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Invest Wisely!

~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

“I don’t sell books.  I buy books.”  I was speaking to a friend who had been kind enough to make a stop on his way to Kansas City to pick up a boxed set of books for me.  A few days before, Jim had opened the door for the favor with his question.  “I’m headed to KC.  Do you need anything from up there?”  I’m guessing it was a rhetorical question, since he plainly did not anticipate an affirmative answer.  But I did want something from up that way.

A couple of months earlier, the Lovely Lady and I had made the three hour trek up Highway 71 for a weekend away from the rat race.  After a couple of days of antique shops, museums, and shopping malls, she was relaxed and ready to get home.  I, on the other hand hadn’t completely satisfied my pawn shop itch, but since it was Sunday afternoon, had to be happy with the occasional junk shop and flea market on the road home.  About halfway between the city and our small town, we found it.  The curious little shop was just off the highway and after a cursory scan of the contents, we were about to be on our way again, when I saw something I just had to have.  The sixty-year old, two-volume set of books was beautiful, and in mint condition.  Mark Twain’s “Adventures Of Tom Sawyer” and “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in hardback, with the original display box, and with illustrations by none other than Norman Rockwell!

I had never seen the set before, but I immediately thought, “How appropriate is that?”  The classic stories of two distinctly American boys and classic illustrations by the consummate artist/interpreter of American life!  I love both the stories and the artist, and I didn’t want to leave the shop without those books!  However, I am by nature a cheapskate, so the price tag was a deal breaker for me.  Those highway robbers wanted $75.00 for the set of books.  Seventy-five dollars!  For a 60-year old set of musty old books!  It’s amazing how fast my opinion of the condition of the set changed when presented with the hard facts of its cost.  Well, the shop-owner wasn’t budging from the price, so reluctantly, the Lovely Lady and I turned away.  I, much more reluctantly than she, truth be told.

After we arrived home, I did a little research into the books, finding them to be difficult to locate.  I kicked myself for weeks about missing the opportunity to buy the set, but then Jim asked the question.  I jumped at the renewed possibility to purchase the books, which had grown more attractive to me with the passing of time.  It seems that absence does make the heart grow fonder.  So, with instructions on finding the shop and the location of the books in hand, he headed to Kansas City, also with a bit of my cash in his pocket.  I wasn’t sure they would still be there, but he was able to purchase the books on the way north. Since he had some spare time in his motel room, he spent some of it searching the Internet to find the value.  He knew that I usually won’t buy something unless I’m convinced it’s a bargain and he wanted to know how much of a bargain it was.

The one listing Jim found for the books was  from an online bookstore which specialized in locating volumes for collectors.  They had a set for which they were asking five hundred dollars.  I had seen this listing earlier, but from experience, I know that asking and getting are two different things when it comes to selling anything.  In the absence of a price guide and seeing that they hadn’t sold the set, I assumed that the actual value was something well under their asking price, but I wanted the set regardless.  He, though, was astounded and told me so when he returned!  “$500! Paul, you can sell this set for a 400% profit!”  He went on for a few minutes before I let him down with the statement I started with earlier.  You see, I don’t buy books to make a profit.  They’re not investments, as least not in the sense that a businessman makes them.  Books are like old friends to me.  You enjoy them, you spend time with them, and you keep them around.  You don’t get rid of them to move up in the world.  What good are dirty, greasy old dollar bills, when you compare them to the joy of a great book, with a story to tell, and a different world to show you?  And this set of books!  Not only two great stories, but wonderful illustrations to boot!  I intend to enjoy these for many, many years to come and then pass them on to someone I love, who will in turn care for them and hopefully, acquire great joy from them, as I have. 

I mentioned that my books are not an investment.  That wasn’t completely truthful, since the word literally means: “A covering.”   In the sense that we consistently use the word in our culture, the covering is money or cash value, but these books which I enjoy are indeed an investment, only with the implication that there is a covering of contentment, of enjoyment, of a wealth far greater than that achieved by amassing cold, heartless cash in a bank vault somewhere.  Indeed, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” and some joys are too valuable to put a price on.  

“When you are old and gray and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.“
(William Butler Yeats)

I finally found my keys….

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

We moved the piano in last week.  I would call it a “new” piano, but it was actually built in the nineteenth century, over one hundred and twenty years ago now.  It was a spur-of-the-moment purchase I made about nine years ago.  A small Steinway upright, it was bought for a song (pun intended), but the real investment began immediately.  A full day was spent traveling all the way up to just south of the Iowa state line and then back, with this unbelievably heavy piano-shaped-object  bringing up the rear in a trailer.  A small breakdown while flying through Kansas City, MO slowed us down and then we were home, tired and discouraged.  We could already see that a lot more investment was to come, both in cash and sweat; that much was guaranteed.

It wasn’t a pretty thing, although what little we could see of the burl walnut wood gave promise that it could be.  It didn’t sound nice at all, although its heritage reassured us that it had that potential also.  But when it arrived in our town, you would have had to be a starry-eyed dreamer to imagine that this mass of blackened wood and rusty metal could ever again be a musical instrument, worthy to be called a piano.

Within weeks, new strings and tuning pins were purchased, waiting for the day when it would be ready to be restrung.  The piano was completely disassembled, from the action all the way down to removal of all the case parts.  You really wouldn’t have looked at the heap of wood and known that there was a fine musical instrument lying there, and for several years, it wasn’t anything approaching that.  After the initial commotion of tearing down and stripping off old finish, our interest lagged, other projects called, and the Steinway languished in the old shop for a number of years. 

Then earlier this year, the piano called again.  I wasn’t up to answering the call (I thought it was really a wrong number), and was all for ditching the whole idea.  But my brother-in-law is a dreamer, and an old hand at seeing the potential in all sorts of hopeless, once-beautiful-but-no-more projects.  This visionary was anxious to make that pile of miscellaneous parts into a restored piece of art that could also make beautiful music again.  Little by little, the piano took shape.  Restringing, along with installing new tunings pins, was only the start.  Rebuilding the action, a real challenge because he was working with century-old technology, then led to the next procedure of staining and finishing.  Step by tedious step, the work progressed, until one day a few weeks ago, he called and said.  “I think we’ve got a piano.”

The piano is still a work-in-progress.  It needs a few more tunings before it will really stay in tune.  There might even be a few of the action repairs that will need to be tweaked a bit.  But this is a beautiful piece of century-old craftsmanship, now renewed and revitalized, and ready to play through the next century or two.  I’m not intending to be around to play it that long, but there might be a grandchild or two who takes a shine to piano playing before it’s all said and done.

What a joy!  To know that the sadly neglected and useless instrument is once again in it’s full glory, bringing forth beautiful music and inspiring the elation that comes unbidden from hearing the sweet melodies and beautiful chords, is nothing short of exhilarating.   If I wasn’t sure that I would severely try your patience, I would sermonize a bit about how much that resembles us in our sorry state and the result of the “touch of the master’s hand”, but I’m pretty sure you have already comprehended that parallel.

For tonight, I’ll just say that I’m grateful for craftsmen in this world who never quit dreaming, for a God in heaven who never quits extending His grace to sinners, and for music that allows us to have a little of heaven right here on earth.

“Pianos are such noble instruments – they’re either upright or grand.” 
(anonymous)

Let’s Not Burn These Behind Us…

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

The walls are covered with paintings of bridges.  I’m not sure why.  Call it one of my foibles, or call it an obsession if you want.  Doesn’t matter…The bridges keep arriving from distant places, England, Canada, New York, California.  The list goes on.  I don’t really know how this got started, but I have this fascination with bridges.   What’s really incredible is that my lovely wife also thinks it’s a wonderful way to decorate, so I’ve not had to hide this obsession away in a private room. 

The first bridge painting we purchased came from a great little antique shop in Tulsa and was acquired for a very small amount of cash.  A watercolor by a famous artist, it was a wonderful find for us.  Of course, the artist was famous for his comic book art, not watercolors, therefore it’s not worth any great amount of money, but we wouldn’t part with it anyway, so it’s just as well.  Many others have followed from different sources, flea markets, antique stores, eBay, and garage sales.  I’ve given away one or two, but most of them are too valuable to me to be parted with and even though there’s no room available for all of them to be hung at once, some of them sit in a corner, awaiting their turn on the wall.

What’s so special about bridges?  I see people in big cities and in the country alike, drive over them like they’re just another scrap of road.  I’ve done that myself.  One day, not too long ago, the lovely lady and I made the long trek to Cotter, Arkansas, some 135 miles away, just to dawdle a bit under the gorgeous rainbow bridge that crosses the White River there.  After a great afternoon spent wandering the trails under and around the bridge, we pointed the car toward home.  We hadn’t taken notice of any other notable bridges on our way over, but on the journey back, we noticed a small side road that obviously crossed one of the many streams and we decided to turn off the highway there.  As we doubled back beside the highway and eased along the unbeaten lane, we looked back at the road we had left and were surprised to note that we had just passed over a beautiful little stone bridge, which could only be seen from the side angle we had chanced upon.

Day after day, the cars speed past, the passengers inside never dreaming that beauty lies just beneath them.  To them it’s just a road, a means of transportation from one place to another.  But we live in just such an era, when the destination is all important, and the journey is simply an inconvenience.  For us, a chance decision, a fortuitous turn, changed the ho-hum journey into a reminder that surprises lie around every turn, and beauty will be found in the most unlikely places.

What is special about bridges?  It’s an intrinsic factor, the very reason they are built in the first place.  Bridges are the triumph of men over the elements.  In a place where no traffic could pass, the connection is made, from one side of a deep gorge to another, from one bank of a mighty river to the other.  Even in the most simple of bridges, a rock laid across a stream, the possibility exists to move goods, and livestock, and people from home to market and back again, without the dangers of raging waters or slippery passages on rocky creek beds.  The beauty of bridges lies not just in their splendid design or simple usefulness, but in their conquest of the very environment around them.

I no longer speed from one dot on the map to another, unaware of the road that lies between.  There are so many places along the way where men have struggled and conquered, where beautiful examples of craft and art make our journey possible.  It’s true, many of these elegant behemoths have been sacrificed for plain-white-wrapper, generic concrete spans, but that doesn’t detract anything from the original visionaries, who saw the need, and took action, leaving a legacy of craftsmanship, architecture, and grace in their wake.  Take a little time to admire what remains of their workmanship and dreams the next time you head for some far-off destination.

I guarantee you, all of life is better when you pay attention to what’s on the fringes and enjoy the journey.

“There’s a bridge to cross the Great Divide.
There’s a cross to bridge the Great Divide.”
(Point of Grace~The Great Divide)