*Look for a new posting most Tuesdays and Fridays*
A good part of the fun that I have in rummaging through Catherine LeDuke's stuff is getting to share with family and friends some of the treasure hunting stories related to the more "interesting" discoveries I make.

Catherine LeDuke and James Neville had a great love for English Literature; especially poets and essayists of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The book shelves at 114 LeDuke Street are filled with classics; Emerson, Hawthorne, Irving, Hemingway, Whitman, Thoreau, and Catherine's ever-favorite Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Emily Dickinson. None of the books in our possession are "First Editions" unfortunately, and all are so well-read that they are falling apart.


James Neville was ever the "sad sack" and as luck would have it his lone suitcase was misplaced by an employee of the Greyhound Bus Line during his trip from Los Alamos to Memphis. His anniversary present, and more importantly to me, his Christmas gifts to his children, Cathie and Jimmy, were enjoying a bus tour of parts unknown while James spent his entire furlough in a greater-than-normal state of frustration. It would be mid-January before James Neville would be reunited with his underwear and my western cowboy outfit. The underwear stayed in New Mexico; my boots and chaps, Cathie's doll, and Mother's book of poems arrived in Tiptonville January 27, 1946.
This we know from her letter of that date where she starts out by devoting the first few pages to some of the new poems she has just been reading. She also tells Daddy about how cute I look in my new outfit and mentions that I seemed to be having a lot more fun playing with Cathie's new doll.
Everything that I have written so far is leading up to the fact that on my last trip to Tiptonville, while looking through the bookshelves in search of some poetry to read to mother, I found this very book of Dickinson poems, Bolts of Melody. At the time I didn't realize the importance of the find. It was not until I completed the theft and had it at home in Cumming, GA that upon closer examination I found the inscription on the inside cover: "Dec 23rd, 1945, Love 'Duke."


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After re-reading all this I realize that one could easily find this to be "much-a-do-about-nothing." However, I am just trying to share a bit of the fun one can have in an innocent bit of voyeurism.

And thus begins the "Rest of the Story"; for tucked into the pages of Emily Dickinson's book of poems I found the dust cover for a book written by John Hersey entitled: Hiroshima, written in 1946.
In a posting later today, I'll tell more about the "not-yet-found" book belonging to Catherine and James Neville. I will describe the fun I had investigating Hiroshima and maybe I will get Amanda to tell about the scavenger hunt I sent her on.
And if I know CLC43, she will have already looked up information on John Hersey.
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Jimmy LeDuke
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