A Pasadena bookstore owner lost his Altadena home in the Eaton fire. His staff responded.
On a clear Tuesday morning, Tom Rogers sits at his desk, surrounded by books.
A week prior, the longtime owner of Pasadena’s Book Alley lost his Altadena home in the Eaton fire. But as he has done since buying the bookstore in 2004, he’s working with books.
“That’s what I gotta do, yeah. My wife and I are currently living in a hotel in Arcadia, and our sons are up with her sister in Thousand Oaks,” says Rogers, a soft-spoken man whose eyes well up more than once during the conversation.
“I wouldn’t want to be pacing the hotel room right now,” he says. “My wife’s a teacher and she had to go back to work this week.”
SEE ALSO: Like books? Get our free Book Pages newsletter about bestsellers, authors and more
Despite the array of books in his Colorado Boulevard store, which is a browser’s paradise for used and new books and vinyl, Rogers says he left home with just one thing. “Camera bag. We didn’t even receive an alert. My son just happened to see the fire on the mountain through the window and called me and I said, ‘That doesn’t look good.’
“I stepped outside for a closer look, and my neighbor was coming out and she said, ‘Are we evacuating?’ I said, ‘I think we probably better pack stuff.’ But there’s a woman that lives across the street from us who’s developmentally challenged, and she has a live-in caretaker but no one else there. I went over to make sure that they knew what was happening and help them. So I think within 20 minutes, everyone was off the street.”
For some, Rogers’ situation first came to their attention when a GoFundMe was set up on his family’s behalf. When asked about the campaign, he says the gesture does provide some peace of mind.
“Absolutely. I mean, it wasn’t my idea – my employees just said, ‘We’re doing this’ – and the response, it’s been overwhelming really. It’s going to be very helpful, because we don’t know at this point if insurance is going to be enough to rebuild. I don’t think it is, and we still have a mortgage to pay off for a house that doesn’t exist.
“So, these are the problems, but other people are in worse shape, you know?” he says.
He speaks with affection about the shops and businesses he frequented by his home, such as Altadena Hardware where he got his gardening supplies.
“I’d been planting,” he says. “I’d just put in some plants the day before, so, yeah. I hope it gets rebuilt.
“Everything up there was mom and pop, just very nice and a very eclectic middle-class community,” he says. “It was just a great mixture of all kinds of people, a great community. I hope it gets rebuilt. I hope we can be up there. Depends on, you know, money, if we can stay or not.”
Rogers, who pauses to welcome a chatty toddler who is leading a bemused adult around the store, says that this experience has altered the way he sees Book Alley.
“I mean I’m not one to ask for a lot of charity. I just want to say I’m very grateful for the outpouring of sympathy I’ve received – and for the store,” he says.
“I’m here working every day, and I don’t always realize how the store means a little more to the community than I realized.
“We’re getting a lot of orders online. There was one yesterday from someone in Hawaii who ordered an $18 book and just wrote, ‘Hope this helps! Aloha from Hawaii,’ he says. “And that’s nice.”