For the Love of Books

I've always been a book person. My love of books has grown over the years, a love that has been largely encouraged by my husband, who's appetite for tomes exceeds my own. This is evidenced by the many, many books that clutter just about every room in our home. 

There is a fond memory I have of going to the downtown Cleveland library with my sister. She was a college student at the time, so while she went about gathering books for a project she was doing, I would plunk down in the stacks, inhale, and pull books out at random. I spent many happy hours in the Arts section, learning about the Italian Renaissance. I also read a lot about early movies. Mabel Normand. W.C. Fields. Harold Lloyd. The downtown library is huge, and thankfully, they have managed to maintain its aura of mystery and possibilities. The giant marble staircases lead you on a journey to anywhere you want to go. I love to just open an old book and inhale. Aahhh. You may call me old school, but I do love books. And when I can manage to get downtown, the Cleveland library is still one of my favorite haunts.The addition of the Stokes building has done nothing to diminish my love for the place.

The suburban libraries are okay, too, although they lack the sheer volume (pun intended) of the downtown library. We make the rounds of many of them. Westlake has a very good selection. Lakewood is good. We used to enjoy going to the Cuyahoga Library, but they seem to be more interested in attracting people who haven't opened a book in years and have no intention of doing so anytime soon. A lot of space has been given over to new computers, so folks can come in and check their email and play games and watch YouTube. Meanwhile, the stacks are withering. If you wander through the non-fiction section, where once there were dozens of books on a major topic like World War Two, there are now just a handful. I know I am part of a dying breed, but I do not understand why the library has to get rid of the books. There are still shelves, they are just empty now. Very sad.

My husband used to take our son to the library when he was small. The elder Mr. G. would sit and read while the younger Mr. G. (aged 4 or so) would sit and pour over train magazines and make up stories about the "choo-choos." Play areas at the library are nice, but how many parents are actually reading with their kids?

Sigh. I wonder if someday I will be like the Burgess Meredith character in the Twilight Zone episode, who is declared obsolete and sentenced to die because he will not renounce his books. What will I be reading while the time bomb ticks away?  Maybe Jane Austen. Oscar Wilde. Dorothy Parker. John Steinbeck John Irving. So many possibilities.

Who am I?

Apparently, I am not the only one who wants to know. Merchants from coast-to-coast are creating algorithms to try to figure out how they can sell me stuff. Facebook wants to cram my page with content. Amazon wants to suggest titles for me to consider. Of course, this is not a new phenomenon. Since the dawn of time, even before they called it advertising, folks were trying to peer into one another's souls to see how they could extract something that would give them the edge.

Today, as the sophisticated society we have become, we can create formulas to try and determine what others want. My mission, as I see it, is to flummox these efforts.

I don't want Amazon to tell me what to buy. I don't want Facebook to put things on my page I've not asked for. I don't want Twitter to tell me whom to Tweet. All of this makes me want to pack my bags and hop off the grid for awhile. I don't want to be transparent. I want to be bohemian, eclectic. More than the sum of my labels: Wife, Mother, Liberal, American, Manager, Sister, Daughter, Writer, Reader.

Therefore, I actively seek to put a wrench in the salad, as they say. I order books from Amazon for other people. Whenever possible, I will hide random posts by Facebook and label them "spam," just to keep them guessing. As for Twitter? I think I'm doing well there. Suggested tweets yesterday were for Pee-wee Herman and the Dalai Lama.

My goal is for my online presence to resemble my home. Lots of random tchotchkes, tons of books, and no real theme. When they come looking for me, they'll get more than they bargained for.

Happy Hunting, Elmer!

Ebay can be a wonderful place. Especially if you're looking for something that is no longer made. Like a stereoscope. It was popular around the turn of the last century, sort of the ViewMaster of its time. Of course, I don't think they make ViewMasters anymore, either. But for the early 1900's, the stereoscope was pretty slick.

Twin images are printed on a cardboard backing. You place the card between pieces of wire that hold them in place. The stereoscope has a handle that you hold onto as you put your face up to it and look into the windows. Through the wonder of the technology of the time, you are able to see one image with a 3-D effect.

I was fortunate to have acquired my grandmother's stash of stereographic photos. I sat down again last night and went through them all. A woman and a young girl in long skirts and shirtwaists in front of the Capitol building in Washington, DC. A bridge in Scotland. The Columbian Exposition. Troops in the trenches from a long-forgotten war. Pope Pius X. Rome. Piccadilly Circus. Women sitting side saddle on burros somewhere out west. Domestic scenes with Santa Claus -- one has him surrounded by "Christmas Belles," young women in their Sunday best.

Looking at these images made me feel close to my grandmother. I could picture her cozied up in an overstuffed chair, gazing at the images with awe, imagining what life was like in faraway places. Or what it would be like to be on a battleship during war. Dreaming a little. At least, that's what I did. I smiled at the woman who made like she was holding up this huge rock that looked like it might topple at any moment. I tried to imagine what it was like to see first-hand the natural ice sculptures of Luna Island near Niagara Falls. I looked at the photo of Berlin, taken before either World War was even imminent, and wondered if those buildings still stand. I wonder about the people in the pictures, what their lives were like, who they were. If anyone remembers them, of if they are just fading images on a piece of cardboard from a long-forgotten age.

With all of the electronic images that are floating around on the internet, in our cameras and on our phones, I wonder how many of them will actually survive. If they will tell as vivid a tale as these old, dusty pictures, still full of life and possibilities.

Not to be Forgotten

My Dad's Mother

My Dad's Father

I like to read obituaries. It's a weird, quirky thing, but it makes me feel connected to the world. Sometimes I read one and think, "Wow, I wish I had known him/her." The best ones aren't those that read like a laundry list of accomplishments. My favorites are the ones that give a feeling for what the person was really like. When they say things like, "My Dad spent time with us, he loved us, and he did the best he could in this life. And we will miss him every day." Or, "My Mom taught us to love nature, to be kind and patient. And that a sense of humor can heal."

My siblings let me write my Mom's obituary. I was very nervous about getting it right. I've thought since then that there were things I didn't add that should have been there. Her favorite phrase, "We'll see," which came in response to any question we asked that she didn't want to say "no" to. I use this same tactic, to the point where my husband and son say, "'We'll see' means 'no!'" There are so many other things, that I think I'll gather and recount on another day. Not today.

Today I wonder about my legacy. If I turned toes up today, what would people  say about me? I think this is something a lot of us ponder. Somehow, I don't think I'll leave much of a footprint behind. Maybe that means I have to do more. Get involved more. Not save the world, exactly, just do more to help some of the folks in my nearby world.

I think a lot, too, about my ancestors. We've done a lot of genealogical research. We've turned up dates and places and basic facts about them. This was helpful, but not really enlightening. What did illuminate things was discovering local newspapers online that had articles about them. I found out about my grandparents' drug store. I found an ad in a paper from 1936 that peddled ice cream, citing it as a healthful food. I found a few instances where the store had been robbed. In one case, my grandmother had been tied up in the back room, and my aunt found her. I polled my siblings -- no one had ever heard that story before! And, sadly, my Dad is no longer around to ask about it. But the point is, in reading these breadcrumbs, I was able to get a little clearer picture of their lives. Just a glimmer. My grandfather passed away before I was born, and I was 11 when my grandmother died. She'd been in a nursing home for a few years, so my memories of her are hazy. I so wish I could talk to her now, adult to adult. On my mom's side, we were fortunate that my grandmother, my mom's step-mother, was 20 years younger than my grandfather. She was able to supply us with stories of my grandfather and that side of the family, as well as her own history. She was divorced at 16 (after her husband came at her with a butcher knife -- my grandma didn't take that crap from anybody!) She was an encyclopedia of the people and events that shaped the family. I talked about recording her stories, but I never did. Then her memory began to go, and it was too late.

For most of us, stories live in memory, and unless you have someone to share those memories with, the people who have gone before fade away, too.  I am infinitely sad when I go to a second hand store or a rummage sale and I see a family photo album. They lived, they shared the world with us, and they passed on. And all that's left is a photo album that no one wanted. What were the stories of their lives? Their joys, their sorrows? They are lost to time and lack of interest (or perhaps lack of descendants).

How do I want to be remembered? Maybe if I ask myself that question every day, it will change the way I approach my job, my home life, my relationships with my brothers and sisters.

When we did my Mom's obituary, we didn't include a photo. I was surprised that my sister felt very strongly that obituary photos should reflect what the person looked like at the end. She saw using an old photo as a sort of duplicity, as if they were in denial about how old they looked at the end. But I  see it differently. I think people want to be remembered the way they were at their peak. When their life was ahead of them and full of possibilities, not as they looked back and wondered what they missed or what could have been. Hmmm.

Enough rambling for now. Time to gear up for the day ahead. Gird my loins and head out into the snowy world. Will I totally change my outlook, make a big difference in someone's life and find the true meaning of life, the universe and everything?

We'll see!