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Re-reading THE DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS

30 years ago I wandered into a Walden Books. It was in the Janesville Mall, in (not surprisingly) Janesville Wisconsin. I bought two books or rather my Dad bought me two books. It is a strange occurrence because my parents didn't buy books. My Dad was and still, is an occasional reader. Historical novels about Colonial America and Native Americans... "I read a couple pages and I fall asleep..." My mom read a lot in fact, but she got them from the library until e-readers came around. 

As a child, I liked books as long as they were about baseball and World Records. My sister and I would get what amounted to YA fiction from the library. Encyclopedia Brown was huge even if I thought he was an insufferable dick. Memorably my sister and I read THE ADVENTURES OF THE BLACK HAND GANG. We liked the book because at the end of each chapter there was a picture where you had to spot the 'anomaly'. It was fun. Later in life, as I met and married my wife I discovered that I had in fact read next to nothing as a child. SNOWY DAY. Maybe in school. The caterpillar book. Nope. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE? No, and honestly that kid is also insufferable. THE MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS BOOK was the only book I remember reading as a child.

So Walden Books. In the past, I would go in there quite frequently just to browse. This time my Dad said he would buy me a book and I grabbed Clive Cussler's DRAGON because the cover was very attractive. Perplexingly my Dad let me pick out another. In retrospect, I think he let me do that because he didn't know how much books costs. Paperbacks were $6-7 and likely assumed hardcovers may have cost a few bucks more. Anyway, $40 later and I have a lifelong hobby. I don't know why he didn't make me put one of them back. Not to pat myself too much on the back, but I rarely asked for stuff when I was a kid. My family wasn't poor, but it was clear there was not a lot of extra to go around. I think it helped that I was the last of the 'play outside' generation and didn't need it. [Editor's Note: Play outside? You were 17 years old at this point. You had a driver's license. You weren't an orphan.]

I struggle with this memory because I also have an equally foggy memory of getting DRAGON at another Walden Books in Rockford, Illinois. Maybe I got both? Maybe I only saw DRAGON for the first time and sparked my interest? Some times these loose threads are a comfortable reminder of a long life...other times they are my undoing.

Long story sort of medium length, the other book was THE DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS. I'm gonna re-read it and post some thought over the next few weeks.

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