Things I Find in Books

Here is today’s installment of Things I Find in Books.

What is this new blog feature, pray tell? Well, I buy a lot of used books. Mostly form local thrift stores, though lately I’ve pared down my purchases because life has shifted in a way that I’m not able to visit thrift stores as often as I would like, and often when I’m there, I don’t find much I’m interested in.

It was better pickings when the Salvation Army Thrift Store was open. It’s now demolished and is home to a parking lot for a BMW dealership. Alas.

Nevertheless, I often find interesting things in the books I find, things previous owners have used as bookmarks.

So far, no money. That’s my dream, of course. Though this other stuff is neat.

Today’s entry is this, front and back of an emergency survival card produced by the Utah Department of Fish and Game, found in a 1947 Blue Ribbon Books reprint of Ogden Nash’s “Good Intentions”.

Emergency signals haven’t changed much since this card was printed – alas, without a year to identify it.

I suspect one of the numbers on the card is a phone number – the 563 prefix is used locally both in Idaho and Utah, where the book likely came from. I don’t have the guts to call it, because what do you say? I found your number on a Fish and Game card in an old book? So that’s not going to happen.

Also, if the number sequence after the word “aquarium” is a phone number, it’s not one currently linked to any aquarium I can find.

But the card has provided space for mathematics or memory-savers on many occasions, given the different types of ink used, and, I think, different handwriting as well.