September 9, 2024

Well, I think it is time to put an end to this series. With no more interesting angles, I can only imagine that the freshness here is as long gone as the new book smell on any of these books. So, I will wrap this up with a collective response for 22 additional boxes of books.

Part of the problem is that 7 of these boxes were primarily holding Lincoln's books, so there really isn't much his old man can say about them that wasn't generally articulated with Box #6 and Box #14. In the end, surprisingly, there are more Lincoln books in all these boxes than his old man's cheap mysteries: 312-200. In addition, like his old man, his room has an untold number of additional books, so he may still double my mysteries, some of which I still keep out of storage. This has been my biggest surprise. A significant number of his books are his college textbooks. He never sold them back, given how little money a re-sold book could garner. I probably should have demanded he do it and send me the money, since I almost certainly paid for every one of them. However, he does still show a lot of interest in the social sciences, so maybe he will want to review the textbooks providing the bulk of his degree. Maybe he would re-read "The Making Of The West: Peoples and Cultures."

Sure, Lincoln has had a bunch of books, but I didn't necessarily associate him with fervent reading. I suppose I am the cliché that thinks millennials and Gen Z only care about screen time. (For the record, I know that his mother and I spend more time on our phones than he does. Hmm, I think I am seeing a reason I no longer like thinking about this series.)

Speaking of textbooks, I also found a number of "freebies" that textbook representatives gave me over the years. If you are not familiar with the college textbook industry, especially until about 10 years ago, that period when I was teaching or a curriculum lead, a company often gave out lots of free textbooks to faculty and chairs in the hope that we would adopt that book. Realistically if they gave out 100 and 1 of us chose to adopt their book, they would recoup their investment in one year of textbook sales. Honestly, though, how many versions of an Anthology of [insert adjective here) Literature do I need? Many of these are beautiful books, barely touched, and literally worth nothing, since almost none of them, via these editions, are used anywhere. Ah, the college textbook business . . . don't get me started.

In these additional boxes, I did find a number of new car and house buying guides. We haven't bought a new car since 2016 and certainly have no desire to buy another house, so I doubt these books have much value. Yet, for now, they have not been trashed. Maybe if I got off my damn phone and took some initiative here, I could throw this shit out. ("Wait, is that a notification I just heard?")

Of similar useless value these days is the 1988 edition of "What Color Is Your Parachute?" I got to retirement with any number of colored parachutes, often with faulty rip cords. The one time I needed the book, 2011, I ironically got hired by an actual avid parachutist because of exactly who I didn't network with. I am not sure any hiring consultant has ever recommended that you find a common enemy to your potential next boss, and then emphasize your disassociation with that enemy in your cover letter's first paragraph.

My favorite "find" in these final boxes is "Literature: The Channel Of Culture," a 1951 textbook of my mother's that I had clearly taken. My surprise was opening it to find my mother's name and "College of Education," Great Falls, Montana. I was immediately texting my sisters (see, that damn phone has value), asking if they remembered Mom attending college in Great Falls. In my memory of family history, she followed my father (who graduated a year ahead of her) to Boston right after high school as his new wife, supporting him while he went to college. When did she have time to attend a community college back home in Montana?

My sisters and I knew she got a job with Kodak in Boston, so we figured maybe she'd had some business/secretarial classes, but Education classes?  We all were definitely surprised by that. Luckily, as semi-regular readers of my blogs know, my mother speaks well beyond the grave, through her journals that she kept on flash drives. I discovered that I, at least, failed to remember that she and dad put the wedding off for a year after her high school graduation, during which that time she enrolled in this teacher education program, but quit when her psychology teacher (what is it with you psych faculty?) chastised her for being late to class during a snow storm (my mother lived in Black Eagle, which was a suburb of Great Falls; I have no idea how far of a drive/walk/bike ride that was, but clearly my mother believed her excuse was reasonable). Because of this interaction she dropped out of that program and never went back to school until the early 1960s, around the time of my birth (for a similar reflection on my mother and obnoxious college instructors, see "A Son-ography").

So, what a nice little opening into family history by discovering Francis Xavier Connolly's "Literature: The Channel Of Culture." Hmm, with a name like that, odds are that channel was a narrow one. I do wonder now if I would unearth more family history if I spent a little more time with all of these books I took from my parents. I know one book that I never found, which is very disappointing, is one on sailing ships. That book was one of several that my father read to me when I was very young, along with some nature books, which I have discovered in these boxes. Given my father's love for sailing ships (he build one from scratch in retirement), I am not surprised he loved it. Me, meh?  But, it was a big beautiful book, and my father was reading it to me. What else would a five-year old have cared about?

So, where does all this reflection leave me, 16 blogs later, 1368 unearthed books later. The storage collection is a little better organized, a rudimentary handwritten list of each box and book is now on file, and will I have become fully inspired to continue through so many other boxes in the basement (I have recently turned to photographs, an enormous task in itself).

Ultimately, almost all of these (I maybe trashed 30-40 books because they were in such bad shape) will probably still be Lincoln's problem one day. But at least he will have a nice file with information. See, Mom, your kid did turn out alright!