Forgotten Bookmarks

Having the amount of 'free time' that we normally have, when days go on end without any interruption (in that rarity that it is to have ample time), I find myself reading books and spending more than a little time on the internet. I could watch a movie or try and find something other than sleep to pass the time, but internet surfing I've found can be very... Interesting

I came across this person's blog at the beginning of this month, and found it very intriguing. His blog is called Forgotten Bookmarks. The title isn't some kind of mystery puzzle that you have to put together, it is exactly that. Bookmarks that people have left in books, and forgot about. He finds the books, and photographs the bookmarks along with the book in which he found them, and then posts it on his blog. He captures the images very well with his photography, and admittedly I have spent a good deal of time looking at all the very interesting bookmarks that have been left by people over the years.

I am one of those who uses whatever it is around as a bookmark. Airline ticket stubs, playing cards, or anything else that is in reach and can mark a page in a book. I sometimes even go to re-read books and find bookmarks that I had left in them. My memory entirely forgetting that I had not finished reading the book, or that I hadn't retrieved my mark out of it once I finished the last pages. There are so many other people that have done the same thing, and this guy has a decent documentation online and stored in his house somewhere of all these connections to the past, to stories.

I suppose that's what I find most intriguing about reading his blog, is that all these pictures are not elaborated on, or have any kind of story behind them. They are just a book that was checked out of a library or owned by someones ancestor who used whatever they had on them to mark the last spot they read. You see pictures, credit card stubs, pressed-flowers, post-cards, and letters used to mark the pages. All these things having their own stories, their own processions and reasons for leaving being left behind. For being forgotten. But since they are so vague, it allows your own imagination to run wild with what could've been going on in their lives. Who gave them the book? What was their purpose for reading that book? All kinds of wonderful avenues of endless imagination are opened up. The saying is 'A picture is worth a thousand words.' But perhaps for the pictures that are taken of these links to the past, right in the beginning, middle or end of life's plots; the saying might be better, 'A bookmark is worth a thousand adventures.'

I remember going through all the possessions that my anal retentive grandparents had in their house after my grandmother past away. Books were a large portion of the 'junk' that had collected around the house in the many years. Some of the books had been cousins, or owned by distant relatives that had been basically cast off to my grandparents. But the majority were dated, factual learn-how books that had been published sometime before the great depression. I didn't flip through much of them, and we sold many of the one's with less sentimental value off to strangers at yard sales and church bazaars. Branching some unknown history, and endless imaginable adventures to those who bought the book for it's old aesthetic covers, or wonderful sounding titles. A good mantle piece or coffee table conversation outlet is now in someone else's house. The brittle condition that most of the books were in, too include a book published about the civil war the year after it ended, never allowed for much flipping through pages or reading of these books my grandparents had collected over the year. I wonder now, though what links to my family's past could be in them, and what interesting stories can be told with small pieces to puzzles. I can't quite get my mind right enough to write about the semblance that these forgotten book marks share with events of real life, of forgotten stories. But I feel it, and you probably all who love this site, the creator included feel.

It's rare that you can be inspired to pick up a hobby that is more than just self-worthwhile. And while this man, or anyone who now is a bookmark searcher (as people post links of one's they've found on his facebook or blog), is not going to cure cancer through this hobby, it can build bridges to paths and family history that is all too forgotten. The nostalgia in itself is a great reminder of the beauty of American style all through the years. Can't wait to get home, and spend some days flippin' through old books searching for the forgotten stories of my ancestors past.


You goin back, Jack, and do it again...