Booking Pleasures

by George Cowmeadow Bauman

Jack Matthews of Athens, Ohio, was an extraordinary man with a multi-dimensional life.

In addition to being a fine family man, he wore three professional hats: Distinguished Professor of English at Ohio University; well-respected rare-book dealer; and much-honored writer of seven novels, seven collections of short stories, a novella, and eight volumes of essays.

But in his younger days, he was also a private detective, a door-to-door Fuller brush salesman, and a produce warehouseman—whatever it took to keep body and soul together while raising a family, going to school, and writing.

Always writing.

Jack Matthews

He spoke to the Aldus Society on occasion, the last time on author Christopher Morley, and was a longtime member of our organization.

Anyone lucky enough to hear Jack tell booking stories was blessed, for he was a great raconteur. That ability to tell a tale was evident in his writings, especially his books of essays about his booking adventures: Booking Pleasures, which gave me the title of this story, Booking in the Heartland, Memoirs of a Bookman, and Reading Matter: Rhetorical Muses of a Rabid Bibliophile

I once told Jack, to his amusement and pleasure, that he was the only author I tolerated who made me keep a dictionary close at hand for those unknown—but just right—words he spiced his sentences with.

Jack passed in ’13, leaving behind a rambling house full of his private collection of books. He was a bibliophile (bibliomaniac?) who collected and sold books for decades.

His daughter Barbiel worked with Jack the last few years of his book-dealing days. He’d had HockHocking Books for many years, and most recently online at www.jackmatthewsoldandrarebooks.com.

In early November, Aldus Society members received an email inviting members to attend a big sale of Jack’s books, located in a large house of many rooms—all filled with books, in the wooded, autumnal country outside of Athens.

This caused quite a buzz, for we all knew that Jack had high-quality books; this wouldn’t be your average estate sale of books. Much of his inventory was high-end, acquired through the years from endless booking adventures.

“My mother was long-suffering,” Barbiel said with a winning smile. “While Dad visited bookshops and Goodwill stores all over Ohio, Mom sat patiently in the car.”

In Booking Pleasures, Jack invites us to go booking with him, which he defines as “the covetous foraging for old and rare books”. Later in the book he addresses his need to go booking, “I get so much pleasure from acquiring books that I sometimes buy them just to keep in practice.”

“And Dad loved to haggle!” Barbiel added. “He’d work out trades for books, using his own stock to acquire more. He didn’t like to spend a lot of money on a book, but he did want the very good stuff.”

So a few Aldines went booking like Jack…to Jack’s house.

On November 19th, several Aldine cars headed down Rt. 33 on a cold day with intermittent rain. Three of us from Acorn made the trip, hopes high, but keeping expectations low, which is a good practice through life.

Once there, we were greeted very pleasantly in Jack and Barbara’s large, airy living room by Barbiel and her husband, John Saunders, as well as her brother John and his wife Cathy. “There’s coffee and light food in the kitchen!” we were told by our gracious hosts, who clearly were caught up in the opportunity to share bibliophily with us.

But we Aldines came as book-hunters; the thoughtfully-provided coffee and refreshments would come later. The books were calling.

Soon we scattered to the many rooms, and a garage, full of oh-so-tempting books. There were Bill and Marcia Evans; Jay and Genie Hoster; Wes Baker; myself, Jack Salling, and Johnny B. from Acorn; and a bookstacker named John Begala, a longtime friend of Barbiel and John. Before arriving, we’d thought that—like some sales—we’d need elbow pads to push our way in to look at the books, but the size of both the house and the collection gave us all plenty of room to do our booking, unchallenged.

We browsed in silence, contentedly, occasionally pointing out a great find to one another. “An incredible sale,” Wes observed, as he and I browsed in Jack’s study, command central for his writing—he had two desks—and for his collection of books on books.

That was the room where I wanted to focus my browsing. Acorn Jack and John were downstairs, buying for the store; I was upstairs in the study looking for books on bookselling I needed for my personal collection, and found three signed books by British bookdealer, George Sims. “Old Jack”—as he sometimes signed books—also had many books by one of my favorite writers: the late Lawrence Clark Powell, librarian emeritus.

As Jack was one of my heroes, I was pleased to have a few minutes to myself in his study. I even sat in the great man’s chair, sitting quietly, pulling the atmosphere of books and writing around me like an inspirational literary cloak.

Eventually the gentle buzz of book-talk in the living room below brought me down to join the others.

Jay later told me that he’d found a beautifully-bound copy of “Saunterings in Bookland” for his souvenir of Jack’s study.

We were all so busy, so focused, during our book-hunt that the food was going mostly untouched, despite Barbiel’s urgings for us to visit the kitchen. So the Muffin Man appeared, carrying treats around to all. And napkins, too, for we didn’t want to soil any of the treasures we were handling.

And treasures there were. Books as far back as the 16th century decorated the shelves on seemingly endless bookcases. All price ranges were represented; therefore, many books were chosen. Jack’s strong Mark Twain collection was shelved in glass-fronted bookcases, while his assemblage of classic children’s literature was spread like a magnificent banquet on a large table in the dining room. His Americana shelves called to us like the American West called to pioneers. No matter which hall or room you wandered through, excellent books awaited.

There was no sense of competition among us, unlike some library or church rummage sales. More like friends hanging out together in the most laid-back, best bookshop we’d ever been in.

After a couple of hours, we began to wander back to the living room to add to our stacks and begin the check-out process, which gave us further opportunity to chat with Jack’s family.

It was a very social atmosphere, with Barbiel sitting on the couch, researching next to husband John; brother John sitting on the floor with wife Cathy in front of several stacks of books with their cellphones, also researching prices; and one or more of us bookbuyers standing, sitting, on the floor, or squatting near our stacks, scattered around the large room like so many yard gnomes. It was a fellowship of bibliophiliacs.

At one point, Barbiel made us laugh when she said, “If Jack were here now, he’d say, ‘Let’s all sing campfire songs! He loved to put people at ease, to cheer people up.” In his stead, Jack’s books were cheering us up.

Many wonderful titles were purchased that day as we took Jack’s book-children out into a larger world, grateful to him and his family for making such a wonderful collection available to the Aldus Society.

“Few passions are as great as those of the bookish sort.”
“Books render the things of this world distant, grand, mythical.”
“To hear and tell stories is our abiding human need.”
—Jack Matthews, Booking Pleasures

Many people ask us what study guide we recommend. I will give you a few suggestions. For a low cost solution, you can go with the basic Sybex CCNA study guide.
200-125 exam
In its place of obligating the error of evading the repetition exams, the applicants must practice carefully via practice tests. For example, statistics display; several a scholar who fails the CCNA Routing and Switching 200-125 Cisco Certified Network Associate, they have no need to fail in the exam after getting prepared with the annoying approaches.
300-115 dumps
When you purchase a lab kit form us you will get a lab workbook to help guide you through your labs. But the lab workbook does assume that you have some basic knowledge about Cisco routers and switches.
300-115 pdf
We are providing the helping material in two ways which are • PDF • Practice Test Software PDF Exam – the first technique expected of applicants to prepare for CCNA Routing and Switching 200-125 Cisco Certified Network Associate, are hand notes that consist of full, comprehensive information about every CCNA Routing and Switching 200-125 Cisco Certified Network Associate area.
300-115 switch
It is written in layman’s terms for very green students and it the cheapest solution. However I have found that it does not go as in-depth to some topics as I might like.
200-125 vce
Just focus on over study material for the preparation of CCNA Routing and Switching 200-125 Cisco Certified Network Associate.
210-260 pdf
So if you are already familiar with Cisco routers and TCP/IP, this may be a better solution for you. Finally, we recommend the Bryant Advantage Ultimate CCNA Study Package.
http://www.passexamway.com/
If you want to pass your ICND1, ICND2 or CCNA exam on the first try, it is essential you have a sound, effective study plan that is proven and other Cisco CCNA students have followed to successfully pass their 200-120, 101-101, or 200-101 tests.
200-125
Here at CertificaitonKits, we have on-staff seasoned CCNA, CCNP, and CCIE instructors. These instructors have helped develop Cisco training curriculum, delivered boot camps and have authored various books you will find in Barnes & Nobel or Borders.
210-260
Bryant Advantage. The Bryant Advantage probably has the most comprehensive study package that is well written using lots of analogies so it can be understood easily by new CCNA students as well as seasoned Cisco professionals. It is on par with the Cisco Press as far as price and another nice benefit is he also has a lab workbook too. We also sell the Bryant Advantage CCNA Lab Hardware Topology to compliment his lab workbook so you can follow through all the labs step by step.
210-260 iins
Most CCNA study guides are about 800 pages so there are lots of concepts and nuisances that are covered and we highly recommend you purchase a CCNA study guide to assist you in your self study efforts.
cisco
The preparation of 200-125 CCNA Routing and Switching exam, you can do with our preparation material. 
200-125 dumps
But it is a solid solution. The next suggestion is the Cisco Press CCNA study guide. This is a more expensive solution and is written in technical terms and probably does not explain some of the concepts as clearly as the Sybex Guide.
300-115
We want to be very clear, just having routers, switches and a lab workbook is not enough to pass your Cisco exam.
210-260 vce
For example, the pdf questions, debate each topic at a distance, the applicants study them dull and annoying. Similarly, the applicants provide favorite to exercise test. A practice test is communicating and stimulating as associated to pdf material.

The Get-Ready Man, Cupid in Hell, and other Thurber Predicaments

Having more than one collecting interest can produce some fascinating intersecting lines.

by Jay Hoster

James Thurber—full name James Grover Thurber—was named for the Rev. James Grover, a Methodist minister who was a friend of his grandfather William
Fisher and the first city librarian in Columbus Metropolitan Library. The parlor in the Fisher house had a large portrait of the minister on the wall.

In The Thurber Album, Thurber comments, “I often thank our Heavenly Father that it was the Reverend James Grover, and not another friend of the family, the Reverend Noah Good, to whom the Fishers were so deeply devoted.”

While that sounds like an example of Thurber’s whimsy, it turns out that The Reverend  Noah Good was indeed a real person. He has a place in the history of Riverside Methodist Hospitals (J. Virgil Early, Creating a Vision, 1991) as the superintendent of a predecessor institution.

In My Life and Hard Times, Thurber tells the story of a production of King Lear at the Colonial Theatre in which Edgar’s “Tom’s a-cold” speech (Act 3, Scene 3) is interrupted by the Get-Ready Man calling upon people to get ready for the end of the world. Thurber writes, “They found him, finally, and ejected him, still shouting. The Theatre, in our time, has known few such moments.”

The Get-Ready Man was not a Thurberesque creation. In her compilation of Columbus people and places entitled You and Your Friends (1906), Mary Robson McGill had an article with the headline “Get Ready for the End of the World.” McGill asked her readers, “Did that cry startle you? Columbus people are accustomed to it. For many years, that gentleman, Mr. Willard P. Walters, has been calling, ‘Get ready for the end of the world,’ but some way Columbus and the old world move along without making any special preparation for the interesting event he predicts.”

One item in my intriguing Thurber collection is a postcard of an early Ohio State game in which the final score was Ohio State 18, Case 0. According to my go-to resource for OSU football history, Marv Homan and Paul Hornung’s Ohio State: 100 Years of Football, the score places that game in the 1913 season. That was Thurber’s freshman year at Ohio State, and while it might be tempting to think that he would have been one of the people in the stands, he was more likely to have been in the library reading Henry James.

Among my Columbus collectibles with a Thurber connection is a well-read copy of a book written by Clara Eleanor Wagner, Cupid in Hell, published in December, 1910. The illustration on the front cover shows Cupid with his arm in a sling and shedding tears. The frontispiece portrait shows an elegantly dressed woman with a furious expression who looks a bit like Katherine Hepburn. The book’s protagonist is named Frances Eleanor Vendahl, clearly intended to be the author’s alter ego. Vendahl is married to a man named Harrison, and in her description Wagner rhapsodizes about “how handsome he is.” The book is filled with verbiage worthy of a Harlequin Romance: “My sweetheart lifts me up and holds me out at arm’s length—how strong he is!—and says, ‘You bewildering and bewitching winner of hearts, what was I led by before I knew you?’” That quotation is used as the caption for an illustration depicting a well-dressed man gazing at the photographer.

This outpouring of early twentieth century purple prose wouldn’t be of interest apart from one thing: my copy of Cupid in Hell has the inscription “Thurber’s father” with an arrow pointing to that photograph. I was able to confirm the identification by looking at known photographs of Charles L. Thurber. The storyline of Cupid in Hell meanders from Columbus to the banks of the Rio Grande. An El Paso newspaper ran an article about the book that concluded with the comment, “The book promises to be a sensation, the promise being furnished by Mrs. Wagner, the author.”

There’s no question that Cupid in Hell was a sensation in the Thurber household, but the question remains: what in the world was Charlie Thurber doing in Clara Eleanor Wagner’s book?

The Columbus City Directory for 1910-11 lists Wagner and her husband Eugene living at the Norwich Hotel. The building, no longer a hotel, is still standing at the northeast corner of Fourth and State Streets. Eugene was a cashier at the Grove City Savings Bank. The 1910 census shows the Wagners as residents of Grove City, where they had a summer home. The 1920 census indicates that Eugene has become president of the bank.

From 1908 to 1910 Charlie Thurber was a clerk in the office of the state dairy and food commissioner and for the next two years held various short-term political jobs.

How did their paths cross? In Cupid in Hell, Wagner mentions a friend of the protagonist who was accused by her husband of “indiscretions.” The friend’s explanation was: “I went with a man to look at some real estate, and tried to get some friends of mine political positions, and those were my indiscretions.” In an age that valued respectability, indiscretions were serious stuff.

Perhaps Clara thought that Charlie was the person to talk to if you had a friend looking for a political position. That can only be a guess. I haven’t been able to discover anything about the circumstances of how Charlie came to be in her book. Nor is there is any record of the reactions from Charlie’s wife Mame or his father-in-law, so we can only make conjectures; but because Mame was never shy about sharing her opinions and grandfather Fisher was immensely proud of his social standing, I think it’s safe to assume that there was nothing tepid in their responses.

It remains intriguing that in The Thurber Album Thurber included an account of Charlie in a predicament. It was one with comic overtones, relating how his father managed to get himself trapped inside a rabbit pen “where he was imprisoned for three hours with six Belgian hares and thirteen guinea pigs. He had to squat through this ordeal, a posture he elected to endure after attempting to rise and bashing his derby against the chicken wire across the top of the pen.”

Perhaps this narrative adumbrates his father’s humiliating experience of being caught in the Cupid in Hell crisis, although that, too, can only be a guess. Anyone who knew what actually happened back in 1910 has long since taken up residence at Green Lawn Cemetery. And Clara Eleanor Wagner died in
1944. The cause of death was listed as dementia.

To end on a cheerier note, I am proud to say that my family had a notable effect on James Thurber during his collegiate years. My family had a brewery prior to Prohibition, and in the early years of the twentieth century fraternities at Ohio State were known as Hoster Clubs.

Harrison Kinney enlisted me as a proofreader of the typescript of his definitive—and massive—biography of Thurber. In its published form James Thurber: His Life and Times comes to 1,238 pages including notes and index.

I was pleased that Harrison included a mock interview— Thurber interviewing Thurber—that Thurber wrote for the Dispatch on his experience of returning to Columbus as the co-author of The Male Animal. It is filled with nonsensical whimsy. Thurber explains, for example, that they tore down Tubby Essington (a famous drum major at Ohio State) to make room for the Statehouse. That causes a porter at Union Station to ask, “What I want to know, is what they made room for when they tore you down?” (Sadly prescient considering the fate of Union Station.)

Thurber concludes, “The old gentleman didn’t answer. He started off in a dazed kind of way, still talking to himself, in the general direction of Hoster’s Brewery.”

But it is a solid solution. The next suggestion is the Cisco Press CCNA study guide. This is a more expensive solution and is written in technical terms and probably does not explain some of the concepts as clearly as the Sybex Guide.
300-115
When you purchase a lab kit form us you will get a lab workbook to help guide you through your labs. But the lab workbook does assume that you have some basic knowledge about Cisco routers and switches.
300-115 dumps
Bryant Advantage. The Bryant Advantage probably has the most comprehensive study package that is well written using lots of analogies so it can be understood easily by new CCNA students as well as seasoned Cisco professionals. It is on par with the Cisco Press as far as price and another nice benefit is he also has a lab workbook too. We also sell the Bryant Advantage CCNA Lab Hardware Topology to compliment his lab workbook so you can follow through all the labs step by step.
200-125 exam
It is actually suggesting that the applicants preparing for CCNA Routing and Switching 200-125 Cisco Certified Network Associate, use both the preparation approaches. This will help all applicants to earn the assistances of both the approaches.
210-260
The preparation of 200-125 CCNA Routing and Switching exam, you can do with our preparation material. 
200-125 vce
It is written in layman’s terms for very green students and it the cheapest solution. However I have found that it does not go as in-depth to some topics as I might like.
210-260 vce
If you want to pass your ICND1, ICND2 or CCNA exam on the first try, it is essential you have a sound, effective study plan that is proven and other Cisco CCNA students have followed to successfully pass their 200-120, 101-101, or 200-101 tests.
300-115 pdf
Just focus on over study material for the preparation of CCNA Routing and Switching 200-125 Cisco Certified Network Associate.
210-260 pdf
Here at CertificaitonKits, we have on-staff seasoned CCNA, CCNP, and CCIE instructors. These instructors have helped develop Cisco training curriculum, delivered boot camps and have authored various books you will find in Barnes & Nobel or Borders.
200-125
Many people ask us what study guide we recommend. I will give you a few suggestions. For a low cost solution, you can go with the basic Sybex CCNA study guide.
210-260 iins
We are providing the helping material in two ways which are • PDF • Practice Test Software PDF Exam – the first technique expected of applicants to prepare for CCNA Routing and Switching 200-125 Cisco Certified Network Associate, are hand notes that consist of full, comprehensive information about every CCNA Routing and Switching 200-125 Cisco Certified Network Associate area.
cisco
Most CCNA study guides are about 800 pages so there are lots of concepts and nuisances that are covered and we highly recommend you purchase a CCNA study guide to assist you in your self study efforts.
300-115 switch
In its place of obligating the error of evading the repetition exams, the applicants must practice carefully via practice tests. For example, statistics display; several a scholar who fails the CCNA Routing and Switching 200-125 Cisco Certified Network Associate, they have no need to fail in the exam after getting prepared with the annoying approaches.
200-125 dumps
In preparation of our CCNA exam, we want to make sure we cover the various concepts that we could see on our Cisco CCNA exam. So to assist you, below we will discuss preparing for the CCNA exam.
http://www.passexamway.com/
So if you are already familiar with Cisco routers and TCP/IP, this may be a better solution for you. Finally, we recommend the Bryant Advantage Ultimate CCNA Study Package.