I was pleased that the banana and apple I tested on my gut didn't cause any immediate issues, so I reported to work mid-day. On the way I listened to a retro book, "C is for Corpse", set in the 1980's. The narrator in the book spoke of a character's translucent skin exposing veins like a book overlay. A memory of the World Book Encyclopedias we had growing up (and everyone else did too) popped into my head.
My grandfather, Herbert Leslie Morehead, designed our home at 202 Crombie. It featured lots of built-in dressers and shelves in each of the three bedrooms. The World Book Encyclopedias and Mom's other favorite books were placed lovingly in another built-in shelf just outside my parent's bedroom. Dad wasn't a book-reading kinda guy. He was a Sports Illustrated fan.
The World Books were fascinating. They contained those clear page overlays showing all of the body parts. I remember being assigned a report on the country of Ecuador in 6th grade. Of course it was pre-Internet, so I turned to our trusty World Book for all of my information - geographic, economic, population, culture. Ecuador didn't have any overlays. One time, after the books became more of an afterthought, someone "pressed" a flower in the letter "M" book, without the benefit of wax paper to protect the book. Many pages in "M" got wrecked. Working in the waste and recycling industry I have come across many people wanting to get rid of their beloved World Books - sure others would want them. Um, nope. They are badly outdated now. There are places to recycle books - Google in your area or use Earth911 or other recycling websites to find out where to take them. They are good flower presses. haha
I mentioned that there were the other books in those shelves. That shelf was the source of my first "naughty" books to read - in my rite of passage from youth to adult fiction. Of course they weren't really naughty. They were just a step up from the youth fiction I'd been reading. Nancy Drew didn't have boobs, she had titian hair! I certainly couldn't just march into the library and check out titles like "Lady Chatterley's Lover" in Atlantic, Iowa.
I'd sneak a title from the shelf, and hide it in my room as I read it, dry mouthed during the sexy parts. Once I hit Junior High, there were all sorts of wonderful books to satisfy my curiosity like "Are You There God, It's Me Margaret" and "My Darling My Hamburger". I no longer needed to sneak from Mom's stash. Good memories though!
Lucky for me that Friday night I was still feeling fine when our friends Steve (aka Moose) and Kay Wilt stopped by on their way to a wedding in Kansas. We went downtown to RoCa for one fancy drink and then took them to our new go-to, the Iowa Tap Room for supper. It was lovely to see them - hope they didn't get what I got the next day!
No comments:
Post a Comment