I am right with you on Nancy versus the Hardy Boys. I never understood Frank Jr. and Joe's fascination with cars. Plus, Nancy had ghosts and was apt to find herself in castles, mansions and haunted showboats, whereas Frank and Joe were as likely to end up in cabins and places without indoor plumbing. They weren't cuddly boyfriend types either. (Those were on TV: Wally on Leave It to Beaver, Robbie on My Three Sons, and Little Joe on Bonanza. Are we twins on this as well?)
Thinking about this sent me down a rabbit hole where my Google finger discovered that characters for both series were created by Edward Stratemeyer and the bulk of their plots and editing (after him) by daughters Edna Stratemeyer Squier and principally Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, who mostly jobbed out the actual writing to people with occasionally fabulous names like Mildred Wirt. I'm so glad ours were early Sixties and earlier; I see that titles post Seventies included werewolves and vampires. Please.
Like you, I found the Happy Hollisters dull -- are happy people interesting? -- and only managed one or two Bobbsey Twins: all I remember is one of them smoking a cigarette behind a barn and accidentally burning it down. "Let that be a lesson to you." Also, I remember the villains were always "swarthy" and which meant either Italian or Eastern European.
I wasn't into Austen either, but I do remember Robert Louis Stephenson and Sir Walter Scott around grade 5 or 6. Anyway, thanks again for a fascinating read . (I also loved the parallels between Welty and MG's thoughts on reading and writing.) This blog really sets off so man y memories and free associations. I really apreciate it.
About the Bobbseys I don't recall much, other than Bert, Nan, Freddy, and Flossy -- Mr B called Freddy his "fat little fireman" and Flossy his "fat little fairy." And Sam and Dinah, the hired help, chauffeur and cook, as I remember, and everything they said was in Jemimah-speak. Now that I think of it, the specifics of all those stories are lost to me -- I couldn't tell you what happens in any of them -- a secret staircase gets found, someone who might be a spy is staying at a local inn, Aunt Gertrude cooks up a big corn-beef hash for breakfast, Carson Drew gets worried, someone gets stung by a bee at summer camp -- it's all a wash, a mishmash. What I do remember was the feeling of contentment and familiarity and security that came from reading them, even though I think I understood that it was all nonsense. It means a lot that you read these. Thank you.
You're welcome. It means a lot to me that you write them. What would my morning coffee be without Wordle, Nerdle, Mathler and Bill? (That almost sounds like a law firm.) :)
This is lovely, Bill. Very taken with that "conversation" at the end. And you've sent me down a path thinking about childhood reading. I very clearly remember the first word I read in the sense of the shape of the letters and the meaning suddenly converging. The thrill of it!
And one of the things that I read when I was a child of about 8 was a Mavis Gallant story included in an anthology of fiction from The New Yorker that was on the bookshelf in my parents' living room. It was an article of faith for me to read every book I could physically get my hands on that time and I didn't let it bother me how very little I understood of what I read. The story was "Bernadette" and just about everything in it was foreign and unfathomable to me--the pregnancy, the religion, the Quebec setting. Yet what I took away was that here was a Canadian story in the pages of this New Yorker book (I don't think I knew about the magazine!), and that the story was written by a Canadian, and that somehow this meant that I too could write books some day. So I've been forever grateful to "our" Mavis.
Grateful also to you for these letters--so interesting and enjoyable and feel as much like a conversation as that time you eavesdropped on Mavis and Eudora.
Sara, thanks so much, this is so thoughtful -- and that you had that understanding at such a young age is remarkable. I can't remember first contact with MG - I know it was From the Fifteenth District that really impressed me but I was well and truly grown by that time. I remember reading, in the optometrist's office, I'd have been around 12 -- I think -- a profile of someone who drove around some southern precinct -- in Mississippi or Alabama or Georgia -- and gathered up road kill. DOR, they would say when some flattened creature was seen on the shoulder -- DOR -- Dead on Road. I must see if I can track that down. I've probably got the whole thing muddled. More and more now I run into people who'll say, Do you remember when.... and I'll have no recollection of it at all. I blame liquor. Take care, and thanks. So appreciate your kind words and hope you're writing up a storm.
Hi Bill, I don't think it's possible to overemphasize just how little I understood!
Also, I've never heard the term DOR but it puts me in mind of the first time I heard of a radio station playing AOR--somehow ther term album-oriented rock failed to occur to me and I always thought of it as music that rather than being middle-of-the-road was all over it.
Lovely Bill! FYI I’ve cited you!
That explains the shiver I felt! Thanks, much appreciated.
I am right with you on Nancy versus the Hardy Boys. I never understood Frank Jr. and Joe's fascination with cars. Plus, Nancy had ghosts and was apt to find herself in castles, mansions and haunted showboats, whereas Frank and Joe were as likely to end up in cabins and places without indoor plumbing. They weren't cuddly boyfriend types either. (Those were on TV: Wally on Leave It to Beaver, Robbie on My Three Sons, and Little Joe on Bonanza. Are we twins on this as well?)
Thinking about this sent me down a rabbit hole where my Google finger discovered that characters for both series were created by Edward Stratemeyer and the bulk of their plots and editing (after him) by daughters Edna Stratemeyer Squier and principally Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, who mostly jobbed out the actual writing to people with occasionally fabulous names like Mildred Wirt. I'm so glad ours were early Sixties and earlier; I see that titles post Seventies included werewolves and vampires. Please.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nancy_Drew_books and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hardy_Boys_books .
Like you, I found the Happy Hollisters dull -- are happy people interesting? -- and only managed one or two Bobbsey Twins: all I remember is one of them smoking a cigarette behind a barn and accidentally burning it down. "Let that be a lesson to you." Also, I remember the villains were always "swarthy" and which meant either Italian or Eastern European.
I wasn't into Austen either, but I do remember Robert Louis Stephenson and Sir Walter Scott around grade 5 or 6. Anyway, thanks again for a fascinating read . (I also loved the parallels between Welty and MG's thoughts on reading and writing.) This blog really sets off so man y memories and free associations. I really apreciate it.
About the Bobbseys I don't recall much, other than Bert, Nan, Freddy, and Flossy -- Mr B called Freddy his "fat little fireman" and Flossy his "fat little fairy." And Sam and Dinah, the hired help, chauffeur and cook, as I remember, and everything they said was in Jemimah-speak. Now that I think of it, the specifics of all those stories are lost to me -- I couldn't tell you what happens in any of them -- a secret staircase gets found, someone who might be a spy is staying at a local inn, Aunt Gertrude cooks up a big corn-beef hash for breakfast, Carson Drew gets worried, someone gets stung by a bee at summer camp -- it's all a wash, a mishmash. What I do remember was the feeling of contentment and familiarity and security that came from reading them, even though I think I understood that it was all nonsense. It means a lot that you read these. Thank you.
You're welcome. It means a lot to me that you write them. What would my morning coffee be without Wordle, Nerdle, Mathler and Bill? (That almost sounds like a law firm.) :)
This is lovely, Bill. Very taken with that "conversation" at the end. And you've sent me down a path thinking about childhood reading. I very clearly remember the first word I read in the sense of the shape of the letters and the meaning suddenly converging. The thrill of it!
And one of the things that I read when I was a child of about 8 was a Mavis Gallant story included in an anthology of fiction from The New Yorker that was on the bookshelf in my parents' living room. It was an article of faith for me to read every book I could physically get my hands on that time and I didn't let it bother me how very little I understood of what I read. The story was "Bernadette" and just about everything in it was foreign and unfathomable to me--the pregnancy, the religion, the Quebec setting. Yet what I took away was that here was a Canadian story in the pages of this New Yorker book (I don't think I knew about the magazine!), and that the story was written by a Canadian, and that somehow this meant that I too could write books some day. So I've been forever grateful to "our" Mavis.
Grateful also to you for these letters--so interesting and enjoyable and feel as much like a conversation as that time you eavesdropped on Mavis and Eudora.
Sara, thanks so much, this is so thoughtful -- and that you had that understanding at such a young age is remarkable. I can't remember first contact with MG - I know it was From the Fifteenth District that really impressed me but I was well and truly grown by that time. I remember reading, in the optometrist's office, I'd have been around 12 -- I think -- a profile of someone who drove around some southern precinct -- in Mississippi or Alabama or Georgia -- and gathered up road kill. DOR, they would say when some flattened creature was seen on the shoulder -- DOR -- Dead on Road. I must see if I can track that down. I've probably got the whole thing muddled. More and more now I run into people who'll say, Do you remember when.... and I'll have no recollection of it at all. I blame liquor. Take care, and thanks. So appreciate your kind words and hope you're writing up a storm.
Hi Bill, I don't think it's possible to overemphasize just how little I understood!
Also, I've never heard the term DOR but it puts me in mind of the first time I heard of a radio station playing AOR--somehow ther term album-oriented rock failed to occur to me and I always thought of it as music that rather than being middle-of-the-road was all over it.
So beautiful