Free

People’s F P Movement Arrives in Downtown SLO

Central Coast native and FP Movement store manager

Gavy Rodriguez tells us that this new concept from Free People is designed to “inspire people to stay motivated’ no matter what they do to keep active. FP Movement carries a collection of trend-setting active and lifestyle apparel that’s just as comfortable on the street as it is in the yoga studio. fpmovement.com

Not quite two years ago, I came up with an idea. It took a few days to find a time when all three of our kids were together in one place, but I finally sat them down to explain it. With my speech prepared, I informed them that we were going to start reading together. It wouldn’t be a big commitment, just a half-hour on school nights. I would buy four copies of each book, so we could talk about it as we went along.

Our daughter, Geneva, immediately stood. “Uh, Dad, you know I’m a college student now, and I’m already reading a good book.” She shrugged and smiled as she walked away, abandoning her brothers—Donovan, then a junior in high school, and Harrison, a sixth grader—as if hauled into the principal’s office, shoulder-to-shoulder on the couch. Brother Book Club was born.

There are a few things I hope to pass down to my kids. A love of reading is at the top of the list. It’s something that I got from my parents. My mom, a retired English teacher, is fond of saying, “A good book can change your life.” And my dad, who reads novels in Russian for fun, once quipped: “I sure hope there’s a library in heaven.” Uncle Dave, another bibliophile would mail a check to my wife, Sheryl, each December—money to buy our kids Christmas presents on his behalf—and in the memo line he would write, “Books, books, books!”

But I felt it was all slipping away. Like the time my dad tried to teach my sisters and me Croatian. The only thing I can remember about the language of our “old country” is a whole bunch of comically descriptive cuss words. Plus, ćȗk, which means “little owl.” For some reason, I remember that one.

Mom was right. There have been so many books that have changed my life, in big ways and small. One of the giants for me was “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey, which altered my trajectory somewhere in my mid-twenties. I mentioned the title to Sheryl, a former teacher herself, and she went to the bookshelf and retrieved an old, dog-eared copy of the companion book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens,” which she read to the kids years ago during bedtime hoping to indoctrinate them well before adolescence. I figured a review would be an excellent way to kick things off, so I purchased two more copies for BBC.

When our second meeting convened, Donovan was nowhere to be found. His car was missing, too. Both vanished stealthily into the night. I lowered my gaze to Harrison, who had no car, no license, nowhere to hide. With or without our full membership present, it was time to read.

Together, he and I muscled through that first book. Then another. And another after that. By the third or fourth installment, he had finally resigned himself to his new reality: There was no escaping Dad and BBC. Better to just sit down and get it over with. But that was also the problem—the whole thing felt like work. There was no love for books, only dread. A nightly trip to the dentist’s office. As we neared the end of “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” Harrison made a suggestion: “Hey, Dad, maybe for the next book, can we get something with more of a story to it?”

I handed him a copy of “The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Olympics,” which was written through the perspective of one of the rowers, Joe Rantz, who endured an incredibly difficult childhood providing for himself during the Great Depression. After the first few days, it was more of the same. “I don’t get it,” he groaned. “They’re just talking about rowing. And going on and on about this Joe Rantz guy.”

Two days later, Harrison and I were in the car when, unrelated to anything else we had been talking about, he said, “You know, Dad . . . I can’t believe that Joe’s stepmom kicked him out,” his thoughts percolating, reminding me of the unmistakable sound made by one of those old coffeemakers. “I mean . . . he had to live on his own” bloop,bloop “. . . and he was just my age.”

In that moment, there was something—a spark. I smiled to myself knowing that he may never learn the translation for “little owl,” but maybe he’ll remember Joe Rantz. And the power of a story well told.

Thank you to everyone who has had a hand in producing this issue of SLO LIFE Magazine and, most of all, to our advertisers and subscribers—we couldn’t do it without you.

Live the SLO Life!

Tom Franciskovich tom@slolifemagazine.com

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