[GordonJ]

One of my best childhood friends was Howie Marco, we would visit his grandfather in Chicago during the summer. His father was Dean of the Library at Kent State University.

Howie was an only child, smart guy, good golfer and we would take trips to Kent State, hoping to meet girls, but using his father's permission to search the library, which was just rebuilt and was huge. Has some great collections.

One of those collections I later pursued was the Billy Goat section. It was actually the collection of books published by Saalfield, at one time the largest publisher of children's books in the world. It sat across the street, sort of, from Firestone on S. Main. I believe Mr. Marco was in charge when they rec'd the collection.

I knew people who worked at Saafield, and in the mid 60's they were printing 80,000 books a day. The company was started from the purchase of a printing company, and Akron also has a great history of PRINT, it is sort of a natural thing, connecting printing to mail order.

Bud Weckesser used a local printer to create his first information product, the famous hamburger recipe booklet. By the way, recipes were, and are great HOTSHEETS, and if you do **** or any of the fad diets over the years, you made moolah oolah... still going strong, I guess people will always want to eat, eh?

Anyhow, the Marco family were very good to me, and once I got my license I was able to go to the Kent State library on my own and access the "secret" collections...some required wearing gloves and staying in a certain room...like most libraries have. It was there I discovered many turn of the century works on the New Science of Psychology, which closely mirrors the Occult time line.

See, the American Civil War was the reason for so much advancement in medicine, science, and psychology. The last half of the 19th century saw rise to new thought on all fronts.

So maybe I lived in a perfect storm of opportunity, but it was fueled by a rabid curiosity of many things...I attribute that to my ADD.

Now in order to become the world's largest Children's book publisher, they must have had some good marketers.

Get this, one of John F. Kennedy's favorite books was the Billy Goat books, and his Grandmother subscribed to the series. SEE? A popular book...with followups.

It is the MASTER BLUEPRINT for success in many fields, followed by many genres too.

The reason they had to print 80,000 books a day and it was marvelous to watch, we took a field trip there in 1959 when I was in the 4th grade. Seeing things made is something we did on our field trips, I don't think those are as popular today. But the reason was...they had

BUYERS ready and willing and able to pay. Whether it was Kristee Products or Children's Books or Reports the "paper and ink" business was thriving because people want both information and entertainment. Add in education and you've got a winner.

I was lucky to have had access, merely coincidental, to so many ideas, things and places...I had no idea how golden it was. I thought it was just being nice to the poor kid in the neighborhood.

OK, now for a big secret....

Gordon

PS. Although most libraries special sections are closed, I hope to access the Kent State library's collection of E. Haldeman-Julius books, including all of the little blue books as well as the bigger works they published. If you don't know who E. H-J was, I advise you to google him NOW.