An inscription that I can sink my teeth into

Sometime late last year my mom gave me a book that she had gotten at one of the places she volunteers at. This has become a fairly regular occurrence in recent years, but this particular book was a bit older than the ones she usually finds for me.

Being sans dust jacket, one would be hard-pressed to identify the title just by looking at the "cover". Book nerds may recognize the publisher's logo though.

A simple turn revealed the title... "Racul" 😆 by Bram Stoker. 

The book has clearly been read a few times over the years, but some hide glue will do wonders for the binding (provided I can ever find any).

The Modern Library was undoubtedly trying to cash in on the renewed interest that came about thanks to Universal's film adaptation of Dracula that was released the previous year.

I have a less than desirable paperback from the 80's, so this was a considerable upgrade. 

The book itself was a nice surprise, but the proverbial "cherry on top" is that it was inscribed...

"November 5th 1935

To Hazel Reid

From

Everett Howell"

That might seem innocuous enough, but given the title, the year in which it was given, and that it was being given to a woman is quite interesting. These days, nobody would think twice about giving a woman any particular book, but things were still different (better?) back in '35. Hazel must've been quite the woman. I'm also infinitely curious as to the relationship between Everett and Hazel. Were they friends? School chums, perhaps? Relations of some sort? Or, as I would like to imagine, was Everett courting Hazel? If so, again, she must've been quite the woman at the time to be the sort who would be receptive to receiving such a book.

I have done some cursory internet sleuthing, but with no location mentioned, it'd be quite the task to locate either of these folks......

---------------------------- Update -------------------------------

I wrote the first part of this post back in March, and then, obviously, never published it. Well, now three months later I've come back to finish it. Before hitting the publish button, I thought I'd give my search for these folks another go, and am happy to report that I've found them. And what's more, apparently one of my original speculations turned out to be correct, as they got married in 1936, so Everett was indeed courting Hazel when he gave her this book. I can honestly say that now that I know who the book belonged to, and the circumstances in which it was given, this instantly becomes one of my most cherished possessions.

Not surprisingly, both have passed, but if it you're curious to read a bit more about these folks, here's Everett, and here's Hazel. 

------------------------ Bonus content -----------------------

My mom has given me a few more books since the beginning of the year, and seeing as how I haven't posted in a while, I thought might be worth padding this one out a bit more by sharing the rest of those...

This book, and the next two, both came from one of my mom's excursions to McKay's.

I've made it no secret over the years how I feel about cellular phones, but, they do occasionally come in handy, especially when it comes to one person being able to instantly ask another whose a couple of hours away what books they still need in a particular series. And I know that I've already mentioned it in a previous post, but damn do I love these Aubrey-Martin stories. The dialogue between characters almost makes me swoon with giddiness. And all of the esoteric language and phrases are just a thing of sheer bliss. 

Everything from here on came from one of the places my mom volunteers at; which I'm hoping most of you would understand why I'm not publically naming either of. She doesn't get a discount at either place (books are generally a dollar apiece though), but does have access to items before the general public, so in some cases, I guess by proxy that means that I do to. It's been nice, at least as far as books go.

It's funny how I had little-to-no interest in anything sailing prior to starting my genealogy research last year, and now I can't seem to get enough of old accounts/fictional stories set in centuries past.

My mom and I are both fans of Harlan Hubbard, and with the Ohio River being such a big part of his life/work, she thought of him, and then me, when she found this book. And what's more, this particular copy has another nice inscription...

And no, I haven't tried to find these people yet, as I just got it a few weeks ago. As an extra added bonus, this book contains a bunch of ephemera tucked in between it's pages; none of which I've look at yet.

My mom already got me a copy of this book a number of years ago, but that one was minty fresh, and signed by the author, and while I don't collect books, I still didn't want to muck it up so I never read it. This one is definitely a reader though, so I fully intend to finally do so.

I wonder if people called Michael are more predisposed to writing about the Hindenburg? If one only had these two books to go by, it might seem somewhat plausible.

I don't usually go to either place that my mom volunteers at, but did go to one a few weeks back. While there, I couldn't help but go through the books. The rest of the books in this post were gotten that day.

I've been spending more and more of my time reading and researching local history, so both of these were must haves. The Cumberland County book is of some note, in that many things of interest (to me) are mentioned in passing, but aren't fleshed out nearly as much as they could've been. I guess those things weren't of interest to the authors.

I'm not reading as much about ancient history as I used to, but this one looked good.

There are a lot of books like this out there, some good, many bad. Where this one will fall is anyone's guess.

My interest in English history wasn't that high before starting my genealogy research. It's grown considerably since then. 

And finally, a biography for a fictional character. I've only read one of the Hornblower stories thus far, but this seems like the sort of book that might actually work better if I read it before reading any more of the original stories.

Oh, and I guess for a bit more bonus content, though not book-related...

I spotted a snapping turtle walking by the patio door last month, likely headed towards either the waterway behind the house, or the pond just beyond that.

By the time I got outside, he, or she, had decided to take a rest amongst the echinacea (which by now is in bloom). Here's the ass end, dinosaur tail and all.

As is always the case with their kind, it turned to face me as I approached. They don't seem to go out of their way to look for a fight, but they're always ready for one if it comes to them. This one wasn't full grown yet, but could still easily take off a human finger with one bite. It should go without saying that I didn't give it a chance to do so; just grabbing a few pictures, and then letting it be.

Ok, no more bonus content for today, I think this was enough, as I'm trying to ease myself back into blogging after taking a few unplanned months off.

Mom

This is a bit of an impromptu post today as I didn't realize what the day was until after I got up this morning. Not being planned, or having any time to plan, I will apologize in advance for the herky jerkiness of what is likely to follow.

It's only been in the last ten years or so that I began to realize just how lucky I was to have the mom that I have. I wish that it wouldn't have taken me so long to do so, but am grateful that I finally did. After all, some folks never do.

My dad was only around when he wanted to be, which wasn't often, so for the most part, aside from some help from my grandpa, my mom raised me pretty much all by herself. And let me tell you, that was no easy task.

I could do an entire series of posts about the stupid shit I did as a kid, the fallout from which was usually dealt with by my mom, but I won't. Trust me though, it was a lot. 

I had quite a few health issues during my first couple of years of life, then spent the majority of the rest of my pre-teen years causing chaos. My mom worked full time, and because of this I didn't have a lot of structure at that time. Unfortunately, I took advantage of this lack of structure, and was almost always getting into trouble of some kind or another. I was also one of those asshole kids who thinks they know everything about everything, so it was virtually impossible to tell me not to do something, even if it was for my own good; because obviously I knew better than everyone else around me. If that wasn't bad enough, I was also very anti-authority, a trait which I undoubtedly received from my dad, so as you can probably imagine, that only made me more difficult to deal with. Oh, and I was also "blessed" with the famous Irish temper, and could, and often would, go from 0 to 85 in 1.5 seconds over the slightest of things. Yeah, good times.

Health problems returned during my teens, which did start to slow me down some, but even so, on the good days, I was still making bad decisions. Arguments between my mom and I were frequent, and whether she'd admit to it or not, I know that there were days that she dreaded coming home from work. My health issues continued throughout my teens, and as sucky as they were, they were probably at least partly responsible for my beginning to finally start acting more like a normal human. Once I did, things improved drastically between us, and are still really good to this day. In fact, it seems like our bond continues to get stronger with each passing year, if that's even possible.

It never ceases to amaze me too that no matter how bad things got between us, she never quit trying to be my mom. I suspect that a lot of moms would've just given up after a certain point. I can remember her going to work, coming home to an ailing (and probably cranky) me, then staying up all night with me, or having to take me to the hospital and stay up all night there, then go to work the next morning on zero sleep.

She always made sure that I got lots of stuff for birthdays and Christmas, spending money that I'm not so sure we always had. Of course I figured out later that this was likely because her birthdays and Christmases (which are the same day) were always so disappointing when she was a kid.  

One of the bigger things that I remember, and now greatly appreciate, was that she was almost always willing to drive me (and my friends, when I still had them) to places that she had absolutely no interest in going to. Looking back, I had some friends who had very lazy parents, one in particular, was my friend Steven. His parents would almost never do anything on their days off, just siting on the couch and watching television for two straight days every single weekend. They were also terribly stingy when it came to spending money on him. Both made really good money, and would spend freely on things for themselves, but when it came to potentially buying him something, there would all of sudden be a shortage of available funds. Steven and I were best friends for a number of years, and it was almost always my mom who drove us to and from places, on her days off. She also would give him a few extra bucks to play with when we were going somewhere. An example would be when we were planning to go to the arcade for a couple of hours, and his parents would cough up a whole 2 or 3 dollars for him to do so. $2 didn't go very far at the arcade, and knowing this, my mom would often give him another $5 (sometimes more) so that he would be able to go. She did this for other kids too, but Steven is the one that I remember the most. There was also all of the Portland Wrestling shows that she drove us to and from (after also paying for the tickets), many of which were on Friday nights, late Friday nights.

I've heard a lot of people say that their parents tried to dissuade them from various hobbies when they were growing up. My mom never did that, she encouraged all of my interests; even the ones that we both knew I wouldn't be interested in for long. Heck, she even collected sports cards with me up until my mid teens, though I would eventually ruin that shared activity.

The one last thing I'll mention, if only because it reflects on my current person, were the summer days spent on the Sandy River. We had a spot that we would go to on a fairly regular basis during the warmer months, but there were also plenty of impromptu trips as well. These were the days where it would be crazy hot and I'd just be moping around the house, and in an effort to cheer my mood, she'd suggest that we head to the river. My mom wasn't always in the mood to be there herself, and would often just sit and read while I swam or explored the surroundings. Given how much I enjoy the outdoors, these excursions meant quite a bit to me, I just wish that I would've told her so at the time.

I could rattle off a hundred more similar memories, but I think you get the point, she was, and still is, a pretty awesome mom.

With all of this, and then some, in mind, I feel like I've been trying to make up for the bad behavior of my early years, for at least the last ten years now. Anytime she needs me to do something, I've been more than willing to do it, without complaint, and can't foresee myself ever changing when it comes to that. She's still very active, but there are things that she can't do, like the recent fixing of a garden that got washed away in a flood. I spent about a week in the hot sun moving heavy stones around the area in order to build it up in such a way that it won't be able to get flooded again. And then there was the new trench that had to be dug around the vegetable garden, so that it to wouldn't be washed away during a heavy storm. And then there's the tilling. The gas-powered tiller that she has is an absolute beast, it even gives me trouble trying to handle it. But again, I don't mind, it's nice to be of some use to someone who gave up part of their life just for me. And even though she still is very active, there may be a time somewhere (very far) down the road when she no longer is, and I'll be there to help then too. No matter what it is! I don't know if I'll ever be able to make up for all of the wrongs, but I'm gonna keep trying.

I never amounted to much career-wise, certainly nothing that she could brag to her friends about, but I'd like to think that I turned into a fairly decent person (most of the time), and she had everything to do with that. 

She'll never see this post, but even so, thanks mom! Thanks for always being there, and thanks for never giving up on me.

P.S. I mentioned at the beginning of the post that I had forgotten what day it was, which is true, but I gave her an early present a couple of weeks ago, so I already had that covered 😎.