Fruitfulness

I'll probably always remember that my high school physics teacher was always discussing the importance of the "fruitfulness" of ideas. Basically, whether an idea led somewhere or whether it was just woolgathering or speculation. Eventually I realized that he was trying to get us to think about how to think, but I think his approach was rather esoteric for high school students.

Maybe he should have used the word "esoteric" more.

My tomato plants have started producing edible fruit! Debbi and I have eaten several cherry tomatoes, and split a roma tomato. The cherries were pretty good, but the roma was excellent! And I have several more that I should pick tomorrow before work. They're turning red in bunches now. Well, figurative bunches.

The yellow brandywines aren't ready yet, and look like it'll be another 2 or more weeks before any are. That plant is huge - probably as tall as I am - but it won't produce nearly as many tomatoes as any of the other plants. Well, we'll see how it goes.

It's so cool to finally be getting food from my garden, though!

Yesterday I went to one of the better used bookstores in the area. While going through my list, I wasn't finding much, and it looked like the trip would be disappointing, until I got to the humor section.

I've been collecting the original run of Holt, Rinehart & Winston-published Peanuts collections for a few years now. My Mom had some she'd kept and gave to me at some point during my childhood. Actually I have no idea whether she actually gave them to me, but they got pretty beaten up by my younger self (much like my original copy of The Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual, but that's another story). Nonetheless, I held on to them, and came to appreciate them more as time went on.

About four years ago, I found a stash of about eight of them at Know Knew Books. Not knowing which I had and which I didn't, I paid $45 for all of them. I had a few duplicates as a result, but overall ended up with a nice set. Then I added a list of the ones I wanted to my Handspring. On my trip to Portland two years ago I found a few others, and I've picked up the odd other book now and then. (I even found and gave one to Monique back when we were dating, since she's a huge Peanuts fan.)

Well, yesterday was my lucky day: I found a set of about 15 of them, many in great condition, with only sun bleaching to their spines. I picked up all the ones I'm sure I didn't have, and wrote down others I didn't have in my list but wasn't sure whether I already owned. Sure enough, there are a few more I need to go pick up. (Others it turns out I already own, and in some cases in better condition. The store has a few first printings, though, which I'm not discriminating about.) So it's a good haul all around.

Considering that many of these books have gone through as many as 25 printings (my copy of Peanuts is a 25th printing, and my two copies of More Peanuts are 23rd and 24th), it's kind of surprising more copies of this original run aren't around. I guess they mostly haven't held up well, and/or they're collector's items now. It's rare to find one in good condition for less than 5 bucks (and they mostly went for under $1.50 when they came out).

One of the true crimes of the comic strip world is that Peanuts has never been reprinted in its entirety. Many strips from the first 8 years have not really been printed, though The Art of Charles M. Schultz contains reproductions of varying quality and unknown ordering of many early strips. I'd certainly pick up a series of complete, good-quality reprints of the strip (at least up through the early 1970s; the strip went downhill in a hurry after Peppermint Patty was introduced; I rarely thought she was very funny, and the strip in its later days focused a lot on her and Marcy).

Well, maybe someday. In the meantime, I think these early reprints are the best available.

Anyway, truly a fruitful trip to the bookstore.

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