The Print Addicts….

Maybe it’s because I look for them… cause I know, no matter hard I try to ignore them, I cant stop being amazed. In these places where the collected treasures of our lives end up…. the thrift stores…. the salvation army encampments….those places of Goodwill toward our fellow man…. they are drawn like moths in the dark to a single gas flame… compelled to sift though old tomes of meaningless and pointless yellowing paper.

The Print Addicts.

I’ve asked myself time after time what amazes me about these vaudevillian archetypes over the years? I think I’ve tried ,on numerous occasions, to quantify and qualify… define them to some kind of dichotomy while observing them in the wild….only to be left stymied.

When I was younger and lived with my grandparents for a short time, I lived in a basement bedroom of their ranch style home in Lake Orion. It was a finished basement, but had long been surrendered to being used as storage for my grandmothers odd collections of Christmas decorations and plastic tote collection ( all empty ,but filled with such potential). Next to my bedroom were stacks upon stacks of the Readers Digests, some with protruding bookmarks and others tied together in small stacks of 3 or 4. Upon inquiry I learned that the stacks had multiple part stories and it prevented them from getting separated. I guess, amongst the anarchy that was the basement, I could appreciate my grandmothers logic. The thing was, in all my youth… from diapers to my driver’s license…. I never once saw my grand mother read one. In my later years I offered to help her clean up the basement, in hopes that tripping and avalanche hazards could be avoided. My first point of contention- the yellowing pages of the every growing compendium of Readers Digest–upon mentioning the concept of throwing them away my grandmother sneered at the thought. “Christopher…I have things in there I want to read and have some recipes bookmarked” she stated with such a fortitude I knew I had lost the battle without firing a shot. Hell…she spotted my recon team far in advance and sent in assassination squads to do my idea in before I could mount an attack. I retreated with an ” Ok, Nana… I wasn’t gonna throw them away without you permission, shit…. just don’t have them fall on you, OK? “

Now it wasn’t only the Readers Digest that had it’s own little wing in my grandparents basement. There was the religious philosophy annex, the self-help atrium, and the all too risque’ book nook I found in my early teens. Before your mind sinks into the gutter and reprimand me for coloring my grandparents in a bad light…the risque’ book nook encompassed a copy of the “Joy of Sex” by Alex Comfort and the partial collection of a National Geographic collection from the early 70’s. I remember finding the book and feeling like I had found some opus for unlawful carnal knowledge. To this day I look back and laugh at my younger self, not only for my naivety, but for my downright unscrupulous way of keeping it hidden… my preeeeeshhhus. I related the above because I thought it may shed a little light on my fascination with the Print Addicts. Cause, much like my grandmother Lillian, the entities I see deeply scouring the used book sections are doing the same thing that my grandmother did without knowing…mining the potential of ” things in there I want to read”

On my last trip to the Salvation Army here in our little burg of Mt. Pleasant I was in search of some decent work pants. Because of my size and my tendency to attract stains….used work pants are a boon for me when I can find them. The one thing that has always been an issue for me in the realm of visiting thrift stores is the undeniable aroma of…Old. Old couches, old bedding, old clothing, old dishware, old electronics, old …old…old…. but most of all … OLD BOOKS.

I wasn’t surprised to see the one or two Print Addicts slowly droning down the large south wall–reserved exclusively for donated books–of the Sal. The one gentlemen is there almost every time I go…. He looks like if you were to approach him he would mumble some runic words and cast a spell on you …. and disappear. His white hair and beard covering most of his face, his clothes a mismatch of tweed overcoat with a t-shirt underneath and rolled up jeans over loafers. He usually has a stack of books in a cart and I’ve heard him protect his bounty to another encroaching Print Addict. “Those are mine, Sorry”… firm but not abrasive is usually his warning. I always try and steal a quick glance into his cart… maybe a intrusive glimpse into the looking glass of his obsession ( and make sure he’s not buying every copy of catcher in the rye).

There is no pattern to his menagerie of wild print. Self-help, Histories of, Better homes and Gardens…and, yes, the occasional Readers Digest. I thought for awhile that perhaps he was a re-seller. Taking the tossed scripts of decades past and selling them for a profit on eBay or the like. But his mannerisms and attitude failed that litmus test. He was an addict. The incessant need to acquire more because held within is…. knowledge. Knowledge of how to make birthday cakes that look like a superhero, or how to adjust a carburetor, or how bubble theory and string theory both are possibilities in theoretical physics. How to heal your heart, how to heal your relationship, how to build a house and the bestest of them all….How to win friends and influence people. The stories and knowledge in all of these books…was this addicts opium…his heroin. And for that… despite the outward appearance, I could find no fault.

Somedays, if I had the time to wait, I would watch him bundle up these books ( cause some of them are in a series and you dont want them to get lost) and situate them on his bike and peddle away with his newest bounty of print. I hope that, in retrospect, that the comfort my grandmother had in her readers digest is afforded to him in his own library. I cant fault the Print Addicts, as I find I am one of my own… but I have found that audio books and ebooks are much more to my pallet and come with less aroma.

Cheers…until next time…