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I love finding bookmarks people leave in the used books I buy. This has long been my favorite, from the New Merry Guest House in Bangkok, Thailand.

It came to me in a copy of Richard Adams' "Watership Down," clearly left there by a human who went on adventures or at least thought the business card would be a good bookmark.

Of course, back in the late '80s early '90s, discovering whether such a business still existed in a faraway country was nigh on impossible unless I wanted to make a phone call, but late '80s early '90s me was even less likely to make such a call than the me that exists currently.

So I turned to Google Maps.

The address itself, 18-20Phra Athit Rd, does indeed exist, and judging by the nearby river and the proximity of the Chana Songkram Temple, I do appear to have the right place.

And it looks like it's still a guest house, though under a different name:

The temple mentioned on the card if, of course, still there:

As is the bank, albeit under a different name:

So if I ever visit Thailand, I'll be strongly tempted to use this particular hotel to stay in, cause I feel like I already know it. All thanks to a guy who left the business card in a book he discarderd.

Bookmark: Count Floyd

So this bookmark I found in my copy of Terry Pratcthett's "Unseen Academicals." It's one of mine. I remember making it, and signing it myself. But I don't remember why.

It's 8 1/2 by 11, by the way. And a little pixellated.

More Things Found in Books

Scored seriously when I found these three books at the Rexburg DI this morning:

First on the Moon, by Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin Aldrin, Jr. (which explains why he went by "Buzz";

Overlord, by Max Hastings;

Nixon" The Man Behind the Mask, by Gary Allen.

The Nixon book should prove interesting, as it's written for the crowd who felt Tricky Dick was too much of a squashy liberal, rather than the stone-squeezing conservative they wanted him to be. To wit, note the two bits of paper being used as bookmarks in this book:

Clearly, this book was being read by a patriot.

Note a few interesting things:

1. State government took a bite of a whopping nineteen cents in 1972, from wages earned for 41.5 hours of work.
2. This person earned $1.85 an hour (minimum wage then was $1.60 an hour). The wage represents just under $10 an hour in 2017 dollars.
3. Rogers Brothers was a seed company that operated in Idaho Falls from 1911 to 1986 and was rather a mover and shaker in seed research nationally. I vaguely remember seeings signs for this company around town when I was a kid.

C'etait Bien Votre . . . Trip?

We're back a day earlier than we'd planned from our Fourth of July vacation, and I'm fine with that. These kinds of trips exhaust me, especially when they include sleeping in a tiny tube tent during a thunderstorm and listening to my youngest kid and his four-year-old cousin get up at the crack of dawn and begin carousing around, as well as a four-year-old and a six-year-old can carouse.

One certainly odd memento from the trip: A copy of "Pat Nixon: The Untold Story," autographed by the author, Julie Nixon Eisenhower. I wonder how it ended up at the used book sale at the Victor, Idaho, Fourth of July fair. Prob ably donated by someone who got the book, had it autographed, then put it on the shelf, never to be read. Well, I'll read it. I have an odd fixation on the Nixon/Watergate years, so this'll be an interesting addition to the library. Michelle, of course, rolled her eyes at my find (though she was kind enough to find another Nixon-themed book for me as well, "The Whole Truth: The Watergate Conspiracy," by Sam J. Ervin, Jr. Pound for pound, it's pretty hard to beat a Nixon book with a colon in the title. I'll bet back in the day everyone who was anyone was writing a Nixon tell-all and the presses were running deep into the night.

So here's the report on the rest of the books (interesting and even boring inscriptions, bookmarks, etc.):

• A 3x5 card with the numbers "124103799" and "3521001887" written on them, inside a copy of "The Prince and Other Writings," by Niccolo Machiavelli.
• "To William, xo xo, Mom and Dad, Christmas 1995" inside a copy of "City of Light, City of Dark," by Avi and Brian Floca.
• An inscription: "Phil -- Same to you! Love, Jim," and an address stamp: J.L. Stirling, MD, RR #9, PO Box 336, Columbus, IN 47201, inside a copy of Richard Bach's "Illusions."

I used to be really, really into Richard Bach. Johnathan Livingston Seagull, of course, was the reason why, but I eventually found all of his books and read them all. Found an author who pretty much figured out he was God and that was it and that was all, so I chucked all of his books (except for the aforementioned JLS) as a reminder of what you don't want to become as an author: Insufferably smug and self-assured. So I don't know why I picked up this book. Oh well.

Other stuff:

We watched the Fourth of July fireworks (on July 2nd) at Huntsman Springs, where John Huntsman, Jr., former Utah governor and presidential candidate, spoke. Can't say he really said anything that stuck in my mind -- just lots of typical politic flopdoodle about the Constitution and this and that and the other thing. He was followed by Glenn Beck, who repeated himself a lot and seems to think we're choosing now between freedom or slavery, because he said that over and over and over again. Good thing the fireworks were worth the wait. (He mentioned when he spoke at the fireworks last year that there had been one protestor. Well, I just about stood up and shouted "Get the hook!" with a Dutch accent, but we were waaaaay to far back into the crowd to be heard. Again, oh well.

Bookmarks

I buy a lot of used books. One of the pleasures, over the years, has been finding objects that people use as bookmarks in their books. More often than not, people read a book, then forget and leave their bookmark in it. The book sits on a shelf, then is whisked away and taken to the used book stores, where I buy them. I often try to figure out what kind of person would use a particular bookmark in a particular book. This one, however, has me baffled.

Here's the bookmark I found inside my copy of The Federalist Papers:

Perhaps someone is trying to make a comment on how the three authors of the Federalist Papers tried to lay bare the Constitution. The world may never know.