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Brooks Peterson
Brooks Peterson's column is published Mondays. Brooks also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at petersonb@caller.com
Monday, January 10, 2000
Nostalgia is no bargain
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. For one thing, it costs a whole lot more than it used to.
Seriously: This is very puzzling. Perhaps it has something to do with the onslaught of the dreaded yuppies, who at one time or another seemed to have taken a shot at ruining everything for everybody with their acquisitive proclivities. Not only do they feel they must have every last spin-off from the high-tech revolution (lap-top, cell phone, scanners - you name it); for some odd reason, they also are hell-bent on harvesting the impedimenta of a pre-tech yesteryear.
Think I'm kidding? Have you tried to buy a lava lamp lately? Understand: I'm talking a late-'90s lava lamp knockoff, not the real thing. You'll be lucky to get one for under 40 bucks. Lime-colored leisure suits that languished for decades in closets are hot properties.
Or automobiles, one of my ruling preoccupations: These days, anything over 20 years old automatically becomes a "classic." If you've been watching the calendar, you'll realize that the egregious Caprice Classics and Thunderbirds (remember the '77-'79 "basket-top" models, with the front parking lights designed to resemble Fine Cut Glass?) and Plymouth Volares of that era are (gulp) classics. Only in America.
Still, I could reconcile myself to all this. Recently, however, I, too became a casualty of the Nostalgia Syndrome.
Leafing through a copy of The New Yorker recently, I chanced on an ad touting the services of an on-line outfit that can track down virtually any old book you might care to acquire - whether to revel in happy childhood memories or to rekindle an old flame.
Well, says I to myself, this looks promising. Thing is, I have for decades been nosing about second-hand book stores in hopes of turning up a copy of a book that had a gigantic influence on my formative years.
Nothing heavy, you understand. Not Edmund Wilson's "To the Finland Station" (which I really will get around to reading . . . someday). Not Thoreau's "Walden" (ditto). Not Boswell's "Life of Johnson" (ditto again).
No, what it was, was a light-hearted little (teen-aged) kids' book called "The Red Car," which chronicled the adventures of an all-American teen-ager who somehow or other comes into ownership of a classic MG TC roadster. I don't even recall the kid's name, though I do remember that a mechanic named Frenchy was part of the cast. (There's always a mechanic in the cast when you're dealing with thoroughbred British sporting machinery. Trust me. I know.)
At this late date, the specifics of the plot are pretty hazy; I suppose there has to have been a race of some sort involved. But that's really beside the point. What I did bring away from the book with me is an awareness of the life-enriching possibilities inherent in personal involvement with nimble little cars. These vehicles may have been way down in horsepower compared with your lumbering, chrome-festooned Detroit luxo-barges, but they could run away and hide from 'em on a twisty road.
So: I fed the appropriate data into the relevant box on the web site, waited as the search engine did its work . . . and nearly fell out of my chair.
Sure enough, "The Red Car" was available - for a price. Lessee here: I could choose among three examples. There's a "reading copy" . . . for $180. There's a "very good ex-library" edition . . . for $234. But of course your serious nostalgist won't settle for such scruffy stuff. He/she will go straight for the "very good hardcover in a very good unclipped dust jacket" . . . for $360.
No wonder I've never been able to find a copy of "The Red Car" in those second-hand shops. They must have a special vault for 'em at Fort Knox.
Are you out there, Don Stanford? I certainly hope so. You need to grab hold of this phenomenon and persuade somebody to run off some reprints. But don't worry: I don't blame you. On the contrary: You've enriched the lives of any number of (former) American teen-agers. I may not have the book, but I do have the MG, and isn't that what matters?
I suspect Frenchy would approve.
Brooks Peterson
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