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BILL MINORS This guy’s not your typical book worm website: www.focusonscugog.com Booksellers are a notoriously different breed; they have been called quirky, eccentric, opinionated, droll, odd and sometimes just downright strange. Into this mix comes Bill Minors, local proprietor of Books Galore and More on Perry St. While Bill is not your average book store owner, he is not one of those eccentric bibliophiles who have a great understanding of fifteenth century poetry but no noticeable people skills. It turns out that Bill’s past in the corporate world of book publishing, combined with his diverse interests in areas such as television network trivia contests, Scottish Country Dancing, lawn bowling and a bud- ding career as a stand-up comedian, have led him to be a more well-rounded seller of the written word than many of his contemporaries. Bill came to settle in Port Perry six years ago via a somewhat zigzaged route. The journey from there to here began in Scotland, home of haggis, the bagpipes, fine scotch and men who are not afraid to dance. At 21, by himself and with no firm game plan, Bill set forth lock, stock and kilt to seek his fortune in Canada, Toronto to be exact. He was drawn to banking initially, decided this was not his cup of tea and was soon caught up in the world of book publishing. There was a girl too, but they parted ways, so Bill took his slightly shaken body and soul and moved to the other side of the world, New Zealand to be pre- cise. Love conquers all; one year later Bill returned to Canada and the girl called Kathy, and thus began his future as a book publishing salesman, a Scottish coun- try dancer, a purveyor of new and used books, a TV trivia fanatic, and up and coming stand-up comedian and a lawn bowler extraordinare; the extraordinaire part being Bill’s words, not this author. Bill’s love of trivia is well known by his friends and customers but his ten year involvement on Canadian network TV trivia shows is less widely known. In the golden years of Canadian Game Shows, 1970 through to the early 80’s, Bill was on TV about 60-70 times, on such shows as CTV's Headline Hunters and Guess What. Says Bill “It was cheap television to produce and they needed lots of contestants so I would show up constantly at the CTV studios and invariably I would be picked. Like Jeopardy, if you win you return, so between winning and showing up at the studios, I did a lot of shows.” Of course, the best part, besides winning, was the prizes. Over the years Bill, and Kathy as well, won trips to Acapulco, Barbados, and London, England. They won appliances large and small, tools, sets of encyclopedias, countless watches, blenders, shavers; the list goes on. When asked what his best prize was Bill replied “That's a tough one. All three of the trips were great, Kathy loved the dishwasher we won and we both loved the huge box of Braun appliances, shavers, blenders etc.; it was a great gift.” Even when he lost, he won a consolation prize. See “Bill's worst” on page 4 FOCUS - MAY 2008 3