Our teenage employees, keep the show going, simple as that. They do a lot of the dirty work.

Each day after school they show up to do their wonderful, indispensable jobs: taking out the recycling (we are the cardboard kings!) and trash, moving the "ups" (books on the downstairs shelving carts that go... upstairs) up, shelving the downs, boxing up returns and shipping out the daily FedEx.

Most of our teenagers over the years are juniors and seniors at Durham School of the Arts, about a mile away. Our staff enjoys their music (usually) and perspectives. They bring a great energy, a curious, teenage slant on world events and how we try to do things at 720 Ninth Street.

We enjoy watching them grow, we like seeing their friends drop by.

One teenager kept a wall display of all the different kinds of packing peanuts she'd encountered in the year. Another once yawned and said to me while shelving (and grimacing,) "You know I've always hated the alphabet." I said, "Well, you want to bring some ups up, instead?"

One of the favorite tasks of the teens is pulling textbooks for the Duke students and browsing those textbook stacks, wondering about their own future classes.

Last year's teenagers, Hana and Tulani, spread their wings and are thriving in New York and Seattle. Lena and Jack are the teens you see this year doing a little bit of everything, thank you very much.

Our teenagers are often freespirits and independent thinkers, and hard workers, too. They move a lot of boxes. They're also the first in the store to go barefoot in the spring.

John Valentine