By ALAN SCHERSTUHL

Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.

Today's American Democracy

Author: John Lincoln Williams and Palmer Peckham Howard
Publisher: J.B. Lippincott
Date:1943
Discovered at: Maj-R-Thrift, 2844 W. 47th
The Cover Promises: Social studies! Also, up there, at the top -- postmark or bacon?
Representative Quotes:
page 163, “There seems to be no ground for the belief that members of one race are decisively physically superior to those of another. Concerning the relative mental abilities of various races, however, there is less certainty.”
page 365: “Propaganda is an attempt to influence people toward a certain view. Hence, it is a means to an end. This end may be desirable for human welfare.”

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By ALAN SCHERSTUHL

Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.

Letters to E.T.
Author: Sad kids who never learned their lesson from all those unanswered letters to God.
Publisher: Weekly Reader Books
Date: 1983
Discovered at: 2nd Chance Thrift, 7740 Wornall
The Cover Promises: On Sunday mornings, E.T. slips into his lover's favorite shirt and lounges with the Sunday Times and a stack of fan mail.
Representative Quotes:
From Jonah:
“I liked when you were riding on the bike, and thanks for not dying.”
From Kirk:
"I am a 13 year old boy who used to be closed off to the world. I didn't care about grades, I just didn't care that much about life. About the only things I did care about was God, Drawing, and if my D&D character could get passed 3rd level.”

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By ALAN SCHERSTUHL

Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.

Trailblazer's Almanac and Pioneer Book
Date: 1975
Discovered at: Brass Armadillo Antique Mall, Grain Valley, Missouri
The Cover Promises: In America, the tree bark peels like banana skin.

Representative Quote:
page 23, “Moles have an extremely remarkable sense of precision.”

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Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.

Power Living

Authors: Wayman Mitchell, Greg Johnson and Ron Simpkins
Publisher: Potters Press, Prescott, AZ
Date: 1987
Discovered at: 2nd Chance Thrift, 1229 East 63rd Street
The Cover Promises: Not so much power that you need a surge protector, but more than enough to light up that kick-ass neon Footloose font.

Representative Quotes:
page 91:
“Begin to find out where it really is in the world. It isn't in sin, my friend. It is certainly not lying in an alley some place having the rats eat your ankles to the bone.”

page 114:
"My wife started pointing out how unchristian the shows were. Christian characters were always held up for ridicule as some kind of psychos, hypocrites, or fools. I was trying to ignore her, but after Chico [& the Man] came MASH and its insipid little Catholic priest, whom nobody listens to except the crazy guy who wears dresses."

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Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.

Branson's Country Music Cookbook

Author: The gleamin'est stars in Branson's cubic zirconia firmament
Publisher: Anderson Publishing, Branson MO
Date: 1992
Discovered at: 2nd Chance Thrift, 1229 E. 63rd Street
The Cover Promises: Your six-string is a place setting.

Representative Quote:
page 153, “Heat Doritos in oven.”

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Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.
The Politics of Meaning

Author: Daniel Graham, Jr.
Publisher: Preview Press
Date: 1995
Discovered at: Family Thrift on Truman Road
The Cover Promises: Punch-and-Judy puppet violence between Bill Clinton and Joan Rivers. The back cover is more clear about this feeble satire of Arkansas politics: “From college days to the pinnacle of power, Jim Potter and Leslie Rhodes lay waste to their enemies (and friends alike) as they pursue The Politics of Meaning. But can they keep their political marriage alive?”

Representative Quotes:
page 44: “'We've got a shot at real power, big bucks, and all the personal freedom a man or woman could ask for. What do you say? Until now, we've only been on the outside looking in. Marry me and you'll have your first shot at the inside, where you can make policy.'”

page 59: “Leslie admired the muscle tone of Hebe's arms, legs, and back, combined with the feminine roundness of her breasts and buttocks.”

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Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.
Wacky Summer Mad Libs

Author: Roger Price, Leonard Stern and deeply bored, anonymous children
Publisher: Scholastic
Date: 1988
Discovered at: Second Chance Thrift, 1229 E. 63rd Street
Representative Quote:
page 13: “If none of these smell activities appeal to you, take up a/an fat hobby such as saving dogs or learning how to cook Chinese dinosaurs.”

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By ALAN SCHERSTUHL

Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.

License to Kill

Author: David Perkins
Publisher: BkMk Press, Shawnee Mission, Kansas
Date: 1973
Discovered at: 2nd Chance Thrift, 7740 Wornall
The Cover Promises: Poems about either mosaic tiling, James Bond, or both.
Representative Quotes:
Page 9: “Here. There. You. Them. The space between you and this page.”
Page 11: "I haven't taken a bath in weeks."

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Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.

The Eagle Christian

Author: Kenneth Price
Date: 1984
Publisher: Old Faithful Press, Montgomery, Alabama
Discovered at: Goodwill, 89th & Wornall
The Cover Promises: Eagles and Christianity. More to the point, the first page promises “The most complete analogy available on the subject of the Golden Eagle and the life of a Christian.” I see no reason to doubt this claim.

Representative Quotes:

Page 38: “The preening of the eagle should be a good lesson in holiness to the Eagle Christian.”
Page 47: “Secondly, the molting, although not due to 'food poisoning,' feels the same way and may be compared to those times in our lives in which God wants to put on us a new coat of his presence.”

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Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.
Say It In Chinese

Author: Some anonymous, delicate artist, daring to flourish in a world of bureaucrats
Publisher: Foreign Language Press, Beijing
Date: 1981
Discovered at: Disabled American Veterans Thrift Store, 80th & Wornall
The Cover Promises: How to say it in Chinese.

Representative Quotes:
page 12:
I wish you success in your modernization programme.
Zhu nimen shixian xiandaihua.

page 39:
Do the kindergarten staff members earn workpoints, or are they paid a salary?
Youern de gongzuo renyuan shi zheng gongfenr, haishi zheng gongzi?

page 58:
How many metres do I need for a dress for a large six-year-old?
Yi-ge gaoger liusui haiz zuo yi-jian lianyiqun xuyao ji-mi liaoz?

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Each week, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.

On the One Hand . . . The Economist's Joke Book.

Author: Economic Futurist Jeff Thredgold
Publisher: Thredgold Economic Associates
Date: 2001
The Cover Promises: D&D-style sorcery fun with a one-eared Richard Gephardt.
Discovered at: Goodwill at 89th & Wornall
Representative Quotes:
Page 24: “An 'acceptable' level of unemployment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job."
Page 26: “A recession is when your neighbor has lost her job. A depression is when you lose yours.”

All right, all right. Maybe The Economist's Joke Book makes the same joke twice within three pages. (That's economical!) And maybe that joke is a thumb gouging out the eye of funny in the first place. (That saves on R&D!) And maybe Economic Futurist Jeff Thredgold's book is the self-published, sold-at-speaking-engagements, throw-awayable paperback equivalent of every forwarded e-mail your economist aunt ever passed on to everyone in her address book. Let's keep an open mind, here.

Page 57: “An economist is someone who knows 100 ways to make love ... but doesn't know any women/men.”

I don't know any women/men, either. But, really, Economic Futurist Jeff Thredgold, if you do get to know some women/men, or maybe some men/women, or even any other transgendered combination you happen upon in your Economic Futuring, the odds are good that the net gain in partner parts and orifices might boost your 100 known ways of making love exponentially.

You get one more chance, The Economist's Joke Book!!

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By ALAN SCHERSTUHL

Each week, your Crap Archivst brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.

World Week, Volume 27, Number 7

Author: An all-American staff of fact-loving, kid-informing, Commie-hating bores. Also: Gay Head and the Nestle chocolate company.

Date: October 27, 1955

Discovered at: Mission estate sale

The Cover Promises: Grey-and-yellow Halloween fun for Eisenhower-era high schoolers, with only the tiny legend “Adapted from American Legion Magazine” betraying the gloomy reality.

Representative Quotes:

Page 8: “Look at the map for a fuller picture of Russia's rich mineral deposits.”

Page 29: “Can atomic bombs explode accidentally? That's a question the Atomic Energy Commission hopes to answer by a series of tests next month.”

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By ALAN SCHERSTUHL

Each week, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.

How to Be Happy Though Married

Author: Tim LaHaye, pastor, television host, and eventual co-creator of Left Behind, the apocalyptic Christian novel series

Publisher: Tyndale House of Wheaton, Illinois

Date: 1968

Discovered at: DAV Thrift Store, Wornall Road

The Cover Promises: Hot hand-holding action! And 180,000 copies sold! And that marriage is a state generally incompatible with happiness!
Representative Quotes:

Page 63: “The difference between the reproductive system of the husband and wife should stand as a symbol of the beautiful difference in their emotional make-up.”

Page 77: “Under such circumstances, she is often twenty-two or twenty-three by the time she is ready for children, and surprisingly enough, that is past the ideal childbearing age.”

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By ALAN SCHERSTUHL

Each week, your Crap Archivst will bring you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.

Someone You May Know:
A Heterosexual Looks at Homosexuality
Author: William Konraad
Date: 1965
Discovered at: Family Thrift in Mission
The Cover Promises: “This book makes no judgments. This book does not deal with perversions leading to a world of fantasy. This book brings you a complete view of a major situation today.”
Representative Quote: Page 184: “Q: Jim, the other day I was reading a magazine published by and for homosexuals and in it there was an article urging homosexuals to get behind a certain socialist candidate and the socialist movement in general. How do you feel about that?”

With a tone of empathetic condescension, author Konraad presents the results of what the back cover insists was “three years of interviews with psychiatrists, M.D.'s, lawyers, religious leaders, District Attorney's, Police officers and hundreds of homosexuals.” That he considers homosexuals an entirely separate category from “psychiatrists, M.D.s,” and the like indicates he never thought this through entirely.

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