My bus ride home as a boy was an hour long. A winnowing took place between Kettle Falls and Pleasant Valley, stop by stop, kid by kid, until the bus was empty except for the Clemons boys.
I have memories common to all those who rode a school bus: dirty jokes, more than one fight, dares, and scribbled homework. Other experiences were unique: eagles circling the Columbia, pulling over to watch a bear, and once, to watch a bobcat feast on a deer carcass. But mostly what I associate that long bus ride with is an abiding love for reading.
It got quieter and quieter the farther we drove from town. I’d put my knees on the hard brown seat back in front of me, rest a book on my thighs, and read as we passed apple orchards and ranches.
When I got home from school, I’d go to the basement and build a fire. We kept a stack of old newspapers next to the furnace. I’d usually sit on a five gallon buck and read the comics while the flames took off. But one day I read about Davy Crocket instead. His biography was one of the first books I borrowed from the school library. It had a beautiful old cover that was thick and textured with age.
It reminded me of the books my great-grandma and grandpa had on their shelves. After mom and dad split, he lived with them for about four years. My brothers and I spent a lot of time there. When they died, we were allowed to choose from some of their possessions.
One of the things I chose was Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar. It was published in 1918. By that point, Edgar Rice Burroughs had established Tarzan as a serial character.
It is a fast paced adventure story where Tarzan discovers an underground society likened to Atlantis. After a blow to the head, he suffers amnesia. Shortly thereafter it is King of the Apes vs King of the Jungle, as he wrestles a lion. Lieutenant Albert Werper is a corrupt British officer that tries to kill Tarzan, betrays him, and steals the Jewels of Opar from him. Meanwhile, Jane has been captured by Arabs. The book is then a series of vine-chase scenes with Tarzan speeding across the Congo to regain his wife, his jewels, and his memory.
Reading it, it was easy to imagine myself in another time. My great-grandfather’s inscription on the title page helped facilitate that. I imagined him reading it as a boy.
The choice of language also transported me. Burroughs had no qualms referring to the Arabs as evil, or black characters as savages. While I don’t agree with those portrayals, I did find them refreshing in a way. There was a bit of enjoyment in reading the remarks, not because they were inappropriate, but because they were unfettered. They served as a kind of proverbial uncle-over-the-holidays, saying things that we all know we shouldn’t.
For example, here is a sentence that no bestselling book would contain today,
In his youth he would have slain the witch-doctor without the slightest compunction; but civilization had had its softening effect upon him even as it does upon the nations and races which it touches, though it had not yet gone far enough with Tarzan to render him either cowardly or effeminate.
The other thing that made it an enjoyable read was knowing how it would end. I knew from the first page that Tarzan would save Jane, regain his memory, and that wrong would be set right. A name like Tarzan does not echo down through the ages unless it is to remind us how good stories end. The fun part is finding out how.
As for the jewels, Tarzan finds them last, along with the skeleton of the traitor Werper. This is how the book ends,
“Poor devil!” said the ape-man as he swung back into his saddle. “Even in death he has made restitution — let his sins lie with his bones.”
What a fitting way to approach the past — recover the jewels and leave the sins to be covered by grass.
Great post Nate - looking forward to more Bookends. That emptying out of the bus kid by kid reads like the opening scene of a movie!