There was always something magical about my dad reading out loud to me; the way his voice could make the tiny black words typed across the page come alive. And I was greedy. I wanted it for myself.
I also dug up a truly wretched snapshot of my engagement picture. Why anyone would have wanted this picture in wallet size is beyond me.
But my best find (by far) is this random little note:
That night a reader was born.
Once I began reading, I never stopped and once I'd plowed through the sparse young adult section at our local library, I began raiding my parents' bookshelf. My parents let me read whatever I wanted and my dad was always up for a discussion after I was done.
But the very best thing about borrowing books from my dad were the treasures you'd find inside. My dad is known for using completely random things as bookmarks and when I loaned my brother-in-law my dad's books in Stephen King's Dark Tower series he dubbed them Mike Roecker Memorabilia. You just never know what you'll find in one of my dad's books.
The other night when I was at my parents' house flipping through some of our old books I found some truly random things including:
- Three of my dad's business cards (all for completely different jobs);
- Another business card for a Robert Hawkins at ITW Insert Businesses (Hi, Bob! Hope you don't have a google alert on your name);
- A blank United States Customs Declaration form;
- A daily behavior and work chart for family friend Kevin Hutchings (he's now in college) complete with tiny little stickers; and
- An Amazon.com bookmark from Summer 2001.
I also dug up a truly wretched snapshot of my engagement picture. Why anyone would have wanted this picture in wallet size is beyond me.
But my best find (by far) is this random little note:
- Where was Laura going at 7:00 on Wed the 18th?
- Did she wear jeans?
- Who is Diana?
- Did she like Laura's jeans?
- Was a $350 portfolio required? (Note this part is in my dad's handwriting)
- Was it a pyramid scheme?
- Did Laura and Diana somehow get sucked in?
See, this is the stuff I'll miss if real books ever go away. Kindles don't need bookmarks and it's sort of fun when your book doubles as a time capsule.
45 comments:
I love the mysterious cryptic note. We used to find things like this when I worked in the circulation department at the library. We actually had a bulletin board in our workroom where we were supposed to put important notices and stuff, but instead tacked up interesting things we found in books.
What treasures! I love finding stuff like this! I recently found a note that was passed to me in a class in HS from my BFF. What a great post!
BTW what a wonderful thing you and your father shared with the night reading
Books are great for so many adventures, even ones that have nothing to do with their plot.
What great finds you nabbed here.
Be sure to let us know if you find out what happened on Wednesday the 18th. Curious minds need to know.
I think your engagement picture is adorable.
I so love this post!!!! And your engagement pic is so durn cute! And my word verification??
dado!
Ha ha so true! Such a fun post this snowy morning!
I do the same thing and stuff whatever I find as bookmarks. My kids find it amusing and now make me bookmarks, lol!
Have fun treasure hunting!
Mysterious cryptic notes are awesome! I found one a while back that said: "Snarf?"
And nothing else. The weirdest part is that it's not my handwriting.
That's SO neat! I love the notion of the book as a time capsule!
That is so very awesome. I love this! I do the same thing--using random bookmarks. So maybe someday my little guy will find my time capsules too!
I love the idea of using books as small time capsules!
Wow, that is very cool. Finding treasures of your dad!
BTW Your picture was super cute!
Thanks to both of you for being my first donors :-)
That's so awesome. The only thing I find in old books are old bookmarks. I'm boring!
Wonderful last line. That whole idea of book as time capsule is great. I found someone's hastily scrawled love note in a library book once.
I usually use random things as book marks, too. At the moment I have two actual book marks though. One I made out of plastic canvas and one that was sent to me by an author.
My husband and I were going through and getting rid of a bunch of useless stuff of ours the other day and we found this notebook paper that on one side contained a poem my husband had written to me about 8 or 9 years ago, and on the other side were a bunch of phone numbers, most with no names indicating whose numbers they were. Thought about calling the numbers, but didn't.
Now I kinda want to go to the library and search through the books for hidden treasures LOL
p.s. my spellchecker insists that bookmarks is incorrect, which is why I wrote book marks in my post. I really can spell, but my spellchecker apparently cannot.
I usually find those kinds of notes in my books that I have left for myself accidentally. One I found a little while ago said something about a cruise and weird sculptures.
I've never been on a cruise.
Every time I read your blog, I am taken with the overwhelming urge to start every comment with OH MY GOSH!! What a treasure trove. I'm so with you. I can't imagine going totally electronic. Part of the magic of the book is curling up in an easy chair, opening the front cover and flipping through the pages. Plus, you don't have to be technically savvy to open one...
Ha ha ha! How fun. I love finding surprises when I borrow a book or re-read one.
P.S. I like your engagement picture. Why don't you? :-)
Very cool! When I was around 10 or 11 I used to draw pictures for my "novel" and put them in books (why I did this, I have no clue). Just recently I opened a book that had them in there and I nearly fell off my chair laughing at the silly little pictures :P
Haha--awesome! I used to use random index cards covered in story ideas or notes for my homework :P. Time capsules, indeed!
Also, how cool that your Dad started your love of reading :). My mom was the one who read to me from when I was wee. What a blessing!
Word verification: Scargame! (new title for a book?)
I love that idea = book as a time capsule. I really think you could work that into the next Kate-mystery. Don't you guys?? Then the book really will be a time capsule!
This is sooo awesome!lol I'm glad I am not the only one that would be extremely sad to see books go completely electronic in the future.
If you think that's a bad picture of you...I am never posting any of myself.
I am eatin up with curiosity over the note too...
VERY NICE POST. I thoroughly enjoyed this and every post you guys make :)
So true! Actual books would be sorely missed if the world goes totally Kindle. (I like that though...using the word Kindle like you would Kleenex instead of tissue.)
Anyway...here's my take on the note. Laura was going to become a super model until Daddy-O realized it was going to cost $350 to get her a portfolio for her meeting w/Diana, the modeling agent. So she gave up her modeling aspirations to write books w/her big sis.
I'm right. Right? Where's my Kindle?
You MUST call the mystery phone number.
This is awesome. But, it makes me worry about all those paperbacks that I donated to our federal prison library. Did I leave one of my business cards in my discarded copy of Twilight?? Am I going to have a visitor? or a penpal??
sf
What a lovely tribute to your Dad ... and what treasures you've found. Please share the answers to that note when you hunt them down! :-) You look lovely in the engagement picture!
This is EXACTLY why I love books, and buying old books. I think the best thing I ever found in a book was in a very early second edition of The Scarlet Letter I got from the woman who taught me how to ride. It was a small narrow piece of counted cross stitch bearing delicate flowers and the word 'Love'.
Awesome finds! They tell us so much about your dad as well :)
And that's exactly why I don't own a Kindle (it's definitely not because I'm too cheap to buy one). : )
hahaha that note is excellent...it's always the random things that end up being treasures :)
Exactly! I love thinking about the random stuff I find in library books!!! I found a love letter once!
You are so right. There is something tempting about a Kindle but then I worry, I worry that we will get so technologically advanced that 'real' books will cease. this makes me cry. There is NOTHING like opening a book, smelling the paper, seeing the crispness of a new print or the age in the yellowing pages. I purchased a book on the Presidents (my husband is a huge history buff & honestly I LOVE to see how we talked about our leaders in the past compared to our sensationalism today) In that book was the tiniest scrap of paper with the words: Do we really know him? seriously. This question haunted me. It was (still is) on page 501 about Ulysses S Grant. The books ends with President Chester Arthur.
I also have a love story that was my great grandmothers - in it at 14 I discovered a pressed clover. It is still there - though I preserved it with my mother's help. I am glad your books are treasures too....
Love this post! Makes me think of my own choses for bookmarks!
It's like a treasure hunt... so cool to find those things (and I agree, LONG LIVE BOOKS!)
I love this post! And also your dad's taste in reading. Dark Tower is one of my favorite epic stories of all time.
Go Mike Roecker!
Hot engagement photo...
Here's my vote:
Your dad set up a blind date with Laura and Diana's son, for Wednesday the 18th, at 7:00 pm. Laura found the note, got all pissed off b/c Dad and Diana were plotting behind her back, and jotted the bit about the jeans at the bottom. She decided to talk about herself in third person b/c it made her sound more bad ass (What should Laura wear? Jeans? A frilly skirt? Huh? Huh? Laura needs to know!!)
As for the portfolio? Your dad just found out that he had to exchange one with Diana, b/c that's what the yellow page ad said. He's in a bit of a time crunch, so he hires Lisa to do it for him. Lisa, the poor starving artist, decides to swindle her dad for $350. Because, ya know, food doesn't just buy itself.
(p.s. LOL at the wallet-sized photos. I didn't know those were an option, other than for school photos and Glamour Shots. I suppose they would make decent bookmarks, though.)
What a fun post. Loved that your dad gifted you with the love of reading and real paper books. And that you found those great old notes! I treasure the typed recipes with handwritten comments from my mother.
I'm so going to send you a picture of my father's dashboard. Every note he ever wrote to himself is there and I like to think of it as a time machine cum diary. I'm pretty sure there are notes from 1977, my kitten Dexter that ran away and never came back and proof that my sister was adopted. I just can't get the door open to confirm. The chlorine he was carrying around in 1994 rusted the door shut. I think the tablets themselves fell out the floorboard sometime in 1997.
We're just not sure.
Love the post. Very cute. Very sisterly.
Great post! Hmmm I do wonder if she wore the jeans or not?? Quite the mystery. You know, I do the same thing. Right now, I'm using a subscription post card to US magazine! LOL
I really enjoyed this post :o)
I am filled with curiosity. You must find out what that note was about!
Sheesh. I always knew my awful dog-earing habit was bad for books; I never thought I might be missing out because of it.
Your dad sounds awesome.
And I love that your parents let you plow through their library without censoring your choices, then left the books open for discussion. Great parenting, IMHO.
I post. I find random things in my books too. First of all the engagement picture is pretty, you're crazy. Second, kindle's kind of scare me too, they are technological so they can break. What happens if it malfunctions? You can;t read? Books are unbreakable. Well sort of...I once broke Jay Asher's book 13 Reasons Why and he knows and always remembers me as the girl who broke his book, but not the point. Books don't malfunction, they work. And last...omg DID Laura wear jeans???????
Ok it looks like my comment thingy decided to delete part of my comment bc now I sound like a total wierdo saying, "I post" and you're probably thinking..."Uh....DUH Frankie, we know you post, is it really necessary to tell us in the comments" and actually I wrote, "I LOVE this post" but somehow love and this got deleted.
So umm...I love this post!
Awesome post! My partner in crime found a Star Wars bookmark that I bought in 6th grade the other day in one of my books. Tres embarrassing...
And for the record, I think your engagement photo is very cute!
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