Much like girl scout cookies, and the Salvation Army bell ringer at the holidays, it’s hard to say no to books.
Especially at the annual Case Western Reserve Book Sale, sponsored by the Association for Continuing Education (ACE), at the Adelbert Gymnasium on the CWRU campus in Cleveland, Ohio.
Saturday marked the 73rd consecutive year the event is being held.
So, how did it all begin?
Jane Leitch, 94, the "grand dame of literary volunteers."
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According to Jane Leitch, 94, the "grand dame of literary volunteers," her sister Caroline, a calculus major at the time, helped launch the book sale back in 1948 to help raise money for the university.
Jane and Caroline (now deceased) were part of the Sutphin family of four girls and two boys. Their father, Albert Sutphin, (known affectionately as the “man in the red necktie”) became president of the Braden Sutphin Ink Co. on East 93rd Street in 1929, a company which produced graphic arts equipment, inks, printing materials, and supplies.
He also owned the Falcon hockey team in 1934, which he renamed the Cleveland Barons. He spearheaded the building of the old Cleveland Arena around East 36th Street and Euclid Avenue.
What started as a modest collection of books (a few thousand) kept in a dusty storage room, quickly ballooned into a full-size gym of books, CDS, records, and memorabilia, divided by subject, now numbering well over 80,000.
The vast majority of the books are donated through the generosity of avid book lovers, or those simply looking to clear shelf space in their homes. Donations pour into their facility throughout the year.
Today, the CWRU book sale is one of the largest in the Midwest and is a destination spot for collectors and dealers from around the region.
As I was walking up the stairs to the Adelbert Gym about 12:30 p.m. today on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon with the blazing sun beating down, I noticed an elderly couple passing by, wheeling two large boxes, as if they were preparing to board a plane for a European vacation.
The CWRU book sale, to be sure, is a weekend event for serious book lovers.
When I walked into the gym, I really had no agenda in what type of books I was looking for.
I recently donated boxes and boxes of books a few months ago to CWRU (of all places) during one of my many moves, so I initially thought this would be a quick browse, since I don’t have that much room in my new apartment.
Unfortunately, I’m attracted to books like bees are to honey.
My eyes were first drawn to an oldie but goodie: William Safire’s, “On Language.” In this book, the former New York Times op-ed columnist and Richard Nixon speech writer, offers a rich and entertaining arrangement to breaking down origins of words, proper usage of phrases, clichés to avoid, and scores of other witty observations.
In addition to his widely-read op-ed column, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist wrote a New York Times Sunday Magazine column, “On Language” which was the very first item I looked for after lugging the New Times Sunday print edition back home.
I miss those days.
Safire’s book was definitely a keeper. I next stumbled on H.W. Fowler’s “Modern English Usage” another indispensable book to word lovers (which I once owned) which delves deeply into the conventions of grammar and vocabulary without being too pedantic. Another keeper.
I chased Safire and Fowler’s books with “Webster’s Synonyms, Antonyms, and Homonyms” by the Ottenheimer Publishers Inc. and the “Harper Dictionary of Foreign Terms” (third edition) based on the original edition by C.O. Sylvester Mawson, a reference book packed with more than 15,000 foreign expressions from more than 50 languages.
How could I pass those up ?
In the box they went.
With so many online tools and references in this day and age, I thought I had enough quotation resources to satisfy me without having to carry another quotation book back to my apartment.
But then I saw “Familiar Quotations From German and Spanish Authors” by Craufurd Tait Ramage, LL.D. At first glance, it looked like an extremely dull book that would collect dust in anyone’s bookshelf.
But looks, as they say, can be deceiving.
As I skimmed through the book, I found some magnificent quotes in English (with the full text in either German and Spanish), such as from the pen of German poet, Friedrich Schiller, "The May of Life Only Blooms Once;” “Eternity Gives Nothing Back;" "Death is a Blessing to Mortals;"; or from German writer and statesman, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Misfortune Never Comes Single;" "Cut Your Coat According to Your Cloth;" or Miguel de Cervantes, the celebrated Spanish writer and considered one of the world's preeminent novelists, "The Pen is The Tongue of the Mind'' and "Blessing to Him Who Invented Sleep."
Yet another diamond in the rough I simply couldn’t pass up.
As I made my way through the history section, I recall reading a good number of the books they had displayed there. Barbara W. Tuchman’s epic, “The Guns of August” which won a Pulitzer-Prize for General Non-Fiction for 1963 was one acclaimed masterpiece (some historians say flawed interpretation of history) which has been on my reading list for years, but I never got around to reading it.
In the box it went.
There were a number of noteworthy books about Cleveland history, which I couldn’t pass up, such as “The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History” (another indispensable reference book I used to have); “Cleveland: Prodigy of the Western Reserve” (1979) by former Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist, George E. Condon, who explores the birth of the city through its heyday of thriving newspapers, its ascendancy during the Roaring ‘20s, when downtown Cleveland reigned supreme, while underscoring memorable sports moments well before the “Mistake on the Lake” made the city the butt of national ridicule.
Another local history book, which made its way into my box (I now needed a second box) was “Cleveland Cops’’ By John H. Tidyman, a former Cleveland Press scribe who gathers first-hand testimony from Cleveland Police Officers about missing children, armed robberies, gun fights, car chases, and other sordid tales of putting their life on the line in the mean streets of Cleveland with a forward written by Edward P. Kovacic, Police Chief of Cleveland from 1990-1994.
For one brief shining moment, I found a wonderful collection of historic Cleveland Plain Dealer Page Ones.
But my enthusiasm for the book was short-lived.
As I set down the books in my hand to take a picture with my cell phone, someone snatched the book of Plain Dealer Page One Headlines, behind my back and under my nose.
Easy come; easy go.
But then I came across a random collection of Page Ones from different national newspapers, from Babe Ruth’s Death to a screaming headline: “Hitler Sole Dictator of Reich; Hindenburg Dead.”
So, my wound was softened just a bit.
As you might imagine, it was a hot day in the gym with no air-conditioning and some sharp elbows to deal with involving customers positioning themselves in the crowded aisles of books.
For some reason, I forgot about the weather and wore a long sleeve button-down dress shirt to the book sale. After a couple of hours, I was dripping in sweat, weighed down in books, and in need of finding the exit door.
But before calling it a day and heading to the exit, I made one final stop at the Sports Section.
There were so many baseball books to feast my eyes on, I felt like a kid in a candy store. I tried to stay strong and hold off from picking up any of these treasures, but the temptation became too unbearable; and before I knew it, the following books had been added to my boxes: The critically acclaimed: “The Summer of 95” By Thomas Kelly and Marc Jaffe (about Cleveland’s highs and crushing lows) with our professional sports franchises.
Another: “100 Greatest Pitchers’’ By Brent P. Kelley,” The Baseball Scrapbook: The Men and the Magic of America’s National Pastime” By Peter C. Bjarkman, and “Baseball: An Illustrated History” By Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns. It’s certainly a classic; I saw the documentary on PBS (1994), but never owned the book.
Easily, the most interesting item I found all day was a foreign language translator. I always heard about these translators and wondered how accurate they are. I spent all of $3.00 for the item.
The only problem, it’s for translations in French and Arabic only.
But you never know if one day I’m walking through Tower City (located on Public Square in downtown Cleveland) and someone might come up to me and ask: “hal tataHaddath al'ingiliiziyya? (Do you speak English?”).
Now, I’ll just consult with my new handy-dandy Arabic translator and answer the person with great confidence.
My day was done.
I checked in my two boxes of books and the wonderful volunteers gave me a slip of paper of the damages I owed. On to the checkout desk.
Another year of the CWRU book sale went by; and I came away another satisfied customer, while meeting a number of interesting book lovers.
For those who missed the event on Saturday, the book sale continues Sunday through Tuesday, June 4th.
Happy hunting!
--Bill Lucey
June 2, 2019
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