This is the sort of rabbit hole you tend to fall into when you’re an old man with a wandering mind…
I was working through the books I intended to put in this year’s holiday catalog – “Maritime List 320 – Christmas Again Already?” – just doing the preliminaries. After collating a book, and appraising its condition, I check the price and other notations scribbled on front and back blanks, since info of this sort can sometimes aid in the cataloging process. Usually, I’ll note a dealer’s distinctive price marking, and often his price code, few of which I’ve cracked. If it’s an old book I can sometimes find a pencil scribble on the pastedown, indicating that some anonymous Bartleby had looked at the thing in, say, 1908, and that it “collated complete” or any number of phrases indicating the same.
Anyway, I was doing this prep work on the 50-odd items headed for list 320, when a teeny pencil notation in one of them caught my attention, and then grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and sent me back in time.
I know, it doesn’t look like much. And what is a Kolvoord anyway?
It was late in the 1980s. I was driving around New Hampshire scouting (that’s what we did back then), with an eye out for books that I might purchase for $20 and put in my catalog for $50 or $75. But I was just killing time. “Chowder” as we called those run-of-the-mill books, was readily available even then. And the whole point of chowder gathering was that it might pay the gas money expended in the search for that one Big Score we all sought and rarely found.
In any event, I had a destination. I was headed for the western part of the state, the vicinity of Alstead, NH, where old family friends had a summer place. I attained that longitude after lunch, still too early for my appointed dinner appearance, so I just drove around, taking in the fine New Hampshire woods and funky (now known as “vernacular”) architecture. Then, somewhere around Walpole, more or less in the middle of nowhere, I saw a sign that said something intriguing like, “Old Settler” or “Settler Books,” or both, or something else. (Hey, it’s been three decades, okay?) The sign had seen better days, but it was still standing, so I followed it to a house that, while it too had seen better days, seemed occupied. I knocked on the door and it opened, revealing an elderly lady and a big, mostly empty room.
For some reason, probably because she was a kindly person and I was a typical scrambling young bookseller who didn’t know shit, we hit it off. She told me about her husband, Bob, and about the book business he’d operated, and what a grand scene it had been, and how many friends he’d had. I told her what I was looking for and she shook her head sadly. Bob was dead and the books were gone. I nodded sadly too, and rose to leave. Then she said, “Wait a minute. There are still a few things hanging around.” She departed and came back with a beer carton full of paper. This was long before I knew much about ephemera and manuscript material, but there I was, and there it was, so I began sifting through it. None of it meant much to me, though today I’d probably have gobbled up the entire box.
Then, oh Lord, I encountered a sheaf of papers covered with manuscript entries, and illuminated with crude watercolors of flags, anchors, eagles, and other bits of patriotic nautical iconography. It was written from aboard a Union ship in the Civil War, and it ended with a long poem. I asked how much, and she said a number that made me gulp (something like “$350.”) But she certainly knew more about this stuff than I did, and I sensed that she was being generous, so I wrote a check in that amount, which drained my account down to a few dollars. Then I drove to my friend’s house and, as we sat on his porch sipping a beer, I noted how lush and dense the greenery around us appeared, considering that it was still early in the summer. He said, “Out here, things don’t have all that much time to grow, so they have to do it fast.” I thought this was accurate and profound which, I suppose, is why I remember it. Though, why I don’t remember the details of the rest of this story is a mystery for the ages.
I do remember going home and researching my find, and discovering it was from a sailor aboard a ship that was chasing Semmes, the Confederate raider. Most of the manuscript consisted of this sailor’s bitching about conditions aboard – standard stuff, even then. But what made the piece seem extraordinary was that his biggest complaint was about what a coward their captain was. Twice, they’d had the Alabama where they could’ve engaged her, and Captain whoosis backed down. The long poem documented these occasions and went into graphic detail about the chickenshittiness their chickenshit captain. I forget what I sold it for. I know it was many times what I’d paid for it, and only a fraction of what I’d get for it today.
Years passed before I learned who Bob Kolvoord had been. And I’d completely forgotten about the entire matter until yesterday, when I saw that little pencil note in a pristine, unopened copy of Kipling’s “Sea Warfare.”
That discovery gave me the pleasure of a lovely excursion in reminiscence. It also provided me with this week’s blog topic which, I suppose, explains why I can’t seem to get as much done as I used to.
Randall Warner says
Hoo-boy…miss you, Greg.
C.M. Mayo says
This one made me smile, the whole thing, but also especially
“The long poem documented these occasions and went into graphic detail about the chickenshittiness their chickenshit captain.”
PS I keep recalling your talk for CABS (as I recall the title) “Don’t Do It”… but, uh oh, I think I might.
Steven B. Finer says
Yea, well: Bob was a legend in his salad days, and those days hearkened back to several decades prior to your visiting. He had been a part of that interesting and older generation of booksellers who persevered through the 30’s and 40’s and 50’s and 60’s and some even into the 70’s (Edward Morrill, John Johnson, Mott, Ben Tighe et al), and when I happened up Bob, in tandem with stops at Henry Hurley’s, there was also a subtle hint that more treasures were to be had at his sister’s place, a few hundred yards away, off Route 12. But I got there too late: she had died and the place was closed up tight. Always there lingers the thought of what it was that I might have missed out on. Bob had had a specialty in mountaineering book and published hard copy catalogues well before I was born! Like Frank McQuaid and Walter Robinson, Bob liked the mellow-ness of a bit of alcohol to smooth over the impending transactions. Now, in this year of 2023, they appear in my memory bank as ancient antiquarian bookseller history. Maybe so for you, too.