The Difference Between Rat and Wrong

Our plans today were to drop some recycle off, go to the indoor fleamarket in Brunswick, and have lunch at a new Vietnamese restaurant that we finally managed to be able to go to when it's open and Carrie and I both have the day off.

En route we see a white rat scurry across the road in front of us in Lisbon. We, of course, stop so as not to hit it and decide because it's white, must be a domesticated rat that will not survive outside and therefore we must catch it. Which we do with only a little bit of fuss.

We check with a couple of different people in the neighborhood but they don't know of anybody keeping rats, let alone missing one. One lady mentions a relatively nearby, but out of our way, vet that works with the Lewiston animal shelter and we decide that would probably be the easiest thing to do. Unfortunately, while they do work with the local shelter, which is considerably out of our way, they do so only within certain programs and do not take in any strays anyway. Next we opt to try the one in Brunswick as that's where we're heading. Carrie gives them a call and, unfortunately truthfully reveals where we found the rat. They will not take in animals outside of their specified area.

A call to the Lewiston shelter confirms that they will take the rat, because we live within their specific range, and we decide to take advantage of their late hours to swing by after our planned trip. We make sure the rat has stuff to chew, air holes, and some soggy clover until we can get some tastier veggies from the restaurant.

We drop recycle stuff off at the recycle drop and head on to the restaurant. The waitress asks us how we're doing and Carrie mentions a bit of the adventure, still feeling a bit sore at the brusque treatment from the Brunswick shelter once it was revealed we were from outside the acceptable range. By coincidence the waitress's boyfriend has had rats before, and she was kind of thinking she'd like a pet rat, and they lived just a 15 minute walk away... When we leave the restaurant we walk her boyfriend to the car and turn the rat over to his new humans.

And the food we ate was really good too.

 We then go off to the flea market. I only buy one comicbook. I do find some books. I am very curious about the Zane Grey book, I only knew of his westerns. He's got a jungle adventure too! This was in a pile with three Tarzan books. I have them in paperback, but these were old (1917 & 1927) hardcovers. No prices on them and they weren't under glass or wrapped in plastic, so I figure I'll ask how much. I expect something along the lines of the prices I normally see, but they're at less than a tenth of what I thought they'd be. At or below the price I would pay for Tarzan paperbacks! One of these has lots of wonderful illustrations by J Allen St. John!

Carrie finds a number of interesting things, too, including pieces for a new prop she wants to build inspired by our photo shoot yesterday. And while at one vendor buying some goodies, the vendor turned to me and agreed on the low low counter offer I'd earlier made on the Phantom book he had.

Next stop was at the Goodwill store where, instead of the usual one if I'm lucky work shirt find, I got a week's worth.

If a black cat crosses your path it's bad luck. If a white rat crosses your path, it is apparently good luck.

The Berry Patch

 More about books

 

 As mentioned earlier, I have been buying books at yard sales, flea markets, and the like. The first one shown here is an advance proof of a biography of one of my favorite authors, Edgar Rice Burroughs. First biography of his I've ever read, let alone bought. Odd, considering what a Tarzan fan I am.

 And don't forget, in honor of Tarzan's 100th anniversary, there is a new postage stamp coming out on August 17th.

 In my earlier post about books, I mentioned a yard sale I bought the 1800's dime novels at. I went back this weekend and found two Lone Wolf novels. Earlier this year I discovered reruns of the old b&w tv show based on the series and a few months ago TCM was showing some of the movies. Both these books feature "scenes from the photoplay". The second book had the front half of the dust jacket tucked inside of it. No dust jacket for the other one.

 

There are a couple of tv series from my childhood that I actively seek books from. But for some reason I've decided to pick up other tv themed books. I won't get just any. I turned down Lassie and Dr Kildare ones offered. But recent purchases include Land of the Giants, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and Mission: Impossible. Never high literature, but usually fun nostalgia.

As a child I also watched a lot of old movies. That's where my love of Tarzan started. The actor who played Boy in those films went on to star in a series of movies based on the Bomba books. I have long wanted to read one of them, but not been willing to pay the antiquarian bookstore prices of the only copies I'd ever come across. Well, a recent find at a flea market was one from that series in hardcover with dust jacket mostly intact. At only three dollars, I snatched it up. It was about the level of writing I was expecting and felt no need to buy any others. Until I found two more at a buck each.

to enlarge any image, click on the author's favorite word

The Berry Patch

back cover

inside front cover

 I seem to be finding old books recently. Flea markets, book stores, yard sales are the locations of these finds. All at good prices. Most of what I have been picking up relate to old movies or tv shows from when I was a kid. The two pictured here are very much an exception to that, being from 1884 and well before television.




 A local yard sale was featuring finds from an old house that had been closed up for 80 or so years. They had a box of paperback books like these for a dime apiece. I anticipating the writing to be horrible, but ten cents each? I wanted a couple at least. I chose two that I thought were in better condition and had better graphics.


I started reading one of the books. The writing feels stilted, as much of the writing from the time does, with the extra burden of mass produced hack work. I expected this and was not put off by it. The subject matter is what keeps me from enjoying it. Rather primitive form of a romance novel.

 I've scanned the ads from Doris' Fortune to post here, but in doing so I have damaged the book, causing the cover to come off. The inside pages are stapled together, but the cover was glued on. 128 year old glue doesn't hold up to much handling. I am not going to post any interior scans from Lancaster's Choice.

 For a larger view of any of these pages, click on the letter 'K' in the pic