Dad's Birthday, Dad's Books

I’ve been doing quite a bit of recreational reading these days – ‘fiction under $5’ mostly – the slightly aged stuff from popular authors, or authors who aspire to being popular, that can be purchased cheaply at Barnes & Noble or on Amazon.com. Even though I’m reading the easy ones lately, I have other, more strenuous books around, many of them sitting next to me in a bookcase filled with my Dad’s books.

Dad was a history teacher; his expertise was American history, but his interests were much broader than that. He was really a student of everything – a lover of books and libraries, newspapers and magazines, music and sports, politics and pets, and on and on. When it came to reading and learning, there wasn’t much he wouldn’t try at least once, and sometimes he’d even give a second chance, if someone he respected suggested he try again.

That openness and ‘studentness’, if you will, is clearly evident in the books that came to me when he passed away three years ago. Not surprisingly, there are tons of history books and biographies – here’s just a slice:

• The American Nation: A History, a collection of volumes published in the early 1900’s
• The Shadow of Blooming Grove (Warren G. Harding in His Times), one of many related to our presidents, including Roosevelt, Johnson, Truman, and others
• a set of six books about World War II written by Winston Churchill
• Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, one of many related to the Revolutionary War

Dad also had all of the ‘blank and blank’ books – War and Peace, The Agony and The Ecstasy, Pride and Prejudice, Advise and Consent, The Cat and The Curmudgeon, and so on, along with a good number of books on the Oneida Community, important not only from a historical perspective but also personally. He grew up in Kenwood and Sherrill, home of the Community and Oneida Ltd. We were regaled over the years with stories of Dad, Uncle Bob, Aunt Pood and all their friends playing in and around the Mansion House; and at various times, Dad and Grum actually lived there.

There are many books more indicative of ‘the whole Dad’; among the treasures I’ve found are:

• Perri, the story of a squirrel and other woodland creatures, which was written by Felix Salten, the author of Bambi. This one has Dad’s name and the note 'Xmas 1938,' written by my grandmother. He would have been a couple months shy of his tenth birthday, and I try to imagine him holding this hardcover book, some 228 pages long, reading with wonder at what happens when animals and humans interact.
• Ivy League Football Since 1872, a book given to Dad by his brother Bob at Christmas 1982; the book clearly has been read, it’s not one that he never opened. Not sure if he read it because it was from Bob, or if he really cared that much about old football games.
• Also from Christmas 1982, Mike Royko’s Sez Who? Sez Me, a gift from Mom. Royko was an award-winning columnist out of Chicago; he used to be syndicated in one of our local papers, and I remember how much Dad enjoyed reading him. Royko and Art Buchwald were two of many columnists Dad encouraged me to read over the years – because it was good for me, even when what they were writing was not really entertaining, or when their opinions weren’t necessarily in line with mine. Studs Terkel was another of the Midwest boys that made the list of keepers; there are a couple of his books on the shelves.
• Minute Sketches of Great Composers, another one with Grum’s handwriting, this one dated February 19, 1937, noted ‘From Bob.’ Dad’s love of music, particularly classical, was legendary – just ask any of our neighbors over the years, who heard the stereo blasting. There are other books about composers, or written by composers, in the collection. There’s also A Treasury of Grand Opera, which includes sheet music and lyrics. This one may never have been read; some of the pages are not even completely cut.
• A number of magazine and newspaper collections, ranging from The New York Times Page 1 (1900 – 1998), and similarly Front Page: Major Events of the 20th Century (selected by the AP), to the 50th Anniversary Collectors Edition of Esquire and two bicentennial issues of Time, written as if they were originally from 1776 and 1789. And we have cat cartoons from the New Yorker (from me, Christmas 1998, it says), along with the complete Cartoons of Charles Addams – a precursor to his love of Gary Larson’s The Far Side, something my brothers benefited from often over the years.
• 100 Greatest Golf Courses, another present from Mom. Golf was important to Dad; he played from a very young age, and for a while was one of the top players in his league. I went with him a few times to the course in Cato (where remarkably, it never rained on Tuesdays), and pretended to be his caddy; I remember having a root beer float back at the 19th hole. One of the things he hated most about getting sick was not having the energy for playing golf, but he never tired of watching it. I remember many a Father's Day where we had to schedule dinner around the final round of the US Open, especially when it was a close match.

So what does all of this mean? First, there’s more to these books than meets the eye, because they belonged to Dad; for one reason or another, he kept these books. They provide a backdrop to him and his life; they're a story of him, and remind me of our shared stories, of things that sometimes slip my mind. I think the second thing that strikes me is our long family tradition of giving books. Mother to son, uncle to nephew, brother to brother, wife to husband, daughter to father; it makes me think that I can do better at Christmas and on birthdays with my brothers’ kids. A gift certificate to a bookstore is simply not the same gift as a carefully chosen book; I’ve been cheating them out of that, and cheating myself in the process.

Happy Birthday, Dad, and thanks. On a day that I’d traditionally be giving you a present, I’m instead appreciating the ones you’ve given to me.