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I met Hendrik Willem van Loon in a used book store just around the corner from the newspaper where I worked. Well, I didn’t actually meet him in person. But that day I came to know him and a new way of looking at life. The (Norfolk) Virginian Pilot was on Brambleton Avenue, a block off Granby Street in 1950. The store was salvage goods. I bought a World War I type bayonet and a few other things I had no use for. Then I found the used book section. Books are my weakness. I care nothing for jewelry, not much fancy clothes. But I do love books. I was an AP Wirephoto operator for the paper, with my own private darkroom. It took about eight minutes for a picture to be transmitted by telephone wires, with the beeping sound of light and dark colors, before I took it out to develop the print. I could read while waiting. Sinclair Lewis was one of America’s most controversial writers at that time. He tackled anything from politicians to racists. His satire on American businessmen, Main Street, had made him America’s fist recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature. There among the shelves was a very used first edition of Main Street. There was an autograph inside likely his signature... It cost 50 cents. There were other volumes of his work I gathered up—and still have. Then there was a thick book with pale red binding and the spine washed out by the sun. I picked it up to see what it was. The front bore a coat of arms and the name Veere. I turned to the title page and it was Van Loon’s Lives by Hendrik Willem van Loon and was published by Simon and Schuster in 1942. The author was also an artist and the volume was filled with sketches, some in color. I had never heard of van Loon, but the chapters were filled with famous names. George Washington. Plato. Napoleon Bonaparte. Thomas Jefferson. Voltaire. And Torquemada. I became thoroughly engrossed. It went beyond thumbnail biographies of people who made their mark on history. It was van Loon’s comments and his philosophy on these people and the events around them. But that was over half a century ago, and there is a theory—retroactive inhibition, I think it’s called—where new learning crowds out old learning. Somewhere along the way I lost that cherished books. Remembering how much I enjoyed it, I recently went on the Internet and used one of my favorite sites for old and used books. Albris can find most anything. They had a copy of van Loon’s lives for just a few dollars and I ordered it. The package was obviously for a full size book when it arrived. No paperback. It was wrapped in newspapers and I opened it carefully. The volume was full size, light red cover and a spine where the writing had faded away in the sun. It looked just like the one I bought over 50 years ago. In fact, it might even be the same one with so much similarity. It’s my bedside reading now. Much of the story comes back, but each word is tantalizing fresh even after the 60-plus years since he wrote it. Hendrik Willem van Loon was a Dutchman, born in Rotterdam in 1882, and coming to the United States I 1903 to attend Cornell University. After a stint as a war correspondent for the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the start of World War I in 1914, he became a professor of history at Cornell and became an American citizen in 1919. His writing could fill a modest library. But, that’s enough statistics. Let’s go back to his Lives. With a mystical method best not analyzed, he and a friend made contact with Erasmus, the gentle scholar who skirted the strict Catholic doctrines against a questioning mind during the chaotic time of Martin Luther. With Erasmus as their guide, van Loon and his friend were allowed to place a name on a piece of paper beneath a sculpture and that night the individual would arrive from the other world to dine and converse with them. Their guests compared their lifetimes with the changes. But the fascinating part is van Loon’s own comments on the guests. Descartes was one that stands out. Ranking the philosopher as a pioneer in leading mankind t think for itself, van Loon takes issue with him for believing that animals have no soul. The author said Descartes would have been a happier man if he had a dog or cat. The darkest part guests were the night spent with Robespierre and Torquemada. The chill of the evening would make a good horror movie. Among the van Loon books I found and enjoyed were his Story of Mankind and Story of the Bible, written with the simplicity for a child’s understanding, but retaining the invitation for mind to think. He died in 1944, but his work will last as long as there or books and inquisitive thought. I’ll reread every word of Lives again. And if I happen to come back again in another lifetime, I hope I can find a copy of van Loon to enrich my understanding.
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