{"id":954,"date":"2012-05-24T19:29:31","date_gmt":"2012-05-25T00:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/?p=954"},"modified":"2012-05-24T19:29:31","modified_gmt":"2012-05-25T00:29:31","slug":"adding-caros-book-to-the-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/adding-caros-book-to-the-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"Adding Caro’s Book to the Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Print this entry<\/a><\/p>

I have hauled my collection of 1,500 or so books five times and nearly 3,000 miles in two years. That means it is time for an oil change, I suppose. Actually, what I hope it means is that this time I am putting these volumes up on the shelves for a very long time. So I am unpacking and placing them with even greater detail than my OCD mind generally employs. I decided to literally unbox all books, place them on the office floor and then try to categorize them in a way that makes sense to my little brain.<\/p>\n

My Beautiful Mystery Companion wanted to know if I intended to use the Dewey Decimal System. That seems excessive, though I am an aficionado of this method of cataloging books in libraries. Few things make me happier than hunting down an obscure volume in a large university library and snaring a volume that hasn\u2019t been checked out since Nixon got impeached. I know. I am a nerd. Besides, I think my BMC was joshing me.<\/p>\n

Speaking of presidents, I have delivered my Father\u2019s Day gift request to the appropriate parties. Robert Caro has just published the fourth volume of his epic biography of Lyndon Johnson. I just unpacked the first three volumes and can\u2019t wait to dive into the next one, which covers the five years from the tail-end of the Eisenhower era to a few months after Johnson became president following Jack Kennedy\u2019s assassination.<\/p>\n

I can bookmark my life over the past 30 years by where I was living and working when each of the Caro volumes were published. When \u201cThe Path to Power\u201d was published in 1982, I was running the San Augustine Rambler in Deep East Texas, more than half a lifetime ago. I have moved that particular volume at least 20 times. It has held up well, though the cover is a bit faded. In 1990, when \u201cMeans of Ascent\u201d came out, I had just returned to Nacogdoches as managing editor of the paper there, where I had worked in college. I was still there as editor and publisher when \u201cMaster of the Senate\u201d came out in 2002.<\/p>\n

Ten years later, I have returned to my hometown of Longview just as \u201cThe Passage of Power\u201d is published. I\u2019m still writing a column each week, as I had started doing a few months before the first volume was published in 1982. It is now published online only, on this modest website. I still have a minor connection to newspapers through writing editorials on a freelance basis. But while I will always write and take pictures because it is how I am wired, my career path is changing. Exactly in what direction is still open.<\/p>\n

Regardless, much of my reading time in June will be spent delving into the years Caro covers in \u201cThe Passage or Power.\u201d That is the same period when I both learned to read and became interested in politics and baseball. Books and newspapers became integral parts of my life, windows into the larger world beyond Allenstown, N.H. I can\u2019t imagine a world without either of them, though increasingly these days, like many people, I read nearly all newspapers online.<\/p>\n

When I finally get all the books unboxed and set out on the floor, I plan to take a cellphone photo for Connor, my young nephew by marriage. He just turned seven and is a voracious reader. My BMC and I took him to a bookstore a few weeks ago and let him pick out two books. He sat down in the aisle to begin reading one of them. I snapped a photo of him and sent it to his dad, who replied via text, \u201cThat makes me happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

It makes me happy, too, to see a young child taking such a keen interest in written words and not just stuff on a screen. I bet Connor will get a kick out of seeing that sea of books on the floor.<\/p>\n

Robert Caro is 75 years old and plans to publish the final volume of the Johnson biography within two to three years. I figure he is again being overly optimistic on meeting that deadline, though I\u2019m sure advancing age is beginning to be a concern. I will buy that volume as well and plan to save a spot for it up on the shelf.<\/p>\n

Surely I will have finished putting up all the books by then.<\/p>\n

Print this entry<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Print this entryI have hauled my collection of 1,500 or so books five times and nearly 3,000 miles in two years. That means it is time for an oil change, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[45,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-45","category-columns"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":955,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954\/revisions\/955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}