Kentucky.com
The demolition of Kennedy Book Store across from the UK campus brought back many memories this week. As a graduate student in the early 1970s I would spend way too much time just browsing the rows and rows of paperback books, especially history and biography. Of course, I could have done the same thing in UK's King Library. But, as a history student, I wanted to own the books I read and the paperbacks at Kennedy most often made that possible.
Unfortunately, there was one occasion when my desire for a book exceeded my ability to pay for it. In my defense, as a student I never had much money and paid little attention to my bank balance. About a week after writing a check to Kennedy Book Store for a paperback that likely cost $2.95, I received a notice from the bookseller that my check bounced, meaning I had insufficient funds in my bank account to cover the $2.95 purchase.
By the time the notice arrived, I must have received a paycheck from my part-time job. I immediately went to the bookstore to settle up only to find that in addition to the $2.95 I owed them for the book, I now owed them $10.00 for bouncing the check! From that point forward all of my book purchases at Kenney Book Store were cash only.
So, in 2019 Kennedy Bookstore in gone, check writing is nearly obsolete, and another part of UK's history is now in the history books, and the books cost a lot more than $2.95!
Kentucky Kernel, April 30, 1964
