Notice the little kid, who probably pulled his little wagon to the library, sitting on the steps reading a book. Awww, a Kid who likes to read and enjoy some escape from the daily grind
Good for him. I grew up reading every aviation, military biographies, automotive, and technical book in the school and local college library in town starting in Junior High. Been a reader most of my life and bought hundreds of books in resale, Goodwill and like places where ever I was contract working in Kansas for 5-1/2 years. Carried a want list of my son's and found a number of out of print books of interest to both of us. Still pick up a few occasionally but this is not much of a reading state for what it's worth. I tend to believe that reading is a lost pleasure due to the internet and instant gratification mentality of todays youth. Glad I'm not in touch with the current generation. Thank You Jesse for what you do!
you sure had a bigger variety in your reading than I did. I was reading Garfield, Peanuts, etc til around 3rd grade, then the famous horse books, Black Beauty, Black Stallion, Misty of Chincotegue, Hardy Boys, My Side of the Mountain, Tarzan, etc. books for kids. Then in 4th grade a teacher read to us in the class the Hobbit, and suddenly I was off into all the fantasy stuff, Narnia, the Mars and Venus books by Edgar Burroughs, the Pern books by McCaffrey, then everything else she wrote, the sci fi books of Heinlein, Niven, the Dune series, the Sword of Shannara books, the fun books by Piers Anthony about Xanth, and hundreds of others. Then I discovered the many Louie L'Amour books. I bought them all, and still have them. I've reread most of them a couple times, and plan to reread them all at least one more time. Recently I've gotten into some Hollywood biographies, Cleese, Fey, Niven, Goldsmith, Offerman, Kendrick, Grohl, etc. But I've dived into history after finding Hendrik Van Loon, and reading several of his books, and about 30 years ago I got into poetry, and bought about 130 compilations and collections, and one of my projects is to make my own best of, like Ralph Woods did so many of. I've also, in the past couple years, been buying the stuff that I hear rave recommendations about, like John D McDonalds murder mysteries, The Flashman Chronicles, PG Wodehouse's series about Jeeves...and a bunch of other books. Reading to me is a open window into ANY other world and story. Tv and movies are limited to some assholes idea of what will make money from advertisers or ticket sales, but almost all sci fi is just a horror movie on a spaceship.
they are rare to find, I'm glad you enjoy it! Whoa... use it as a bookplate? Dang, that's serious! Do you have a small library, or a large collection of books? I'd love to hear about your favorite books and authors! Notice, just yesterday I was responding to Flagg about books and had no idea that I'd get the chance to talk to anyone else about a passion for reading!
I grew up in rural Appalachia, until I was 6 years old we lived four miles from the nearest paved road. then we moved to a different town, and lived on a state highway, but it was 13 miles to the town of 700 people, and 28 miles to the nearest traffic light.
I read every Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mystery I could find, read every book by Henry Felson, and WE Butterworth wrote alot of books about race car drivers and pilots etc. I read every Robert Heinlein book, every book by Alan Nourse and every other science fiction I could find. any book about adventure I could find. I read every Louis L'Amour book written by the time I was 20.
when our kid was little we'd go to Barnes and Noble and let him buy whatever books he wanted, other parents were stunned that we would spend so much money on books for a kid. but he loved to read, and we wanted to encourage it.
Oh dang! Compliments on being a great dad! Neither my dad nor step dad, ever paid for any of the books I have, it was all lawn mowing money. Of course, books were about 2 bucks apiece then. I grew up in a tiny town, which hasn't changed, and is still only about 100 people, 28 miles from high school, and 60 from the nearest bookstore. You can believe that we didn't drive to that city often... rarely there was any need to travel that far for anything, I think an annual trip for school clothes, one for christmas gift buying, stuff like that. I bought my set of Hardy Boys, or traded class mates for them, my set of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tolkien, Narnia, L'Amour, etc. It sucks to be poor, it sucks more to have poor parents that don't (lol) support your reading habit. Of course, the few times they tried, they chose poorly, INSTEAD of the perfect idea, GIVE THE KID THE MONEY, let the KID chose the right books! Like you did! See? It's the right way to get the right books that will be thoroughly enjoyed! My sister got some Nancy Drew, but she wasn't as into reading as I was, though she is now. And I read those, and she read my Hardy Boys, we both read Marion Zimmer Bradley, and anything else we would recommend to each other. Oh wow! I posted about Felson and his books! I haven't read them yet though https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2022/05/henry-gregor-felsen-1916-1995-was.html Oh, that was last year and you commented on that post! Oh, very cool that you read Heinlein! My first was "Have Spacesuit Will Travel" what a terrific young teen story! I never heard of Nourse, but wow, wrote the book that inspired the Harrison Ford movie!
That's a great picture. I thought there was a gas pump behind the book mobile, so I did some investigating. This post office was on Grosse Ile, an island in the Detroit River. I found another picture of the post office in the Detroit Historical Society's collection, and that is a gas pump. The post office must have been the town gas station as well as the library.
I also found out that there was a US Navy Air Station on the island, where they had seaplanes like the PBY and also built an all-metal airship. Bob Barker did his flight training there.
I picked up on the gas pump, probably the reason the truck is positioned where it is.. though, that's VERY odd to have a post office with a fuel system. The link I included mentioned the location as Grosse Ille Bob Barker was a flyboy? Oh wow, that's something to dive into and post about! Thanks!
Some of the Auto industry titans also had summer homes on Grosse Ile at one time - R.E. Olds, Henry Ford (who may have given the home to Henry Bennett, his union busting security man), Charles Fisher of Fisher Body.
alot of rural places had the Post Office in a general store, and every general store started selling gasoline when cars became popular.
I used to do alot of work at gas stations with leaky tanks. and one we worked at was a general store that started selling gas in 1916. they had pictures on the wall of a 36 Buick getting gas and the road was one lane dirt. now its a five lane road, and the old general store building is a restaurant
Good point, I never thought about the post office / general store connection before, but now that you bring it up - I am reminded of the many Post Office / General Store / gas pumps I've posted, oh, about a decade ago when I went all through Shorpy
Good for him. I grew up reading every aviation, military biographies, automotive, and technical book in the school and local college library in town starting in Junior High. Been a reader most of my life and bought hundreds of books in resale, Goodwill and like places where ever I was contract working in Kansas for 5-1/2 years. Carried a want list of my son's and found a number of out of print books of interest to both of us. Still pick up a few occasionally but this is not much of a reading state for what it's worth. I tend to believe that reading is a lost pleasure due to the internet and instant gratification mentality of todays youth. Glad I'm not in touch with the current generation. Thank You Jesse for what you do!
ReplyDeleteyou sure had a bigger variety in your reading than I did.
DeleteI was reading Garfield, Peanuts, etc til around 3rd grade, then the famous horse books, Black Beauty, Black Stallion, Misty of Chincotegue, Hardy Boys, My Side of the Mountain, Tarzan, etc. books for kids. Then in 4th grade a teacher read to us in the class the Hobbit, and suddenly I was off into all the fantasy stuff, Narnia, the Mars and Venus books by Edgar Burroughs, the Pern books by McCaffrey, then everything else she wrote, the sci fi books of Heinlein, Niven, the Dune series, the Sword of Shannara books, the fun books by Piers Anthony about Xanth, and hundreds of others. Then I discovered the many Louie L'Amour books.
I bought them all, and still have them. I've reread most of them a couple times, and plan to reread them all at least one more time.
Recently I've gotten into some Hollywood biographies, Cleese, Fey, Niven, Goldsmith, Offerman, Kendrick, Grohl, etc.
But I've dived into history after finding Hendrik Van Loon, and reading several of his books, and about 30 years ago I got into poetry, and bought about 130 compilations and collections, and one of my projects is to make my own best of, like Ralph Woods did so many of.
I've also, in the past couple years, been buying the stuff that I hear rave recommendations about, like John D McDonalds murder mysteries, The Flashman Chronicles, PG Wodehouse's series about Jeeves...and a bunch of other books.
Reading to me is a open window into ANY other world and story. Tv and movies are limited to some assholes idea of what will make money from advertisers or ticket sales, but almost all sci fi is just a horror movie on a spaceship.
This photo is Americana at its finest. As a reader, I love this. I might even add it as a bookplate photo for my books. Thanks for the great picture.
ReplyDeletethey are rare to find, I'm glad you enjoy it!
DeleteWhoa... use it as a bookplate? Dang, that's serious!
Do you have a small library, or a large collection of books?
I'd love to hear about your favorite books and authors! Notice, just yesterday I was responding to Flagg about books and had no idea that I'd get the chance to talk to anyone else about a passion for reading!
I loved reading.
DeleteI grew up in rural Appalachia, until I was 6 years old we lived four miles from the nearest paved road. then we moved to a different town, and lived on a state highway, but it was 13 miles to the town of 700 people, and 28 miles to the nearest traffic light.
I read every Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mystery I could find, read every book by Henry Felson, and WE Butterworth wrote alot of books about race car drivers and pilots etc. I read every Robert Heinlein book, every book by Alan Nourse and every other science fiction I could find. any book about adventure I could find. I read every Louis L'Amour book written by the time I was 20.
when our kid was little we'd go to Barnes and Noble and let him buy whatever books he wanted, other parents were stunned that we would spend so much money on books for a kid. but he loved to read, and we wanted to encourage it.
Oh dang! Compliments on being a great dad!
DeleteNeither my dad nor step dad, ever paid for any of the books I have, it was all lawn mowing money. Of course, books were about 2 bucks apiece then.
I grew up in a tiny town, which hasn't changed, and is still only about 100 people, 28 miles from high school, and 60 from the nearest bookstore. You can believe that we didn't drive to that city often... rarely there was any need to travel that far for anything, I think an annual trip for school clothes, one for christmas gift buying, stuff like that.
I bought my set of Hardy Boys, or traded class mates for them, my set of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tolkien, Narnia, L'Amour, etc.
It sucks to be poor, it sucks more to have poor parents that don't (lol) support your reading habit.
Of course, the few times they tried, they chose poorly, INSTEAD of the perfect idea, GIVE THE KID THE MONEY, let the KID chose the right books!
Like you did! See? It's the right way to get the right books that will be thoroughly enjoyed!
My sister got some Nancy Drew, but she wasn't as into reading as I was, though she is now. And I read those, and she read my Hardy Boys, we both read Marion Zimmer Bradley, and anything else we would recommend to each other.
Oh wow! I posted about Felson and his books! I haven't read them yet though https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2022/05/henry-gregor-felsen-1916-1995-was.html Oh, that was last year and you commented on that post!
Oh, very cool that you read Heinlein! My first was "Have Spacesuit Will Travel" what a terrific young teen story!
I never heard of Nourse, but wow, wrote the book that inspired the Harrison Ford movie!
That's a great picture. I thought there was a gas pump behind the book mobile, so I did some investigating. This post office was on Grosse Ile, an island in the Detroit River. I found another picture of the post office in the Detroit Historical Society's collection, and that is a gas pump. The post office must have been the town gas station as well as the library.
ReplyDeletehttps://digitalcollections.detroitpubliclibrary.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A241740
I also found out that there was a US Navy Air Station on the island, where they had seaplanes like the PBY and also built an all-metal airship. Bob Barker did his flight training there.
https://digitalcollections.detroitpubliclibrary.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A241740
I picked up on the gas pump, probably the reason the truck is positioned where it is.. though, that's VERY odd to have a post office with a fuel system.
DeleteThe link I included mentioned the location as Grosse Ille
Bob Barker was a flyboy? Oh wow, that's something to dive into and post about!
Thanks!
well, that's very interesting, the left hand photo, of that set of the library with the gas pumps, HAS the same library truck! On the far left!
Deleteyour second link is the same as the first, was it supposed to be different and show something about the Navy Air Station on Grosse Ille?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteIt was supposed to be a Wikipedia article about the Naval Air Station.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Air_Station_Grosse_Ile
Some of the Auto industry titans also had summer homes on Grosse Ile at one time - R.E. Olds, Henry Ford (who may have given the home to Henry Bennett, his union busting security man), Charles Fisher of Fisher Body.
anyone in Detroit that was rich enough was living in Grosse Ille, and Grosse Point.
DeleteI just looked on that map... there's a lot of distance between Grosse Point, and Grosse Isle.
Deletealot of rural places had the Post Office in a general store, and every general store started selling gasoline when cars became popular.
DeleteI used to do alot of work at gas stations with leaky tanks. and one we worked at was a general store that started selling gas in 1916.
they had pictures on the wall of a 36 Buick getting gas and the road was one lane dirt.
now its a five lane road, and the old general store building is a restaurant
Good point, I never thought about the post office / general store connection before, but now that you bring it up - I am reminded of the many Post Office / General Store / gas pumps I've posted, oh, about a decade ago when I went all through Shorpy
Delete