My Dad Is a Prince

In case y’all didn’t get it from my last post, I think Dad is the most wonderful person on the planet. He and Mom are a spectacular couple, and even Mom says that the success of their marriage is due, largely, to Dad’s fabulousness.

But the gift he gave me for my birthday just PROVES how supercalifragilisticexpialidocious my dad is.

I collect first-edition books. Harbacks, with original dust jackets, preferably signed. While my overall collection of books comprises some 15,000 volumes, my collection of firsts is small — less than two dozen. I tend to focus on authors that I really like, and books in excellent condition. I have a few treasures, like a 1766, two-volume edition of Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield, one volume of which is in pretty bad shape, but the other of which is almost perfect. It’s worth about $2500 in its current condition, and if I could find a conservator I trusted, I could get that volume rehabbed and the set would be worth about $5000. (Of course, if I did that, I would have to get a rider on my insurance …) I also have a signed copy of Frank Slaughter’s The Crown and the Cross, which is in superb condition and is worth about $100.

And now I have my birthday present.

I love Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. I especially loved her non-fiction books, Cross Creek and Cross Creek Cookery. I have had a paperback of the latter for years, and the recipes are marvellous. Definitely not diet-conscious, but definitely tasty. So, back in October 2007, I was browsing the “treasure books” at Burke’s Book Store and found a hardback copy of Cross Creek Cookery — a first edition with the dust jacket and everything. I wanted that book! But it was $75, and I just didn’t have it in the budget.

Being me, I went home and raved about this book to my parents. How awesome it was, in what fabulous condition … and how sad I was that I couldn’t afford it.

I’d already earmarked my Christmas money for other things, so that wasn’t an option. I went and looked the book over a few more times, and then tried to put it out of my mind. Then, in April 2008, I got the insurance settlement from the robbery in November 2007. Some of what was stolen I did not plan to replace, and I thought I’d use some of that money to buy “my” book. When I went back to Burke’s, it was gone. I went home and bawled my eyes out on my mom’s shoulder.

On Tuesday, after supper, the family gathered round while I opened my birthday gifts. One of the packages had a familiar shape, and I picked it up. Dad said, “Open mine last.” So I put it down and opened some wonderful jewelry from my mother, and a special tea thermos from my kids. And then I opened Daddy’s gift. And bawled my eyes out all over again, because it was “my” book. He’d gone and gotten it, and then held on to it until my birthday.

He’s such a wonderful man.

Tags: birthdays, books, Family Life, first-editions, gifts, True Stories