Paperback

“OK if I borrow this piece of Fine Literature?” I asked, smiling as I waved the ancient twenty-five cent paperback at my Dad as my husband and I prepared to leave upon the termination of our short visit, “I promise I’ll return it a week from Friday.”

The purpose of our stay had been primarily to use their place as a staging ground from which to visit our daughter for Parent’s Day at her summer camp (which is about an hour & a half drive from their house in upstate NY). Mom and Dad had been out of town when we arrived at their house for the short visit. That’s when I found the books.

There were 2 or 3 of them, stacked on top of one another, old-style pulp fiction paperbacks with (to judge by their covers) a Western theme. Copyright 1950. I briefly wondered where they had come from, not recalling that Mom or Dad had a taste for such items...

Just for fun I started reading one. It was entitled "Montana, Here I Be" and was authored by a Dan Cushman. It was entertaining enough to keep me hooked, and I couldn’t bear to leave it unfinished until we returned to NY to pick Amber up from camp.

Turns out my dad had bought and read them when he was in high school (he graduated in 1951). He had left them at his parents’ house those many years ago, and there they stayed until a few years back when the house was cleaned out and sold.

Once home, I soon finished the book. It’s small, as paperbacks go. Good triumphed over evil, of course, but the hero didn’t get the gal. She gave him a shot gun to remember her by, though.
.