My three brothers, The Sister, and me spent seven magical years growing up at 110 Flamingo Street. During that time, both Mom and Dad dispensed a lot of advice, hoping some of it would eventually sink into our hard heads. And trust me, I got one of the hardest, otherwise I wouldn’t have survived those seven magical years of adventures (and misadventures).
Some of my parents’ advice was indeed followed. Some was simply ignored (I still wear the scars from those decisions) and some is still trying to sink in. So what was the most sage advice given by my parents you may ask?
Simple. “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Now, being only 8 the first time I heard this, I thought it by far the most ridiculous advice my parents had ever given. Of course, you judge a book by its cover. Why else would you pick it up in the first place?
The library at Mt. Olive Elementary School housed 10 bookshelves, eight reading tables, a solid oak card catalog about the size of a refrigerator, and one large floor globe located strategically in the center of the room. The three-foot globe could be rotated 360 degrees in any direction. Why would you need a floor globe to do that? Why, for spitballs, of course.
Not only did the globe come with the most up-to-date map of the known world, but it also came with something else. A hole bored straight through its middle perfectly sized to propel spitballs at a certain bully. But this story isn’t about how shooting spitballs at Down the Street Bully Brad in the library, our ensuing chase, and the ear-dragging by Old Mrs. Crabtree landed us in Principal Baker’s office. Nope, this story is about book covers.
When Mrs. Crabtree let us pick out books, I always went for the most colorful and action-packed covers I could find. I just knew if it looked that good on the outside, then it had to be good on the inside. Unfortunately, most of the time I was wrong. The best looking covers in the world couldn’t make reading about past presidents, poets, or art interesting – at least not to this 8-year-old.
With its 40 floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, 30 tables and five microfilm projectors, the two-story library at Briarwood High School, home of the Mighty Buccaneers, was the largest library I’d ever seen. Even so, when sent to do research, I still searched out books with the best looking covers. Again I learned just because a book looks great on the outside doesn’t mean it’ll be good on the inside.
For five years I walked those hallowed halls of Briarwood, observing, listening, and learning not only a lot about academic subjects, but also a lot about people.
By the time I graduated, I realized my parents were indeed right – you can’t judge a book by its cover and you can’t judge people by the way they look on the outside either. Like books, it’s what’s on the inside that really counts.
For me, it took many years to come to this realization.
Sadly some folks never do.
[Rick Ryckeley, who lives in Senoia, served as a firefighter for more than two decades and has been a weekly columnist since 2001. His email is storiesbyrick@gmail.com. His books are available at www.RickRyckeley.com.]
