Popped into the grad stacks today to grab a first edition of Burke's Attitudes Toward History (vol. 2), which if you don't know already is (like the first edition of Permanence and Change) very small and drab-olive with two red stripes of different thickness (though both kind of thin) criss-crossing on the lower left side. I've always thought the red had some communist significance, given Burke's early membership in the Party. Significant or not, OFL (aka Our Favorite Librarian) did not like the book's design one bit.
She held up the book to show me, wrinkled her nose, shook her head slowly, and said, "One plaid. Now whose idea was that?"
I shrugged and said something about how it's from the 30s, and she speculated that since it was the Depression, there must have been an ink shortage.
And then, no kidding, she launched into rhyme.
At this point, I'd thankfully located my pen and was able to write it down, and anyone who knows OFL knows she didn't notice that I was recording what she said, which was apparently her mother's mantra during the 30s, and subsequently for the better part of OFL's childhood:
"Use it up/Wear it out/Make it do/Or do without."
And then she added, unaware of the clashing prosody:
"or make it yourself."
And presented me with the newly stamped and desensitized little volume.
