Go Through Those Boxes More Than Once: Abe the Newsboy

I successfully threw out a political pamphlet in the last post to this blog.  Now I'm hesitating over getting rid of a book.  It's full title:  Life Story of Abe the Newsboy, Hero of a Thousand Fights.

This is apparently a vaguely historical book, and you know that I have a weakness for the vaguely historical.  It's an autobiography of a Navy boxer and it has pictures of Presidents in it.  It was also self published, which usually didn't work out that well, back in the day.  Did I hear you ask which day?

Looks like the first edition was in 1930.  That would be the year my Dad was born.  This is my Grandma's copy, which she obviously bought after 1960.  She had a thing for sailors.  She married . . . .  Well, let's just say that Dad's dad was a sailor when they were first married.  So it fits in with family history.

I've looked it up online, and the book is referred to as "important".  It's also called one of the first memoirs, which is a crock, and the exact same wording has spread to many internet sites.

It sells for as little as $2.49, plus shipping, and can be downloaded for free in PDF, ePUB, or mp3 from a place called bookalist.  It downloads as a passworded file, then you have to log onto another site and download the password.  That's where I got cautious.  So I can't tell you if the site is fishy or not.  Can anyone vouch that this is a safe site?

I can't find a review of it online, although it is on the recommended reading list at jewishboxers.com.  Amazon has a bunch of consignment copies for sale, but, again, no review.  The first few sentences were very 1930's sincere.  Part of me wants to read it just to write the review.  The rest of me knows that I have many more important things that I'm behind on.  

Oh, man.  Someone presented a paper on it.  Mangun, Kimberley. “Abe ‘the Newsboy’ Hollandersky: Self-Promotion and the Hero Myth in Newspaper Coverage of the Jewish Boxer.” Paper presented at the American Journalism Historians Association National Conference, New Orleans, September 2013.

Sigh.  It's starting to look like it's going to end up back in the box.  My only excuse is that I can use it as a prop to talk about those relative that have gone before us.  If I actually manage to get it out of the house (or to post a review), I'll post it here.  

[ETA:  To make up for my indecision regarding Abe, I've tossed The Salem Frigate by John Jennings.  It's listed as an adventure romance and you can get it for $0.13 on Amazon.]

Climbing Mount Guilt (Books)

Sometimes you can measure guilt.  

This particular stack of guilt is eight point three feet high.

Let's try a different perspective.

This is a stack of all of the books that I've bought that I have not finished.  About a quarter of them haven't been started.  

The books in the shelves have been read, and so have the books in the shelves in my bedroom.  Not to mention many, many books that have been read and donated to the library or the thrift store. 

I tell myself that this is not a horrible thing.  But like any unfinished thing, they sort of nag at me.  "You meant to read me," they say.  "It's not like reading is a hard thing."

They're each one more unfinished thing that implies that I'm the sort of person who doesn't finish things.  Well, I may not have read them, but I've used them, now.  I have the photo to prove it.  They were, for a few hours, an art installation.  For a few hours, they were a homage to my guilt.  True, I had to add four books that I'd actually read to make it high enough to touch the ceiling, which was necessary in order to keep it from falling.  But eight point three feet of it is solid guilt.

(You'd think books would be steadier in a stack, but without the pressure of the ceiling, it wouldn't have stayed up for five seconds.  One of the minions had to steady the stack while I added the cappers.  Even then, the top third came down in the night.  It didn't wake me.)

While they were stacked, and half-stacked, I took advantage of the space and cleared the last of the plaster dust and hunks off of the bedroom shelves.  So that's another success.  (The plaster was from when we replaced my bedroom window, going to double-paned from feel the breeze - another success.  I could feel guilty about clearing the plaster three weeks after the window replacement, but I won't.  We also replaced the siding on that side of the house, and there have been other things I've been doing to clear out the debris from that.  Including buying a trap and trapping a cat that had crawled under the house while the siding was off.)

But let's look at the books again.  You'd think that stacking them up like that would make them more intimidating, but it doesn't.  When they were salted through the rest of the books, they nagged at me a lot.  Now I've seen them in their entirety.  I've seen the actual magnitude.  And you know what?  I can deal with them.

They now have a seven foot long shelf in my bedroom all to themselves.  A few of them are in the shelves you see by the desk.  And the rest are, um, still in a stack.  But it's tucked beside the desk shelves, where it isn't in the way.

Why are they stacked on the floor?  Because they're part of an art installation, for one.  I like having one.  For another, I like having usable space in the second set of shelves by my desk.  It helps me keep my desk clear.  It looks airier when it's not filled with books, and I can use the look of open space.  

The remainder stack is maybe three feet tall.  I can deal with that.  And with everything in order, I've started reading - - a new book that my daughter-in-law sent me.  It's Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded by John Scalzi, and I'm loving it.  Hey, I am not going to be controlled by an art installation.  

TOSSING DAD'S STUFF

What do you see below?

They might not look like much to you.  And the title includes the word "Stuff," which is not a word implying great worth.

It's even hard to read the covers unless you get in close.  But Dad saved and treasured these, and after he was dead, Mom treasured them as well.

You could say that they treasured them the way that dragons are said to treasure gold.  That is, they collected them and piled them with other treasured things (although in boxes in closets, rather than in a heap to lie on). 

I am unsure if dragons are supposed to hoard gold for it's symbolic load, rather than their utility.  Dragons don't exist and therefore writers are free to spin reasons that the gold might be useful. 

In my parent's case, the books definitely represented Knowledge, Skill, and Industry.  I don't think they've ever been read.  They were saved so that they could be useful to the children one day, perhaps.  Or the grandchildren. 

They worried about basic building and making skills being lost.  I can sort of see the point.  They bought an empty lot and built their first house, with the help of relatives.  Sometimes, looking back, it feels a bit borderline Urban Amish.  From the Disney movies that they preferred, I'm sure they saw it as maintaining the American Pioneering Spirit. 

I feel guilty tossing the American Pioneering Spirit in the trash.  Even if the covers are all falling off and even intacts sets are going for about five bucks on ebay.  There was no ebay back when these became treasure.

Back then, books were expensive.  Working people didn't finish high school.  If you inherited books, especially useful ones like these, you kept and treasured them. 

I suspect that these had come from Ralph, which would have given them added symbolic weight.  Dad didn't get along with many of the people he worked with.  (Or his relatives or neighbors, but that's a different story.)  Ralph was an older man when he was a younger one, and he respected him.

Ralph had an electrical workshop at home and tinkered with electrical things.  He didn't just put in his time at work, he read up on things and talked about things and figured things out.  He also gave my Dad rides to work for the year that he couldn't drive, himself, for medical reasons. It seemed that gratitude added to respect yields admiration.  Dad admired Ralph.

When Ralph died, his wife asked Dad to take anything he wanted from Ralph's workshop.  She said Ralph would want it that way.  I'm pretty sure that the set of 1923 Hawkin's Electrical Guides came from Ralph.  So did two oscilloscopes, some meters, and various bits and pieces. 

I'd tell you what the bits and pieces were, but, hey - I was a kid when they were collected and stored out in the shed.  I know about the oscilloscopes because I was able to use them, later, to get some extra credit for a high school physics class.  The rest of the things just stayed in jars and boxes and drawers.  I knew that some of the things out in the shed, in the upper garage, in the room off the garage, in the garage . . . (this represents moving to different houses, with different areas that Dad kept toolish things) . . . were Ralph things.  But Dad had collected and bought other things, so I'd have been guessing if I tried to identify which things had been Ralph's.

Except I'm pretty sure that these were.  And I'm throwing out Dad's gratitude and hopes for the future, America the way America used to be, and Knowledge, Skill, and Industry. 

It's going to be a heavy trash bin this week.
___________

To lighten things up, the reason I'm tossing things (including the set of all that is treasured and worthy) is that I got up the energy to do some deep cleaning and organizing.  And you can't do that without tossing things.  Not really.

I have two big boxes for Goodwill.  I threw away other things that didn't twang my guilt strings. 

And I did this:

This is a completly cleaned and organized cupboard.  There was also much other kitchening, but it is not complete and you will therefore see no photos. 

This has room for other things.  There are blanks spaces.  Look at them.

Oh, and this isn't complete . . .

 . . . but it had been bugging the b'geebers out of me, so you can see it, too. 

Some of the things on it will be gone tonight.  It had been covered with assorted things, assorted things with a heavy dust and grime buildup, in the case of the things on the bottom shelves . . . and the very top shelf.  Now you can see horizontal wood.

That didn't sound right.  Let's try again.  You can see usable work space.  Better.

The tubs don't go there, but as I said, the organizing is not complete, yet.  But it's clean and there's space and I threw out a lot of other things, and donated a lot more.  I'm letting that balance out my callous dismissal of Treasured Dreams. 

Type Guilt into Amazon

If you type the word 'guilt' into the book department search at Amazon.com, you get 3,529 Results.  This makes me feel a little less alone, here.  On the first search results page, one book is a thriller by John Lescroart.  The rest are self-help books.  I'm willing to bet that none of them say "start a blog."

Let's check.  The first one is focused on the horrors and lasting effects of being reared in a 'shame-based environment'.  There is a list of 21 ways that adults who were shamed as children are different from normal adults.  There is also a list of 12 characteristics of shame-based adults in relationships, all starting with the word 'We." 

Unlike the book Quirk:  Brain Science Makes Sense of Your Peculiar Personality,  by Hannah Holmes, I doubt that this book will refer to mouse studies.  Quirk acknowledges that a person can have a personality that interprets the world in a fearful way.  Which is not to say that shaming children is a good thing, only that some people take on too much guilt no matter what you do. 

The About the Author blurb (of the first book) says that she speaks internationally and has appeared on radio and television.  This does not lend confidence, especially when those lists are such a grab bag of random, generalized badness.  "We know it will be different but expect it to be the same" could apply to just about anyone. 

I have spoken in more than three California cities and have been on television (admittedly, one appearance was teaching scarf juggling and another was learning to play Mah Jongg, but hey, both of them were fun).  If you're feeling guilty, you could do worse than reading this blog.  For one thing, you won't have to feel guilty about the cost, because it's free.

And, see, the second book blurbs its author as a licensed professional counselor, therapist, registered nurse, and hospital chaplain.  That beats being an inspirational speaker as a claim of authority.  The second author's list only has five things, and they're steps to letting go of the feeling that you're responsible for everything.  No, I lied, there's also another list of eight situations where a person and the people around them expect more out of the person than they should. 

In the intro is the statement "toxic guilt twists the truth and blinds us to the reality of the situation."  Since the first step on the list of five steps is: Speak the Truth, I suspect that the list of eight situations is meant to give the reader hints on what the Truth is.  We all get to work on what we're responsible for and what we can allow to be Somebody Else's Problem.  (Yes, that's a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy quote.)

Sadly, reading this blog will not help you learn the Truth of your situation.  You will only get to see me struggle with the Truth of my situation and also with my wish to reach conclusions as to the Truth of my Grandmother's and Father's situations.  Of course, they're both dead, so whatever conclusions I reach can not be confirmed.  Not that they could have been confirmed when they were alive.  Those two never agreed about anything.  So any conclusion that one would have agreed with would have been excoriated by the other.

Perhaps I'd be better off learning to let conclusions go.  Or I could look at the third book.  Which do you think is more likely?  Ah, we have reached New Age.  "Love is where there is no fear. Fear is where there is no love."  The sales pitch has trancended the need for About the Author and the forward is by John Denver.  This book would approve of letting go.  No, it transcends letting go and reaches the height of forgiving all. 

I do not forgive all, here.  I record and archive in order to recycle, trash, and tote to Goodwill (remembering to get a receipt - I itemize).  Oh, and I mailed another Christmas card yesterday.  I need to get two more addresses, mail out three more cards, and then I'm through for the year.  Besides the gifts. 

Book four is on emotional blackmail, which Dad would see as HIS book.  Grandma would see it as him being mean to her when she's had so much pain in her life already and worked so hard to give him what he needed.

Book five lists 31 words to help you live free of guilt.  It looks like the author brought together 31 words and wrote an essay on each one in relation to guilt.  Sort of like a blog.  (Do I seem to be going on about blogs?)  The book is divided into three sections:  Self-Care, Balance, and Joy.  The first three words are: Honesty, Forgiveness, and Generosity.  This book has also transcended About the Author.

If you've ever wanted to attend an academic seminar on What is Guilt? from the perspectives of many different disciplines, but felt guilty about spending that much and taking that much time away from your responsibilities, then book number six is for you.  Although, even if you purchase it used, it's more than eighteen dollars, which may be more than you ought to pay for something that's just indulging yourself anyway.  If you do buy it, remember to read it in the bathroom so that you won't waste time.  Just don't stay in there too long.  There are other people living in this house, you know. 

The Hindsfoot Foundation Series on Treatment and Recovery brings you number seven, which probably shouldn't fill me with the foreboding that it does.  I mean, it's not like it's the Clovenfoot Foundation.  A PhD described as "a true contemplative rooted in the realities of life" and given access to AA's files isn't scary, right? 

It seems like a treatise on the need for an alchoholic to properly confront his or her shame to make a full recovery, which I do not need (although Grandpa did die of alchoholism induced kidney failure).  I doubt that I'll need the chapter on Complementarity and the Mutualities that Heal, in order to clear my desk.  Although maybe it's trying to tell me to phone a friend and complain about my cluttered desk and the Grandmother that has exploded all over and under it, cadging for support in the form of There, There compliments* claiming that I'm performing a valuable family service even if no one in the family under the age of 50 seems even slightly interested, while those over 50 say Hey, it's great that you're doing that.  Or maybe I could blog about it instead. 

In the eighth book, a Rabbi uses the bible to answer the question: How good do we have to be?  I'm glad that God loves me anyway, but that won't get my desk cleared.  And after the desk, I have closets.  I've decided that I need to stencil the word FUTILITY on my bedroom closet door.  Everyone needs a futility closet.

The author of book nine left the ministry to be a full time councelor.  The book is about confronting your guilty past.  I think that's what I'm doing here.  My Dad's constant complaints about his childhood alway kind of embarassed me.  When, in the fullness of time, I had reason to talk to a councelor or two, I remembered more about his childhood than I did about mine.  And his felt more important.  I was ungraciously screwing up EVEN THOUGH I HADN'T HAD HIS HORRIBLE CHILDHOOD.  So reading Grandma's letters is poking a sore spot, but if I'm lucky there may be a bit of wound-lancing to be had.  We'll see.

The next author has a PhD and a theory of mind/body connection.  Oh, dear.  The first chapter is called The Bodymind and Soul:  A Psychospiritual Perspective on Guilt.  I'm sure it's filled with scienciness.  I'm also sure that there is nothing in it that will help get these letters logged and tossed.  Or scanned.  Or whatever I decide to do with them.  Digesting Grandma will be a long, slow, painful process, I'm sure.  It will get in the way of other things.  And you'll hear me complain about it here, in this blog. 

Do you think there's any monetizing potential in guilt?  Oh, I think 3,529 Results say yes. Do I think that I could say the wrong thing and get half my family angry with me.  Probably not.  But if it happens, you'll read about it here. 

*Yes, I know the difference between complement and compliment.