Those niggling memories
In grade school, I remember reading a story.
I’m not sure why the title stayed in my mind. Perhaps it was the words of the title that were a little bigger than the usual “Tom, Dick and Harry” story.
“CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER CARLA”
After many decades the title is as fresh as ever. However, the story is not.
So I headed out on a search for the story.
I’m so thankful for the age of technology. In a search engine I typed in the title of the story. After scrolling through a number of irrelevant search items, I came to the words I was looking for.
The story was contained in a book called “All Sails Set.” The description of the book mentioned that “All Sails Set” was a Grade Six reader written in 1948 and used throughout the 1950’s and into the 1960’s. The content of the book was said to contain “higher moral values”.
Supposedly there are very few original copies available, although I would think with all the schools that used the reader, there would be more. One enterprising book seller listed the volume at $5,000 for a pristine copy.
I was not about to pay $5,000. All I wanted was the text to the story I had read as a kid.
I checked out information on the publisher.
Copp Clark is now a financial firm – their publishing now deals with their current concerns and they are no longer a general book publisher.
In the midst of my search I did find that the old archives of Copp Clark (when they were a general book publisher) are housed at McMaster University. I contacted the archives and am now, hopefully, in the last part of my search.
Stay tuned.