The E-Sylum:  Volume 11, Number 8, February 24, 2008, Article 17

MORE (BAD) THINGS FOUND IN BOOKS

Last week George Kolbe wrote: "A cautionary note - I have
learned not to inhale when first opening a book. Once or
twice I have become ill after breathing in mold, mildew,
or who knows what other noxious airborne pollutants, some
perhaps lurking in old books for ages."

David Lange writes: "This is so very true. You can imagine
the hazards I face collecting old coin albums. One particular
group did make me very sick. Last fall I purchased a hoard
of 80+ coin boards that had been in idle storage since about
1940. These were still in original wrapped bundles of ten
boards apiece, and I preserved one such bundle intact to
show how they were delivered by the publisher. The other
wrappings were in pieces, exposing the topmost boards to
decades of filth.

"In my eagerness to start exploring, I simply dusted them
off within an enclosed room. The particles flew off in clouds,
and in less than an hour I realized my mistake. My throat
burned for days, and my sinuses locked up for nearly two
weeks. I had to air out my coin album room every weekend
for months, and it's still a rather musty place into which
my wife (and other sane persons) rarely venture."

Harry Waterson writes: "I knew a writer in New York in
the late 60s by the name of Pat McCormick. Pat was 6'8"
and not adverse to occasionally dropping his pants while
crossing Park Avenue. I recall an incident when he and
three others were writing a script and Pat could not leave
the writer's room. So he asked the Associate Producer to
run around the corner to his apartment and write down a
reference that was bookmarked in a volume on the kitchen
table.  He duly did as asked only to discover when he
opened the book that Pat had used a rasher of raw bacon
as a bookmark. The reference was a greasy smudge. And the
Associate Producer had been had. I repeat this story as
a tribute to Pat who could always make me laugh."

 GEORGE KOLBE ON THINGS FOUND IN BOOKS
 esylum_v11n07a14.html

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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