Earlier in the week, I dropped a box of books to be shipped from our local post office to a wonderful woman who lives in Louisville, Kentucky. The books were numbers one through 37 of the Trixie Belden teenage detective series written in the late 1940's through the mid-1980's. Trixie, her two older brothers, and four friends formed a club that they named "The Bob-Whites of the Glen." They lived in the Hudson River Valley in New York and had many adventures as tomboy Trixie was always leading them down the trail of a mystery.
I can remember the day my mom brought home book #2, The Red Trailer Mystery, for me from the grocery store. In the fourth grade, I was an advanced reader. And, yes, back in that ancient era, before B. Dalton, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon there was actually an aisle of books and magazines in the larger grocery stores.
Why book #2 and not book #1? I don't know; supply chain shortage? I read book #2 in one day and was hungry for another one. The characters and their activities were so interesting. The Belden family lived in a cozy old house on a bucolic small farm. Trixie's bestie, Honey Wheeler, lived a short distance away on Glen Road in the Manor House mansion with stables, horses, and a staff of servants, including a governess, a maid, a chauffeur, a gamekeeper, and a groom for the horses. Neither lifestyle was like my family's: six people and a large dog squashed into a two-bedroom, one bathroom apartment on the bus line in the city.
The Wheeler's gamekeeper patrolled their immense wooded property on horseback to make sure poachers were not hunting on their land. Wow! On our cramped city block, we called the men who patrolled the area "officers."
The Bob-Whites were upstanding young citizens, always respectful and supportive of each other and to others. They had good parents and adult role models. They worked together to help people in need and to benefit good causes. And they were all on a path to go to college with ambitions for their future. There was no smoking or swearing. "Gleeps" was the strongest word of surprise or regret in their lexicon.
It wasn't long before I had the 15 Trixies that were initially available. Along with being so fun to read, they were beautifully illustrated with a detailed color picture in nearly every chapter. The Bob-White's solved intriguing mysteries throughout the Hudson River Valley, in New York City, in Arizona, Iowa, Missouri, Virginia, and a fake island likely near the Hamptons. The key to being able to travel was that Honey's dad was a millionaire business man (if you haven't already guessed that) and the father of the third female friend, Diana, was also a millionaire.
Today, "millionaire" would not be that big of a deal, but it was back then, prior to Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos.
I had a friend at school, Mimi McGuire, who was also consumed with Trixie and the Bob-Whites. She pretended to be Trixie and I was Honey. It's embarrassing to admit this, but I actually cross-stitched BWG in red on two patches of white material, because the Bob-Whites had jackets that Honey made and cross-stitched similarly. (Sewing was one of her many talents.) Mimi and I had matching blue sweaters to which we attached our patches. Then, for fifth grade, Mimi's mom moved her to a school for gifted kids and I never saw her again. I went from being the daughter of a fictional millionaire to being a friendless geek.....
There was a gap of time between the original fifteen books and numbers 16 through 39. I was about 16 and hanging out at the mall when I spotted #16 at B, Dalton. I had to have it, and then I would stop in regularly to see if there were more. Eventually, I accumulated the next 20 and thought that #37 was the last one. It wasn't until I did some sleuthing of my own--checking Ebay thirty years later to determine if my collection had any value--that I learned there was a book #38 and #39. Of course, those are the rare ones that are worth a couple of hundred bucks!
Also, due to the internet, about twenty years ago I learned there is an on-line Trixie fan universe in which scores of Trixie aficionados, many of them fan fiction writers, communicate and share stories. There is a central site that is organized and maintained by several super-fans who also organize an annual Trixie camp for those who would like to meet and reminisce in person at a luxury hotel.
Fast-forwarding to current times, as I will soon be 65 years-old, I do not need an obsolete nearly-complete set of dog-eared teenage detective books from my childhood. My Trixies had been surviving in a corrugated cardboard box in a closet for over 30 years, with me not having the heart to get rid of them. But with each of tick of the clock, I realized that they were a second closer to being thrown in a dumpster by my husband or son, whoever would survive me.
That's how the wonderful woman in Louisville, Kentucky, enters this story. I posted the set of 37 books on Facebook Marketplace for $50, which was to include the postage to ship them. I was hoping someone who truly appreciated Trixie would give them all a good home. After 13 weeks, the right person stepped forward and--I'd like to say--adopted my Trixies. We chatted back and forth before the transaction actually occurred. Her mom is an original Trixie fan who introduced her to Trixie and the Bob-Whites. She has even attended Trixie camp with her mom! She said she only had a few books of her own, so that's why she was interested in my collection.
In my posting, I was truthful about the condition of the books: several broken spines, major page yellowing, scribbling on the inside cover pages, etc. In particular, I pre-apologized to her about the childish scrawls in some of the books. She responded that the scrawls would make her like them more.
Gleeps! Could I have found a better person to be a steward of my adolescence? Makes me want to tweet the Bob-White whistle for joy.
Bye, bye, Bob-Whites....
