100 Years Ago Today

Then came the decade of Halloween seances, which ended on October 31, 1936.

 

From about the ages of 10 to 13, I was a huge Houdini nerd.  All these decades later, I still love well-crafted magic, but with Houdini I was a genuine fanboy.  

I liked the 1953 Tony Curtis/Janet Leigh biopic, Houdini (even though, as I later learned, it took considerable liberties with the facts), but my bible was The Great Houdini: Magician Extraordinary by Beryl Williams and Samuel Epstein.  I practically read the cover off of that thing, which was either ordered by me, probably through the Junior Scholastic program at school, or, since Mom was a teacher and Dad was a principal, it might have come to me as part of the extra books a classroom or a school could score if they ordered more than a certain number of books.  

Yes, I was not above using my educator nepo-baby status to get what I wanted, which was more books!

Sure, the school library had hundreds of books, and the local public library had what seemed like a million books (some of which were kept away from prepubescent prying eyes in the temptingly off-limits "Adult Section").  But those weren't my books.  

My books came a few weeks after I went through the agonizing process of whittling my Junior Scholastic wish list down to the number my parents would permit me to order. Why, Lord!  Why show me all these glorious treasures, then force me to pick out only a few!  And yet, somehow, after much cruel bargaining with myself, I would manage to check the tiny boxes next to my choices on the flimsy, newsprint form, get the appropriate parental signatures, and turn it in.

Then the waiting began.  

For me, time slowed to the point where I felt like I was approaching the speed of light.  And then, one day, after all hope in me had died, the boxes came.  Just like that.  

Then, the teacher opened the boxes. 

I'd like to say we book nerds descended on them like marabunta on a caribou carcass, stripping it to the bone, but it was actually a fairly orderly, jubilant affair. We'd compare our hauls, and there were always a few books that we'd somehow forgotten that we'd ordered (how is that even possible!), but there they were. Like finding a five-dollar bill in the dryer.  Sure, it was yours anyway, but still.  

All these decades later, I still love books, and own more than I will ever be able to read in my "to-be-read" pile.  Every now and then, when putting together boxes to donate to the library, I'll pull one from a back shelf that I'd completely forgotten that I owned.  Isn't that wild?  

There's something a little ironic about that: these days, such rediscoveries happen while I'm boxing up my books for others to enjoy, rather than unboxing them fresh from the Junior Scholastic warehouse, and that such moments bring on memories rather than anticipation.  

I still love books, and there is still something special about my books.  Books I can label as mine, and in which I can make all the marginal notes I want without risking the wrath of the librarian.

But the truth is, nothing will ever match the sheer bibliophilic ardor of opening a box and finding a fresh copy of While Mrs. Coverlet Was Away, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine, the latest Encyclopedia Brown, or The Great Houdini: Magician Extraordinary.

“Outside of a Dog, a Book Is Man’s Best Friend. Inside of a Dog, It’s Too Dark to Read.”  -- Groucho Marx