As I previously mentioned, when I was 11 years old, I was on a quest - I had to find all the volumes of the Trixie Belden Mystery Series. Even back then, I realized the importance of reading an entire series, and I was hungry to read all of this particular series. Though I haven’t read one in years, I still look back at that series with fondness. While the Nancy Drew series was good, somehow the Trixie Belden series appealed to me more. Trixie wasn’t polished - as a matter of fact, she was known to be quite the tomboy. Also, she was younger than Nancy, came from an upper middle class family that didn’t have a lot of discretionary income and was just generally speaking, someone I could more readily identify with. I’ll get back to those books someday - just to re-read and see what I think of them as an adult. There were 39 of those books, and I did manage to collect them all eventually… and after one rather harrowing experience.
During the same trip to Lexington, Kentucky during which my Mom called and asked the largest book store in the state if they sold books, my older cousin (18 and had a car, thank you very much) was gracious and kind enough to take me to one of the downtown used bookstores that had copies of a few of the volumes I was missing. I don’t remember exactly which bookstore this was, though I suspect it may have been Glover’s, but it was very close to (if not on) the UK campus. Though it was the middle of summer, classes were in session and parking was at a premium. For that reason, we had to park (as best I remember) something like 11 blocks away from the bookstore. Did I mention that it was summer? And that it was nearly 100 degrees outside? Uh-huh.
The walk to the bookstore was great - I was excited, and we went in, got my books, made me a happy, happy girl. The walk back to the car? Not so great. My cousin, God bless him, didn’t think about making sure I stayed hydrated or cooled down, and by the time we got back to his car, I was literally on the verge of heat exhaustion. My aunt’s house was probably 15 minutes from downtown, and I was still gray and horribly nauseated by the time we got back there. He rushed me inside and turned me over to his mom and mine, and I assume they got me something cold and slowly cooled me down, as I survived . It had to have scared him to death, poor kid - he was just a teenager, after all.
So what is the answer to the question of how far an 11-year-old will go to get books she wants? To the point of having heat exhaustion, or 11 blocks in 98 degree weather without water or air conditioning. Another important question - was it worth it? Hmmm… looking back as an adult I would say absolutely not. I still have trouble tolerating heat to this day, possibly because of that episode. (No, I don’t blame my cousin - he didn’t know any better than I did.) However, at the time I shrugged off the heat exhaustion as part of the price I paid for getting some good books. It was an experience, for sure, and a fond (believe it or not) memory. I absolutely wouldn’t do it again, but I surely did enjoy those books. Of course, these days I have the internet, so I would probably just order the books, and that is likely what most folks would do these days. I have to wonder, though, if they’ll have that same fondness when they look back years from now?
No comments:
Post a Comment