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TRAIPSING THROUGH THE LAND OF THE HELTER SKELTER MISINFORMED
“Oh, look, they don’t even know how to spell READ.” Voices just outside the bookstore chuckle and point at the REED BOOKS sign.
When these visiting-the-South-for-the-first-time visitors actually enter the shop they are relieved to hear that my last name is REED and that I do, indeed, know how to spell READ.
Sometimes I feel I’ve just missed boarding the Literacy Train.
Things are overheard in an old bookstore. Amazing things. Delightful things. Sometimes disturbing things.
One wooden box of great quotations suitable for framing is being riffled through. There is a witty one that reads, “Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.”
A lanky customer looks over at me and says, “You know, this is not the correct quote. The actual quote is, “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
I am stymied and try to compose my reply. I actually cannot believe he misses the satirical jibe.
“Well, that’s another quote that is true. Two nearly identical statements can be true simultaneously, you know.” This pops out of me before I can guage whether I’m coming across sarcastically or whether the Nerd in me is just trying to educate without mocking.
The customer tries to concentrate, looks back at the placard, then says, “Oh, I see what you mean.”
I gently try to explain further. “It’s just a joke somebody made.”
He seems relieved but confused.
Maybe I should display the two quotes side by side. But chaos might ensue.
One day, a youngish browser hears me quoting Will Rogers, “Things ain’t what they used to be and never were.” He snaps back, “That’s not correct English, you know. Ain’t is a word…”
I stop listening. There are humor gaps everywhere I turn.
I realize that my sense of humor evolved from my parents’ generation. They always threw in terms like “ain’t” and “don’t do nothin’” as gag references picked up from comic strip and movie and radio heroes. Back then, everybody understood deliberate misuse of language as a kind of joke code. They enjoyed the very same gagmasters, Fibber McGee and Fred Allen and Red Skelton and Minnie Pearl and Lum and Abner and Bob and Ray and Jed Clampett and Groucho Marx and Li’l Abner and Snuffy Smith…
I probably should have thanked the correcter for educating me.
I envision a time when songs like “Ain’t Misbehavin’” will have to be corrected to “Am Certainly Not Guilty of Misbehavior” or “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” will morph to “I Fail to Achieve Appropriate Satisfaction,” etc.
Thank goodness I live in my own little bookie bubble. Thank goodness I can travel to the past and find solace in savvy sages such as Will Rogers, who said, “When ignorance gets started it knows no bounds.”
As concerned as I am about the hit-and-miss gaps in education that abound these days, I can still get a laugh or two out of listening to occasional browsers, one of whom explained to his girlfriend, “You see this book, LORNA DOONE? It’s about that village in Scotland that comes to life one day every hundred years.” She is suitably impressed with his font of knowledge and I find myself wanting to re-read H. Allen Smith’s book, HOW TO WRITE WITHOUT KNOWING NOTHING.”
My version would be entitled, HOW TO LIVE WITHOUT LEARNING NOTHING.
All this makes me doubly thankful for all the visitors who lust after knowledge and good reading and creative learning and, and, and…truth, facts, wisdom, humor, empathy, kind thoughts…
Where would I be without them? I thank them all for the hope they bring into my dusty little shop on 3rd Avenue North at the center of the universe
© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.