When I was a tot, the prevailing philosophy about teaching children to read was not to start too soon. I think they believed if reading was presented too soon (whatever age that was) kids’d be permanently scarred. I don’t know if that’s true, but it didn’t matter, since later on we got lots of opportunity for scarring.

It’s too bad that’s how things were, because I had a burning desire to read by the time I was 3, at the oldest. No matter, the mysteries contained in books were not revealed to Li’l Dopey Boy till fall 1952, in Miss Starr’s first-grade-cum-boot camp.

Once I learned to read, there was no stopping me. Of course I read the assigned stuff, but mostly because I had to. Truth is I found most of it boring. And that’s how the Saranac Lake Free Library became my agent of liberation. Not that I had free rein in the place. Uh-uh, not even close.

The place was on strict kiddie lockdown, enforced by She Who Must Be Obeyed, the librarian, Mrs. Worthington. She was as fierce as she was ancient: For all I knew she’d somehow escaped a gruesome fate in Salem, back in 1692. The sine qua non of her library (and make no mistake — it was hers) was children were not allowed out of the children’s section — fire, earthquake, or enemy attack probably not to the contrary.

The kid’s section had little kids table and chairs, was about as big as a prison cell, and kinda felt like that to me. Plus, the books there were about as boring as the ones in school. But having no option, I read them, under fierce but unuttered protest.

My reading salvation came from an unexpected quarter — magazines. My family subscribed to a bunch of them — Life, Saturday Evening Post, Reader’s Digest, Coronet, McCalls, Good Housekeeping, and others I’ve since forgotten. Suffice it to say, I buzzed through them all.

Did I understand everything? Of course not. Nor did it matter — I understood what I understood, and skipped the rest. But even in single digits, I understood a bunch of it, which just inspired me to keep reading more. Plus in the process I expanded my vocabulary and number of references, which thus allowed me to understand more. Beyond that, there were lots of drawings, photos and drawings. Had it not been for the Saturday Evening Post covers, my lifelong love of Norman Rockwell would sadly have been delayed for years.

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Books, books, books …

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Eventually, of course, I aged out of the kiddie section and was Stompin’ with the Big Dogs.

So now what was my preferred reading material? In school, fourth, fifth and sixth grades had collections of biography. They chronicled the lives of The Unforgettable, the Momentarily Famous, and the Briefly-Known-But-Now-Long-Forgotten. They were presidents, scientists, inventors, giants of industry, explorers, and on and on, their only thing in common being they were considered ideal role models. We’d briefly studied some of them in class, so it was enlightening to further learn about them. The lesser-known and the completely-obscure were just fun to find out about, plus they piqued my interest in oddballs and oddballology, a hobby I’ve pursued ever since.

Something today’s young people (that is, anyone under 50) are unaware of is how difficult it was to access books back in The Good Ole Days. Now, we have the little libraries all about, thrift shops are overflowing with books for two bits or less, people are even throwing them into recycling bins because they can’t find anyone who wants them.

But not back then. The paperback industry was in its childhood and the only ones I ever saw were in the drug store and grocery store racks. And as I recall, they were all mysteries. We had a bookstore in town (Grey’s, where the Blue Moon is now), but it was a dignified place, run by Mr. Grey, a man of great dignity, always in a three piece suit. The store was full of high-end merchandise — hardback books, fountain pens, stationery, briefcases, and the like. Suffice it to say, it was completely out of my reach, financially, psychologically, and sartorially. And so it was the Saranac Lake Free Library was my liberation.

Having access to the library’s books and magazines was entree into the universe. I could read in depth about things I’d only heard about in dribs and drabs, like the Roman Empire, dirigibles, the Panama Canal, the Aztecs, Marie Curie, Teddy Roosevelt, and Daniel Boone. Or I could cruise the Encyclopedia Britannica and find on each page surprises of every variety. There were the atlases with scads of maps (something I still love to look at), dictionaries, etymologies, thesauruses (or if you prefer, thesauri — either is acceptable). And there were other language books — something I had an affection and facility for.

But while I could access the library’s books, I couldn’t own any. However, the Friends of the Library came to my rescue. A bunch of blue-haired babes who, though lacking bugles and horses and all the fanfare, were to me the cavalry galloping twixt sagebrush and saguaro, to rescue the beleaguered garrison.

The great thing about the library sale, aside from the prices, was the range of subject matter. Many of the books were library castoffs, but others were privately donated, and thus ran the gamut from the esoteric and scholarly to the strange and utterly bizarre. Be it needlessly added, my rave-faves were the strange and bizarre.

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Viva la France!

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I remember only three of them. One was a late 19th century opus on Brain Fever (today thought to be meningitis or encephalitis). Another was called Vite (from the word vitality), some health nut from the 1920’s plan for a fabulous physical life, if not immortality. Those two books I remember only by title, probably because they’re eminently forgettable. The third book I will never forget.

It was a big, leather-covered hardback, with gold lettering on the cover and gold edges on the pages. It was in the history section, and both the size and beauty of the book immediately caught my attention. When I saw the title, I was intrigued, since it was in French. I’d just finished my first year of French with Mme. Godson and loved studying about French culture and history, so I figured this book would complement what I’d learned in class. And was I wrong. It didn’t complement anything I’d learned — or even had a glimmer about.

The title was “Les Grandes Horizontales.” I knew what each word meant, but had no idea what the term meant — for obvious reasons. Les Grandes Horizontales were the famous courtesans of 19th century Paris, who were revered (and well paid) celebrities of their day. Noted for their great beauty, charm, and style, they were the rock stars of the demimonde.

The book I held in my hot little hands was one part history, one part biography, and — best of all — one part illustration: It was loaded with pictures, paintings and sketches of those beauties, most of them in varying states of dishabille, some of them completement denude. I always wanted to know who’d owned that book, but never would because anyone slick enough to find that book back in those super-straight days was also slick enough not to put his name in it.

As I scanned the book, my pulse pounded in my temples, my blood pressure spiked, and my breathing bordered on gasping. The text was in French and of course I couldn’t understand anything but some words and occasionally a sentence here and there. The pictures needed no translation whatsoever.

I stashed the book in my bag, putting it in the middle of the stack, thinking that had the best chance of not being noticed when I checked out. Then I went to the cashier.

As she recorded each book’s price, I silently prayed she’d just let “Les Grandes Horizontales” slip by without notice. Once again, prayer failed me.

“Les Grandes Horizontales?” she said, pronouncing the final “S” in Les and Grandes and pronouncing Horizontales just like the English horizontals. It was obvious she knew less French than me.

“What does this mean?” she asked.

“It means ‘the great horizontals,” I said.

“That’s a funny title,” she said. “What’s it about?”

I may have been young, naive, and a total hick, but I wasn’t stupid: I’d already prepared a BS line, just in case such a question arose.

“It’s about the bridges of Paris,” I said, trying to look as innocent as a newborn babe.

“Really?” she said. “A book about bridges?”

“Oh yes, Paris has beautiful bridges,” I said, like the sophisticate I was. “Like the Pont Neuf.”

The Pont Neuf is indeed a Parisian bridge and I knew that because its picture was in one of my schoolbooks. But that’s all I knew about it. For all I knew it was Paris’s oldest bridge, biggest bridge, and the bridge Marie Antoinette crossed on her way to the Place de la Concorde.

“Are you interested in architecture?” she asked.

“I’m interested in all sorts of things,” I said, breezily, actually telling the truth for once.

She said something like, “that’s nice,” checked out the rest of my books, and by the time she’d added up the total, I’d handed her my money. She gave me back my change, I thanked her, gave a wide — and what I hoped looked like a sincere — smile, and split with my swag.

Most of the books I bought there provided months of entertainment — and one of them provided years of it.