Bear would have loved this place
- wwsmith6410
- Feb 15
- 6 min read
(First appeared in The Baldwin Times/Gulf Coast Media, 2-13-26)
By Wayne Smith
Gulf Shores Media Contributor
Author’s note: Part 1 of 2.
I’ll label this one as Part 1 of 2 because it wraps around Valentine’s Day, before and after. It’s another one of those difficult firsts for me since losing Dorinda in April, a hard column to write. But I envisioned her sitting beside me in what could have been one of her dream places … and the words flowed a little easier …
I was sitting in a bookstore that sold coffee and stronger beverages, listening to music, and I realized I was in the middle of one of Dorinda’s dreams.
She would have loved this place.
And even though she never got to go to Page & Palette, I felt like she was sitting there with me that Saturday afternoon.
As January wound down, and just ahead of a week that would see temperatures drop into the 20s, I visited the Fairhope bookstore for the first time.
I bought a book, a Coke, and found a small table inside the Book Cellar area of the store as a landing spot.
Owning such a business was her dream. When we first moved to Palatka, Florida, in 2019, we even looked at a couple of vacant storefronts downtown as a place to bookmark her potential bookstore/coffee house/music venue. We thought it was a great concept. And the name of it was easy should that dream have come to fruition.
Bear’s Books.
She had enough books of her own to furnish a small book store. Her vision was to have a place just like this one at 32 South Section Street — Books, beverages and a place to sing along to live music.
Dorinda never did get to open that store, but she kept her dream. And I was in that dream with her in this story.
Then came the music. …
Brad Lawley was joined by Colby Spicer for this set, along with another friend or two later. Brad, a native of Phillipsville who now lives with his family in Bay Minette, has played across the Gulf community for years, flipping the pages of his song catalog several times inside Page & Palette and other venues across the Southeast.
I’ve written often in this space about the love of music I shared with Dorinda — how so many songs have helped me try to navigate the worst year of my life. So, it’s a natural rhythm that this column, a day before Valentine’s Day, spins around our love of music.
Later, I talked with Brad and asked him about his love of music, what it means to him.
“I’ve always been a music lover and I love making people happy,” he said. “I’d rather play for five people who appreciate what I’m doing than in front of a big crowd. People just having a good time and singing the songs back to you.”
I’ll write more about Brad later and his eclectic musical interests, but for this column, I asked him about songs. And the emotional healing power of music, regardless of the genre someone prefers. I asked him, from his side of the stage, what he sees music doing for people.
“There’s a theory that the whole universe is built on vibrations, the constant vibration of molecules and atoms vibrating against each other,” he said. “So, I can see how music vibrations can help people. For me, the way I feel if I hear a sad song, or a happy song, it’s like, ‘Hey, someone else knows that feeling that I’m going through, too.”
Three songs in particular stood out to me that Saturday afternoon. I asked Brad about what each of them mean to him:
“Old Time Rock & Roll”
This Bob Seger classic played as two different versions of memories in my mind as Brad sang it.
“Just take those old records off the shelf …” absolutely applies to our early dating days in 1983. The first thing I ever gave her was Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” vinyl record. We had watched the video together and she loved it – that dance scene. I knew she would like the album.
Cassette tapes would soon replace records as our gifts to each other. Almost a year after we started dating, she gave me Don Henley’s “Building the Perfect Beast.” Released in October 1984, the “album” included, “The Boys of Summer.” Her favorite song, ever.
Seger’s classic also served as a nod, for me, to the Shoals area — where we both grew up. It was recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield — yes, Sheffield — with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. You know them better as The Swampers. And that song from 1979 is an appropriate one to play in a bookstore, where no one was in a hurry on this afternoon. I sat and listened to it, by myself.
A few years ago, Dorinda and I toured the studio and saw the piano that is heard when you push play on that song. “Dmm, dmm, dmm, dmm, dmm, dmm, dah,… Just take those old records off the shelf. I’ll sit and listen to them by myself …”
If you ever get an opportunity to tour the studio, do it.
Brad on “Old Time Rock & Roll” and Seger: “Bob Seger is the epitome of classic rock to me — nobody did it better. It’s just good time Rockville music. And honestly, that song is not even one of my favorites from him. But people love it.”
“Keep Your Hands to Yourself”
This was another song they played that afternoon. And this one made me smile.
It was released in November 1986. We got married the next month. “… each time we talk, I get the same old thing, Always ‘No huggee, no kissee until I get a wedding ring … Don’t give me no lines and keep your hands to yourself.’ ”
If you know, well, you know. It reminded me that life still holds humor.
Brad on the Georgia Satellites’ debut single: “It’s always a standard we play at every gig. You know people will recognize it just from the opening riff, and you’ll see people light up in the first five seconds of the song.”
“One of These Nights”
One of the other songs they played that afternoon hit a little harder: “One of These Nights,” a classic hit from the Eagles. The opening of Verse 2: “One of these dreams.
One of these lost and lonely dreams …”
One of those oh so familiar songs. It just takes on a different meaning to me now.
Brad said it’s one of his favorite songs by the Eagles: “Honestly, do you ever hear a song and it puts you back in a familiar feeling? I can trace hearing this song back to high school, getting out of school and driving to Fairhope. Going into town and seeing all those pretty girls.”
Yes, indeed.
The Page & Palette is a special place to me now.
I was drawn back inside the store the following Saturday, Jan. 31. This time to meet local author Neel Elliott and get him to sign a copy of his new book for me, “The Last of the Boomers.”
We had a nice talk. Book in hand, and picking up an early birthday gift for my daughter I knew she would love, I headed to the coffee shop, ordered me some caffeine, and sat down to read my new book for a bit. And then, some more music in the Book Cellar.
All along, thinking: Dorinda would have loved this place.
Happy Valentine’s Day, my Bear.
Part 2 next week: Spring Training and road trips – our other love.
Wayne Smith has worked as a writer and editor at newspapers across Alabama, Florida and South Carolina. His weekly column focuses on navigating Gulf Shores alone after losing his wife to cancer, and the places he discovers and the people he meets. Read his previous columns on www.GulfCoastMedia.com.
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