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Stumpage Reports
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Monday, July 21, 2003 :::
Vacation Fun
I was a lucky little kid in a lot of ways. Every summer, starting when I was around 8 or 9, the parents would load my brother and I into the car and we'd go off on a vacation for a week or two every summer. We lived in Michigan at the time and drove to places like Virginia, North Dakota, North Carolina, Canada, the Upper Peninsula, and Boston.
One of the parts of the trip I looked forward to the most, were Classics Illustrated Comic Books. They didn't sell them at newsstands where we lived, but every year before vacation we would get to mail order $4 or $5 worth of them. At 20 or 25 cents each that was a lot of comics. Our mother would then stash them and we would get to read them in the car on the trip.
We always ordered ones with either monsters or killing in them, titles like Treasure Island, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. None of this David Copperfield crap for us.
My brother and I loved the hell out of these things, and would usually have most of them read before we crossed the state line. Because of those comics, I know the basic plots and characters of a lot of classic books that I've never actually read. This has come in handy playing trivial pursuit, answering reference questions at the library, and just generally trying to appear smarter than I actually am.
My brother ended up with the collection, and he still has them. I'm glad to know they're in a safe place.
Reading:
Just finished: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon. I read this one on the recommendation of James and several other people. I haven't enjoyed a book that much in a long time. Well crafted and intelligently written without being pretentious. Some nice real comic book history woven in there, and some incredible fake comic book history in there also.
Just started: Gettysburg: a Testing of Courage by Noah Trudeau.
Still plugging away: Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution by Eric Foner.
Recently listened to: Truth, by Jeff Beck.
::: posted by tom at 10:08 PM
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