The Classic Oldies

Books are all over our house, on shelves, on side tables, on extra shelves in cupboards, so when we decided to pass on some to others in the neighborhood, I was excited to see a lot of Mr. Higgle’s go.

 We had more boxes of books move with us I think than any other sort.  The poor moving guy was slightly horrified when we said they’d be going into the basement.  He was taking them out of our library/music room.  We assured him that it would be only temporary as when he saw this house, he’d realize the only storage for a long while would be the basement space.

In prep for the thrift sale we had, and because we needed to, opened all the boxes and have discovered many “lost” things- tools, files, and our beloved collections of old literary friends.

While people perused boxes of books out in the yard, I did too, but when they’d cleared enough and I could search easily, I pulled out a couple of books to read for the first or second time.  Once again, a classic came into my hands..hmm, skinny but oh the print was tiny, but 50 some pages, I won’t get tired of it.  It was a Robert Louis Stevenson classic: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.   How I got through 8 years of college, reading all of my life and even a degree in English without reading it, well, that’s a lapse now corrected.

I asked Mr. Higgle-P if it really was scary and he admitted to “a little bit.”  Mind you, there are a few scary authors, like Stephen King and James Patterson, that I avoid, but I figured I could start this novella in the warm sun under the wisteria arbor and things would bode well for my imagination.  I finished it yesterday and pronounced it EXCELLENT, not scary at all, but one does have to keep close to the words and writing as it is very dense, and I’m a skipper. No skipping words, sentences or paragraphs on this piece of work.  I was surprised how easily I stuck with it, it’s just that good.

In retrospect, this was the second book I’ve saved from immediate sale.  Last year’s was another RLS, but Kidnapped.  I stuck with it, but it was harder to do so than Jekyll and Hyde.  I sense a theme, but as we continue to thin out books in our stashes, there are more to be read and reread, and I’ll not be doing a thrift sale again….maybe just one of those “Little Libraries” will be the key, to “turn on” more kids of all ages to the classic oldies.On the lighter side, I was giving one book to each child that came by, one chose and was insistent…BF Skinner’s  Walden Two.  We tried to talk him out of it, but he clutched it tightly.  I gave a favorite of mine to a young neighbor, offered another one as well to her, but she was sticking with a discarded library version (circa 1960-ish) of a Henry Reed book.  Definitely classic!