Dusting Off Old Treasures for New Built-In Bookshelves

We are now into our sixth month of remodeling. I have not mentioned it thus far because I promised my wife that once we got started, I would make no further complaints. Once my resistance collapsed, I saw no reason to go on predicting disaster. What will be will be.

We have reached the point where I must transfer 1,500 or more books from my old workroom to my new workroom, which has more than 100 feet of built-in bookshelves. Figuring 10 to 15 books per foot, I should almost make it.

Moving books is tedious and fatiguing. One must grab an armful and traipse down the new hallway with them, some inevitably slipping to the floor. Then comes the hard part--trying to place them on the new shelves in some sort of order.

There is one good thing about it. For years I have been unable to find books I vaguely knew I had, because they hadn’t been shelved according to their category. I have spent many hours looking fruitlessly for some book I had to have, only to give up the search.

In moving and shelving them in categories--fiction, essays, language, Los Angeles, travel, history--I have rediscovered several long-lost treasures. However, I also have turned up many books I couldn’t remember owning, and whose presence in my collection I cannot account for.

It is a rare book, though, that doesn’t contain some worthwhile nugget. In “The Little Book of Famous Insults,” for example, I find this--”Wagner’s music is better than it sounds”--Mark Twain. A gem of musical criticism in a nutshell.

An insight into college humor of 70 years ago is contained in “101 Best College Gags From the Roaring ‘20s.” Typical of the genre is this:

“I want some talcum powder.”

“Mennen’s?”

“No, women’s.”

“Do you want it scented?”

“No, I’ll take it with me.”

I thumbed all the way through “Yiddish Sayings Mama Never Taught You” and found only one that I could print in this newspaper: “Why did Adam and Eve cover their business with leaf if there was nobody to see them?”

In “4,800 Wisecracks, Witty Remarks and Epigrams for All Occasions” I found one, under War, that seems pertinent to our times: “The war spark is often fanned by trade winds”--Unattributed.

Another is identified only as a German proverb: “A great war leaves the country with three armies--an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves.”

In the “Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes,” collector Clifton Fadiman tells this one on the famed Caltech physicist Robert Andrews Millikan: “Millikan’s wife was passing through the hall of their home when she overheard the maid answering the telephone. ‘Yes, this is where Dr. Millikan lives,’ she heard the girl say, ‘but he’s not the kind of doctor that does anybody any good.’ ”

Fadiman does not record one I heard about Dr. Millikan years ago. He had agreed to speak at a service club dinner in the San Fernando Valley, but a lot of high jinks preceded him. When he was at last introduced, Dr. Millikan said, “Gentlemen, it’s past my bedtime.” And he walked out.

In “The 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said” these turned up:

On knowledge: “We don’t know a millionth of 1% about anything”--Thomas Alva Edison.

“We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine”--H. L. Mencken.

I found my Boy Scout Handbook full of good sense and inspiration. At the outset it advises us to “Be prepared” (the Scout motto) and “Do a good turn today” (the Scout slogan).

I don’t know why I have saved a paperback called “Predictions for 1976: Leading Clairvoyants From Around the World Reveal Their Exclusive Forecasts.”

Probably I saved it so that in 1976 I could check its prophecies to see if any had come true. Maybe I did that. I don’t remember. Anyway, I had marked a few predictions to check; here are some:

“Scientists and government officials will admit that UFOs exist. They come from other planets.” It is now 1990 and they haven’t showed up yet.

“There will be a move to nominate God the Father for President, as we need his honesty, knowledge and perfection.” Now is the time.

“Beginning in 1976--Armageddon, if not sooner.” That psychic was probably thinking about an eruption of the Cold War. But he could be right yet, if a few years late.

“Presidential Anecdotes” is crammed with insights into the presidential sense of humor. Calvin Coolidge was a master at the terse riposte. A society woman sat next to him at a Washington dinner and said, “You must talk to me, Mr. Coolidge. I made a bet that I could get more than two words out of you.” Coolidge answered: “You lose.”

That’s why I find it hard to throw any book away.