Michael R. Barrick's blog

I inherited this this old thing (over 50 years old, probably close to 60) along with many other old tools from my dad when he died in 1993. And for the entirety of those 29 years it was broken. It had become covered in greasy gunk from languishing in the bottom various tool boxes in that time. I never threw it out because it was dad’s and when I was four years old I had a particular fascination with using it to put staples in bits of scrap vinyl — something to play with to keep me out of the way and out of trouble as I hung around in my dad’s upholstery shop. Last week, while I was sick, I passed some time cleaning it and repairing it. I ordered a box of the unusual staples it uses that arrived today, and now my old “toy” is working again.

Random things I found wedged in books today:
Left: A couple more index cards in my first wife’s handwriting
Right: A dot-matrix print-out of an e-mail of a math assignment from January 21, 1994 from a math class I took in my “semester of random shit.” Because of some bureaucratic bullshit I had the course requirements for my Visual Arts B.A., but not enough credit-hours. So I had to take a semester of whatever basket-weaving I felt like to get enough credit-hours to graduate.

The Development of Western Civilization
Part I: G. K. Tull, 1970
Part II: Nigel Heard, 1970
Copp Clark Publishing, CA, 1970
School discard. Ex libris stamp on first leaf and edges: “Alexander School”
Marks and doodles throughout

The Pageant of the Past
Dawn Cline Trueman and John H. Trueman, 1965
Ryerson Press, CA, 1965
School discard. Ex libris stamp on first leaf and edges: “Alexander School”
Marks and doodles throughout

Long Ago in the Old World
Vincent H. Cassidy and John Van Duyn Southworth, 1969
Charles Merrit Canada, CA, 1969
School discard. Ex libris stamp on first leaf and edges: “Alexander School”
Marks and doodles throughout

Greece and Rome: Builders of Our World
Nation Geographic Society, 1968
Library discard. Spine broken, pages missing before index, loose pages throughout. Ex libris stamp inside front dust jacket: “Library Alexander Elementary School”

The Case for Mars
Robert Zubrin with Richard Wagner, 1996
Foreword by Arthur C. Clarke
Tochstone (Simon and Shuster), US, first paperback edition 1997

More Joy of Sex: A Lovemaking Companion to The Joy of Sex
editor: Alex Comfort, 1972
illustrators: Charles Raymond and Christopher Foss
A Fireside Book (Simon and Shuster), US, reprint 1974

The Joy of Sex: A Gourmet Guide to Love Making
editor: Alex Comfort, 1972
illustrators: Charles Raymond and Christopher Foss
A Fireside Book (Simon and Shuster), US, 10th reprint 1974

This is never not adorable: you only need to shade one side to nap when you only have one eyeball.