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Farewell to the bookmobile

Anna Badkhen writes in the Boston Globe about the declining fortunes of the bookmobile. A guy from the Decatur Public Library drove one to Findlay every other week during the summers of the late 1970s. That's where I found my first Isaac Asimov, the sci-fi novels of the 1970s, and a lot of astronomy and cosmology - I'd carry home an armload to stack on a table in the living room and make my way through them in the following days,

The really dangerous book for boys

Electricity for Boys! I'll have to take a look and see whether we can use any of it. I never did get electricity despite having a 300-in-1 electronics project kit in my early teens. My friend Bryan Hash came over quite a bit to wire things up with it.

New at Project Gutenberg this week:

• Electricity for Boys, 1914
• Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, 1906
• Home Life in Colonial Days, 1898

Mozart with our meals

I spent money like a gazillionaire back in my Rich Young Bachelor days. Sometimes I even spent it well. I bought some Mozart cds back then but never really gave the crazy German bugger a chance til Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope and we all heard about his devotion to Mozart.

I found online reviews that bashed Mozart's miscellaneous dances - apparently the things were churned out factory-like - but the reviewers were so damn snotty I figured I'd start with the dances. They're delightful! They're not busy making big ponderous statements; they're not dazzling technical works - they're dances! What better accompaniment to a joyful meal with the family? And, unlike the local NPR classical music station, they don't pause at the top of the hour to report the latest enemy propaganda.

Carblogging

I read about the old AMC AMX today and it brought back a few memories of old cars my friends and I had growing up. As the youngest of 5 or 6 kids, my friend Chuck Watkins (now a retired Army officer) inherited an old AMC Gremlin from his next-oldest sister, and boy did we have some great times in it. I wasn't present at the legendary Filling of the Gremlin, in which Chuck (6'3"), his dad (somewhere over 6'), and 3 or 4 other large guys all squeezed into the Gremlin. The old thing was buried at sea after many years of selfless service.

My first car was Mom's 1971 Datsun 510 with 98 ragin' cubic inches under the hood - we called it the Urban Assault Vehicle, of course. It was a tough little car that withstood years of abuse, including a high-speed wreck immortalized in a Steel Teeth song [mp3 file]. I was in the UAV on my way to my high-school job at a lumber yard in Decatur IL when I thought I'd take a moment to put a new lace in one of my workboots. I looked down for a moment and when I looked up the road was over there somewhere. If I hadn't panicked everything would have been fine.

Urban Assault Vehicle
Steel Teeth, circa 1984

Biff: Trying to get to work
Running late again
Stopped at the grocery store
To pick up some shoestrings

Jumped into my car
The Urban Assault Vehicle
Shoestrings right beside me
Bill: Boy my workboots need new laces!

Biff: Started down the road
Turned at the liquor store
Grabbed ahold of those shoestrings
Bill: I think I'll just unwrap the package!

Biff: I started heading down the road
Got going about seventy-five
Bill: I think it's time to lace my boots!

Biff: There I was a-singing
Singing "Break-a My Stride"
Trying to lace those boots
Bill: What happened next just blew my mind!

Sound effects: car crash from Kiss's Detroit Rock City

Bill: I saw a host of angels
And in the middle was Bob and Doug McKenzie
And they said:
Biff: Go for it, eh?
Hey hosehead, you know, like,
teach the world a few tricks, you know, like...
Bill: And they threw me the Golden Beer.
We did him a good turn, eh?

Biff: Everything's been settled
As I sip my glass of wine
The Urban Assault Vehicle
Biff & Bill: Is doing fine!

Puerile, yes, but we were puers back then.