Inscription

All things in good time
and good things are timeless
as in 'for everything there is a season'.
For me, finally getting around to
that incomparable raconteur
the late Pierre Berton's tome
on The Quest for the North West Passage
and The North Pole, 1818 - 1909
"The Arctic Grail", that time was
long in coming. But it did arrive.

The fly page attests to the loving
gift this fascinating account represented
with its inscription: "Daddy, we hope you
enjoy reading this. I know how much you
enjoy history and I thought you might
like to take this along on your trip for
those quiet moments when you are up
and everyone else is asleep. Mimi, Sept. 1989."

Mimi might be offended that it has taken me
two decades to get around to her offering.
This touching family portrait, this brief sketch
of cherished parent, loving daughter might be
thought of as nostalgic familial memorabilia and indeed
it touches me, when I read and re-read it on
first paging through this fascinating volume.

We could not imagine divesting ourselves of books
once read, but of continuing value; mementos of
time, space, history, geography and the fertility
of authors' brain trusts, those whose literary muse
has been refined and lavished on those like us, for the
gratification of the vast public devoid of such talent.
Our bookshelves are pleasantly refulgent with
testimonies to past indulgence. Few books we have
read do not now reside there in a position of respect.

Vast are those books in number that we have acquired
over the decades, as yet unread, despite our diligent
determination to educate, entertain and lose ourselves
in accounts of the past, records of the present, hypothesis
of the future. Yet someone appears to have had little
enough personal book-indulgence as to place this gem
outside their realm of recovery, as a second-hand purchase
for us, and others appreciative of these opportunities
to acquire that which others so carelessly discard.

We are left to wonder: who is Mimi? Where did Daddy
venture on his trip ... a sea voyage to the Galapagos
perchance?