MY ANTEBELLUM CHRISTMAS PRESENT
http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/victorian_christmas1.mp3
(Read text below and/or listen by clicking above.)
Every trip to the old antebellum house was like Christmas Morning.
Whenever I could get there, by way of bus or foot or bicycle or ride-hitching, I felt like Christmas had just gotten jump-started.
The antebellum home in Downtown Tuscaloosa, back in the 1950’s, had expelled its original dwellers and converted itself into the County Library.
It seemed to exist solely for my pleasure.
Up the stairs not racing in slow motion—didn’t want to incur the wrath of a shushing librarian—I would head for the bookcases containing the knowledge of the known world and the imagined knowledge of undiscovered worlds.
Opening each book was like unwrapping a Christmas gift.
Each volume contained its own peculiarities. In addition to the printed words within, there were always imagination-laden surprises:
A pressed flower might drop spinning to the floor.
A scrap of paper complete with cryptic message would unfold itself and read its contents to me.
A margin scribble or an underline would challenge me to guess what a previous reader’s life was like.
Mustard stains might tattle-tale whether the patron read at night or on the run at a hot dog stand.
Unmistakable tobacco fragrances absorbed by the paper would be identified by brand-name (Cherry Blend was popular).
Little crayoned bookmarks and turned-down corners made certain pages more intriguing.
Coffee rings exposed the previous reader’s carelessness.
Librarian mutilations included penciled numbers and rubber stamps and glued pockets and dog eared dated cards and taped-down dust jackets and intrusive binding materials and repaired/reinforced spines.
The heft and texture and color and fragrance and flaws of the physical book were more fascinating than the book itself, at times.
The powerful shower of Holmesian clues would almost make reading the book an anticlimactic exercise.
To this day, I prefer the flawed personality of a well-used book to the pristine untouched edition that nobody ever opened.
Every book has its own history, my dear Watson. I can tell you a lot about what that book has been through just from all the clues and hints of clues that warp it and give it character.
Visit my antebellum shop in the Center of the Universe and commence your sleuthing
Jim Reed © 2009 A.D.
Reed Books Antiques/The Museum of Fond Memories and the Library of Thought
at the center of the universe
2021 Third Avenue North
Historic Downtown Birmingham, Alabama 35203
Hours: Tuesday through Friday 10:30am till 5:30pm & Saturdays 11am till 4pm
OPEN CHRISTMAS EVE AND THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS!