The Empty Bookshelf

The Empty Bookshelf

LEANINGS

Peter Egan

LAST MONTH, THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IN MY hometown of Elroy, Wisconsin, invited me to speak at a Saturday afternoon “Local Author’s Day.” My friend Pat Donnelly asked me how many people I thought would be there and I said, “Well, if Mary Waarvik, the librarian, doesn’t show up, I’m going to be very disappointed.”

Luckily she did, along with about 45 other people, many of them old high school and family friends. A sympathetic audience, in other words, and I’m pleased to report that I wasn’t physically attacked for talking way too long, after pretty much describing my entire life and career. Except for the part where I set Milne’s field on fire while smoking “used” cigarettes, scrounged off the sidewalk on Main Street while pretending to tie my shoe.

Some things you have to leave out or people get bored.

It was kind of strange, standing at this lectern in the library, because I could glance through a window behind the audience and look right up the hill at 309 Academy St., the house where I grew up. Clearly visible, as well, was my secondfloor bedroom window. This beatific vision, of course, prompted an anecdote.

I recalled that my dad once said all my actions when I was a kid followed a predictable pattem. “You’d go to the Elroy Theater,” he said, “watch a movie about paratroopers, and then go straight down to the Elroy Library and bring home every book they had on the subject. Then you’d make a parachute out of an old bed sheet and jump off our roof and sprain your ankle.”

My dad was exaggerating, of course. I didn’t jump off the roof—I jumped out of my second-story bedroom window-and I didn’t sprain my ankle. I hurt my back, and it still hurts today.

He was right, however, about all those inspirational movies and books. Architecture also may have been a factor.

Our library was one of the most elegant buildings in town, a classic brick edifice built with a grant from the Carnegie steel fortune. Here in this little Midwestern town was a building that could just as easily have been sitting on campus at Cambridge University. Leaded glass windows.. .beautiful dark woodwork.. .the smell of leather binding... Like the reading room of the Royal Geographical Society, it was a great jumping-off point for possible adventures to the Congo or Timbuktu.

Or just jumping out of your bedroom

window with a sheet for a parachute.

Yes, the library had inspirational books on deepest Africa or the 101st Airborne, all right. But what it did not have was a single book about motorcycles.

They had probably 10 books about dinosaurs-which you never see any more-but no mention of motorcycles, which could sometimes be observed passing by on the street.

If you went to see Lawrence of Arabia or The Great Escape or even The Wild One and emerged from the Saturday matinee wishing to read about Brough Superiors or Triumphs or Harleys, you were out of luck. There were only magazines—such as Cycle World or Cycle— available at the local drug store. Asking the librarian for a book about Harley-Davidsons was about like requesting a copy of Cheerleaders in Heat. She’d probably make a quick call to your parents.

But this was before what you might call “The Age of Epicureanism.” Most people in the Fifties and Sixties had neither the money nor the inclination to collect things-or to chronicle their industrial history. As a result, there wasn’t much market for a book on, say, Triumph Twins. Why would you spend money on a book about old Triumphs when you were desperately saving every dime for a new one? Old crap was just old crap, and new stuff was almost always better.

For the truly intrepid, however, there were actually some good motorcycle books in print, and most of them came out of England, where people were apparently more disposed to nostalgia for outdated Sunbeams and Ariels. But these had to be specially ordered from ads in bike magazines.

A quick check of my January, 1965, issue of Cycle World (which I just happen to have right here in my files, purchased from Lawrence’s Drug Store, about a block from the Elroy Library) reveals on page 61 a full-page ad from Motor Racing Books in Englewood, California. There are 52 titles available, nearly all of them British imports.

One of them, John Surtees MotorCycling Book, I actually have on my bookshelves, only because a kindly reader named Patrick Haley sent it to me a few years ago. I remember wanting this book at the time, but couldn’t afford the extravagant $4 cover price because I was saving for a Honda Super 90.

So I got through high school-and my college and Army years-with absolutely no motorcycle books. Zero. Just piles of magazines, which had road tests and ads for new stuff-all a man needed.

The first motorcycle book I ever bought, in 1973, was Racing Motor Cycles by Mick Woolett, an excellent read made even more excellent by a photo of Don Emde’s stunningly cute sister standing with him in victory lane at Daytona (page 83). There were some nice pictures of motorcycles, too.

And now I must have at least 100 motorcycle books on my shelves. More than I need, really. Some I look at all the time, while others are basically redundant.

So when I went up to Elroy to speak last month, I put together a small collection of representative motorcycle booksDucati, Triumph, Harley histories, etcand donated them to the library.

I figure if some kid comes out of the Elroy Theater (which I am pleased to see is still in business) after a motorcycle movie, he or she should be able to walk down the street and find a little inspiration to ride. Or travel or fix up an old bike or maybe just have some background history to read.

So, there you go, my selfless good deed for the year. But I’m not donating any of my paratrooper books. Too dangerous when they fall into the wrong hands. □