A few weeks ago, for reasons I can't possibly explain, I remembered how much I had loved the Hardy Boys when I was a kid. I only read a handful of them back then (from a total of something like 56), but the stories of Frank and Joe Hardy tackling grand mysteries on their motorcycles had me entrhalled. I both admired and was jealous of their lives.
The memory of that enthrallment drove me to stop at Borders Books after work the other day and pick up the first two in the series--packed as a double feature (The Tower Treasure and The House on the Cliff), two books bound back-to-back under one cover--to read to my seven-year-old son.
Before I'd taken the opportunity to give it to him, my wife looked at the books with upturned nose and a, "Why did you buy this?"
I explained how much the books had moved me, but my explanation moved my wife not at all. She gave me a dubious look--that why have you handed me this steaming turd when you know I just had my nails done look.
The conversation ended there.
The following day, as I was waiting for a slow-moving software install on my son's computer, I picked up the books and began to read to him. Within less than a minute, I had him captured.
Since then, we've been reading for long stretches most nights. Several times, seemingly out of the blue, he's come to me to ask for more Hardy Boys. XBox and TV have lost ground to Frank, Joe and Fenton Hardy.
Even my wife has had to grudgingly admit that the Hardy double-feature was 8 bucks well spent.
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