If you asked him, 'Hey, Jim, I've got a question,' he'd reply, 'You may fire when ready, Gridley,' which was [George] Dewey's famous command from the Battle of Manila Bay."
Toole's system was "controlled disorganization," but there were certain points of order and decorum: he did not allow backpacks and cellphone conversations were absolutely forbidden. "This is a bookstore, not a phone booth," a sign on the door declared.
"Those who stuck around, joining the staff or informally helping him take the stickers off used books, became members of an extended family in which he served as patriarch and poet laureate," the Post wrote.
"Anytime there was a dinner, anytime someone had a birthday, a special life event, Jim would write a poem in their honor and read it aloud," Burk recalled. "I have a lot of memories of him standing up in the middle of restaurants and loudly reciting poems, to the shock of the other diners around him.... He was just an incredibly generous person. He was always the first person to buy people a round of drinks at the bar, to buy people dinner. You almost had to beg him to stop buying things."
Toole retired from the Navy in 1987, and by the early 1990s, he was frequenting Capitol Hill Books, where Kerr lived on the top floor and ran the shop on the lower level. After Kerr died in 1994, Toole bought the store the next year from Kerr's sister. At 81, he sold the store to four employees, all millennials: Burk, Aaron Beckwith, Shantanu Malkar, and the late Matt Wixon. "It was time to get the old fart out," Toole explained at the time, adding that the store needed "fresh young blood."