Another one bites the dust

It was my birthday yesterday... 48, I think...I don't keep as close track as I used to.
Thanks to everyone who sent along their well wishes!!

Although this particular number is not a birthday of any special significance I did get the one gift I was specifically hoping to receive.
I got a book.

Not just any book mind you.
THIS book has been out of print for years.
There are still copies around ranging in price from fifty to well over three hundred dollars.

Is it some ancient tome containing the wisdom of the ages?
The collected works of some obscure philosophical author?
Some erudite historical commentary?

Nope.

The book, for which I had been hoping, is Sir MacHinery by Tom McGowan published in 1970.

It is right around 150 pages, probably a fourth or fifth grade reading level, and one of my favorite books of all time.
I can trace my love of Authurian lore, my penchant for all things Tolkien, my fascination with fantasy and science fiction, all of them... back to the original reading of this one book as a kid.
(It even fueled, no doubt, my admiration and obsession with all things Scottish!!)

It was an amazing juxtaposition to find myself back in those pages last night. Transported back to Strathgow and the castle atop Auld Clootie. To be reading at 48 what I first read at 9 or 10 with the same fascination and anticipation.

No flimsy paperback, dime store novel this but a well bound, hard backed, built to last companion. Pages yellowed with age but no less crisp then when the book was first bound. Reading slowly through the first five or six chapters was like a reunion with a long lost friend. (MANY thanks to my wife who found a copy that is in GREAT shape.)

What stories have impacted you over the years?
What are the tales that have become milestones or directional guides along the road?
When was the last time you revisited one of them?

Takes it from the voice of experience, from one who has seen yet another year "bite the dust", it is well worth unpacking one of those auld stories, putting youself back in the mindset of discovery and younger days, and sitting down to revisit an old friend.