A.G. Gancarski
Every weekday morning, I have a tradition. I look into the soulful eyes of President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew as I decide what to have for breakfast.
No, it’s not because I have a Nixon/Agnew fetish; that’s beside the point. It’s more because I like to eat breakfast on the cheap and convenient to Jacksonville’s City Hall.
Chamblin’s Uptown fulfills those criteria. And I’m not the only person who thinks so. Even as this piece goes live, I almost certainly am having a conversation over strong coffee and a bacon, egg, and cheese croissant with one insider or another.
If you hang out at Chamblin’s enough, you’ll see almost anyone you want to, if your interest is in political types.
A recent example: After Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry made his generally well received budget presentation, he and some staff members walked out the doors of City Hall for a coffee break at Chamblin’s. That in and of itself is not surprising.
The mayor tweeted it out. Pictured: a beaming Curry next to his Chief of Staff Kerri Stewart. On the other: the steely gaze of the former Maryland governor, who Stewart described (also on Twitter) as “Lurking. Conspicuously.”
Of course, Spiro wasn’t the only political figure looming behind two of the most powerful people in the Bold New City of the South.
There is former U.S. Sen. Claude “Red” Pepper, on what I am told is an original poster from his ill-fated 1950 re-election campaign against George Smathers, a man whom Harry Truman asked to take Pepper out.
Fun fact: One of Smathers’ most fervent backers was Ed Ball, who at this point is best known in Jacksonville as the namesake for the Ed Ball Building.
Whether Pepper really got things done for Florida, as his poster asserted, or was more interested in cozying up to Josef Stalin, as his critics charged, the voters went with Smathers.
And of course, that race was not without its weirdness, such as a fabricated speech that Smathers allegedly gave regarding Pepper: ”Are you aware that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law and he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper, before his marriage, habitually practiced celibacy.”
The owner of Chamblin’s Uptown didn’t just start off with his Hemming Park bookshop, as Jacksonville oldtimers know.
Almost four decades ago, when Hans Tanzler was still Jacksonville mayor, Chamblin’s Bookmine opened on Herschel Street, where it operated for a decade and a half, books jammed into what once was a house, with a narrow, claustrophobic stairwell that this writer will never forget, until the Bookmine was moved to Roosevelt Boulevard.
The location near City Hall, meanwhile, opened in 2008: three mayors ago, yet it seems like yesterday to those who measure the history of Chamblin’s not in years, but in decades.
Ron Chamblin‘s stores have sold me more books than every other bookstore in the world combined. Poetry, fiction, and biography, especially historical biography, one of many areas where the Chamblin collection can take hours to explore fully.
As for the man himself? An iconoclast.
His 1934 car is pictured with a bumper sticker for a candidate, Bernie Sanders, whose socialism is every bit as old timey as Chamblin’s restored ride.
Meanwhile, Chamblin was, in the just passed election, a staunch Bill Bishop supporter.
“I don’t keep up with the details on everything,” he said. “But my gut feeling is that the mayor is a politician and I don’t think we need politicians anymore. I’m a Bill Bishop man. I’m hoping that he doesn’t evolve into a politician and just takes care of our needs.”
Of course, the campaign is over. Chamblin will see plenty of the current mayor over the next four years. And so far, it’s going swimmingly, as they tweeted a few days back: “Refreshing to see the Mayor in #dtjax businesses! And he reads! We like this guy!”
