|
"This is the first
of what we hope to be a monthly newsletter. Our purpose is to
make it informative, as well as fun. It's certainly been fun
putting together this first one!
My oldest son Joe, who you may have seen working here back in
March, has agreed to be our editor. His qualifications are excellent,
as he edited all my papers through college a few years ago. He's
agreed to fit the newsletter into his busy schedule of work &
school on the condition that I let him write his own folklore
column - don't miss it, his interest is contagious."
With those words the tradition
of the Book Again Newsletter began.
As I recall, it was November
of 1985, and my brothers and I had assembled at my mother's for
dinner. During the course of the meal, she announced that she
planned to open a store of some sort, and asked us for ideas.
I personally pushed for a used record store, but the winning
concept was, as you well know, a used Book Store. Brother Mike
and I volunteered to help set it up, and Mike further signed
on as Store Manager.
On opening day all the brothers
were there, helping out to an extent but mostly, I fear, just
getting in each other's way. I believe Mom has proof of this
on video.
At any rate, the store opened
in March of 1986. Mom had been searching for a name for the store,
and, mindful of a song I had once written called "Look Again",
I jokingly suggested "Book Again".
She liked it.
That Summer I got my first
computer (an IBM XT with a whopping 20MB hard drive!), and two
months later Mom hit upon the idea of starting a newsletter.
(If this sounds familiar, it should - some eleven years later
I would finally go online, and two months after that so would
Book Again.)
She asked me to put the newsletter
together, which I did, and continued to do single-handedly through
the early '90's (with monthly contributions from Mom and Mike).
Now, I had been getting increasingly
interested in folklore at the time, and sensed a golden opportunity.
I based my involvement on one stipulation - that I be allowed
to contribute a folklore column on a regular basis. She readily
agreed, and it worked out to the benefit of all - the column
kept the newsletter from becoming just another throwaway bit
of advertising - it became something that customers would actually
look forward to.
It became frequently a royal
pain as well, especially as work and school took up more and
more of my time.
I enjoyed it, however, and
still do - though I never would have guessed that 17 years later
I'd still be doing it!
A word about what I consider
to be "folklore" is, perhaps, in order. Certainly the
usual examples apply: myths and legends, roots of old sayings
and songs, and the origins of holidays - the latter a theme I
would devote myself to exclusively for the first six months.
Folklore, to me, goes beyond
that, however. Any historic or public figure, if colorful enough,
inevitably has some small bit of apocrypha attached to their
story, whether they be Presidents, gunslingers, pioneers, baseball
players, or Rock Stars. From Abe Lincoln's seances, to Babe Ruth's
"calling the home run", to Stuyvesant's ghost, even
to my own great uncle Adam Walsh's exploits under Knute Rockne
in the 1920's . . . it's all there, and it's all wonderfully
good - and entirely appropriate to the world of Folklore.
Additionally, the origins of
the art of the Magician, rumors of Secret Societies that may
or may not yet wield influence to this day, the birth of Rudolph
the Red Nosed Reindeer - all such matters, from the trivial to
the profound to the occasionally spooky, are fair game for my
musings.
Still with me? Faithful readers
may have already noticed that most of the examples just cited
have yet to make an appearance in one of these columns. Quite
so, as the columns continue to this day. Consider the above a
"teaser" - a glimpse of things to come.
But I've rambled enough - the
blessing and curse of writing online, free of space constraints.
Having said that, I must point out that all the columns prior
to September of 1997 were written only for the printed newsletter,
and as such they were frequently severely edited even as they
were being written. I had no choice - I only had a finite amount
of space.
It is partly for that reason
that no fewer than 16 of the original columns were reprinted
and (usually) greatly expanded for subsequent online appearances.
When such is the case you will not see the original column -
instead I'll interject as I'm doing now with a pointer to where
the improved, expanded version may be found.
From October 1986 (our first
issue) through the end of 1987 the newsletter and column appeared
almost every month. In 1988 we briefly went bi-monthly, as we
were mailing every single issue to customers, and postage was
getting a little out of hand. In July of '88 we hit upon a compromise
- we returned to the monthly schedule, but elected to mail out
only three issues a year. The remaining issues were available
only in the store.
By January of the next year
(1989) we were all just too busy to maintain any sort of monthly
schedule, and so the newsletter and column went bi-monthly again,
and would remain so until July 1991. That issue, there was no
room for a folklore column, so instead I inserted a little box
promising a return of the column "next time".
"Next time" would
take six months to arrive. There were various logistic reasons
for this gap, most notably being Mom's decision to move to Valencia,
but for however many reasons (I recall being frightfully busy
at school, for one thing) there would be no newsletter for the
remainder of 1991.
We returned in January 1992,
but would publish far fewer issues (four per year from 1992 to
1994), and on occasion there would be no folklore column. We
were all moving on with our lives, and it seemed only a matter
of time until the inevitable happened.
The inevitable happened in
mid 1995, when I left the South Bay to move to the San Fernando
Valley. None of us were online yet (the internet was still in
its infancy), so any continuing contributions on my end became
too much trouble to attempt. Mike was editing the newsletter
by this point, and though issue #49 (Jan - May 1995) included
the optimistic statement: "the folklore column will return
in the next issue of the newsletter! (hopefully)", it was
not to be. The September / December 1994 column would be my last
for years.
The rest you know by now. Book
Again's newsletter went online in September 1997, and the folklore
column returned with a vengeance! Editing chores were divided
between Uncle Mike for the online edition and Brother Mike for
the printed version. Brother Mike still handles the print, but
we now have Brother Dan (this is starting to sound like a monastery!)
at the online helm.
And, though circumstances forced
a brief disappearing act on my part from May 2002 to March 2003,
I have returned, and continue to write the folklore column (I
have returned to the South Bay as well, incidentally). As always,
I trust the best is yet to be - but I have long wanted to make
previous columns available to our readers.
With these words I now write,
and the help of long-suffering Brother Dan, this dream is now
a reality.
A quick legal note: All columns
found herein are copyrighted to me, and should not be used without
permission. My ode to Charles Schulz, "Charlie at the Bat",
has found its way elsewhere on the net, and I have no problem
with that as I was in communication with the webmaster of that
site and a "copyright Joe Nolte" appears on the page.
Generally I don't mind seeing my words take root in other places,
but I strongly object to seeing my words without my authorship
mentioned . . .
In short, if you want to cite
any of this stuff, let us know first!
It's time to bid this overlong
introduction goodbye, and get to the folklore! As I said, I spent
the first six months delving into the origins of Holidays. To
my delight, the first issue of the newsletter was to appear in
October - and Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays.
It was a good way to start things rolling . . .
|
