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So, totally unrelated to politics, I have one of those @quinncy small stories, except it's just about a remarkable coincidence. /1
My first book (which was a very academic study of Soviet military stuff from Cornell U. Press) went out of print about a decade ago. So, I bought up some extra copies from the internets, and left them in a box in case I ever needed a copy or something. /2
It sold well enough, was well enough reviewed, a solid first book and all that, but it's an academic title, and not all that useful outside of my field. Not the kind of thing most people would buy, but back in 1993, when I was a young Asst Prof, my mother was very proud. /3
I was meeting yesterday with a Brown student whose thesis I'm helping with, and I gave him a copy from that box because it could be helpful. And a charge slip fell out of the pages, one of those old carbon things from an old credit card machine. /4
A receipt from Johnson's Book Store in Springfield, MA. now long gone. The slip was from my mother's boss's wife, who loved my mom. Apparently, mom had bragged enough to her that the dear lady had bought a copy of my boring academic book back in 1993. /5
And somehow, after selling it or something, it made its way back to me, and sat on my shelf for several years, and I never knew it. When I saw the credit card, I could hear my late mom making a big deal about my first book, and I smiled. /6x
