Lessons in Printing

 

Klancy Clark de Nevers, Lessons in Printing,  Scattered Leaves Press, 2018.

      She was a reader. She read all the time. The Seattle Post Intelligencer accompanied her breakfast of coffee with sugar and cream skimmed off the top of the milk bottle. The evenings Aberdeen Daily World enlivened cocktail hour. Magazines like Time, Saturday Evening Post, or Life engaged her as she sat in her chair to the right of the fireplace. Stretching out on the couch after the housework was done, she devoured novels from the library, mysteries, the latest arrival from the Book-of-the-Month Club. She often reread her favorite book, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. My sisters and I also reread it often, recognizing the heroine, Cassandra Mortmain and our mother as kindred spirits. Cassandra also was sensible, outgoing and a doer. 

...

     I wonder whether he kept a dry eye as he tried to comfort his readers: "There is no need to shed tears for a vanished institution..." and promised to preserve the Post's Morgue as a valuable historical reference.  He knew that morgue would be cared for.  The fifty-seven volumes of news and features are still accessible, in large part because of the newspaper's glossy book stock holds up and displays photographs well.  The full collection is maintained by the Aberdeen Timberland Library, on microfilm by the state of Washington, and in both forms in my guestroom closet.

COMMENT

     Here’s a recurring library theme— reading habits as a reflection of a person’s true self.[1]  In this instance, the mother’s personality is reflected in the heroine of her favorite book.  Her daughters love the book, too, in part because it reminds them of  mom. 

     Mom's reading habits are a combination of subscriptions and library books. The description is from the days when libraries didn't usually circulate periodicals.  If you wanted to read them you had to sit in the library reading room.  

  The defunct newspaper was the Gray's Harbor Post which ceased publication in 1961.  The paper recorded a history of small-town life.  The demise of the paper was related to a declining economy related to resource extraction.  Once the newspaper was gone, there was no longer anyone to tell the story.

[1]See: He Didn't Just Like Her Profile Photo. He Understood It; The Stack; Taking Notes on How Bibliophiles Flirt.