Memory is a tricky thing. We like to think our minds are sharp but what remains are not so much facts but impressions. So in writing this post, what I intend to share as clear details archived in my gray matter are instead small impressions that have remained with me.
Like most of you, I grew up surrounded by books. However, we didn't have a formal home library, in fact we didn't have any bookcases. Our library of sorts was the small pantry across the hall from the kitchen. The upper shelves were jammed with an eclectic assortment: World Book Encyclopedias, selections my sister and I ordered from the Scholastic Book Club, random paperback potboilers and science fiction bought secondhand.
Most of the books belonged to my dad. He was in the Army reserves and every month he received new Army Field Manuals. They all had plain manila covers and were frankly, pretty boring, lots of charts and tables and few pictures of cool military stuff. But one was a favorite read, entitled Combatives, the Army term for hand-to-hand combat. The text was accompanied by large black & white photos demonstrating techniques for disabling an opponent using all manner of dirty tricks. The good guy wore crisply starched fatigues and the bad guys wore khakis.
My dad was a chemist and another fave from his collection was a primer on how to blow up stumps with dynamite. It was from this book that I learned the word "tamp," as in tamp an explosive charge to focus the blast.
The strangest book in the family library was Childbirth Without Fear. It projected an intimidating, forbidden knowledge vibe. Early in junior high, I finally worked up the nerve to open it, expecting shocking graphic snapshots of childbirth and was both relieved and disappointed that there weren't any. I can't remember any of the illustrations except for the one bizarre photo of two women in their underwear wearing masks as a chubby man in a doctor's smock gestured with a pointer. I recently searched for the book online to see how correctly I remembered that picture but the examples for sale were all more recent editions and lacked the weird image from my memory. What unusual impressions have stuck with you from nearly forgotten books?
