Pictured above is a license plate from Bob Gilbert’s collection.
It was a “bolt from the blue” when my Benjamin Franklin Junior High School-to-now good friend Bob Gilbert called a few days ago from his home in northern Illinois. He had good news: his first novel Megan’s Love has been slated for publication in a few months, and he wanted me to review it before they print the inside dust jacket.. If you don’t know a’ready, and even if you do, the DJ is the paper wrap that comes with many hardback books. The DJ allows a more colorful “package” for book store display, permits information about the author and even review excerpts to be added late into the publication process. It also keeps the dust off the hard surface of the bound book.
Nacherly I was delighted to be invited to read it pre-press, and a galley is arriving today. My review is slated for my book review page at CIVAG, probably in the second week of January. I’ll mention it’s up here at H&Q when it’s posted.
You’re probably wondering about the peach on the plate; aye? Bob also mentioned he has continued to collect license plates since he started back in 60-something when he and his dad (Eugene Gilbert, former B-17 pilot in World War II; a super gent, like his son) restored what I remember as a 1929 Ford Model A in their garage. He is particularly glad to have acquired the plate pictured here.
“Regarding the 1941 plates . . . . They were given to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (by the State of Georgia) for use on his 1938 Ford Roadster. When FDR remained in DC, the car and plates were in the care of Fred Botts, also a polio victim at Warm Springs, GA .At the end of 1941, Botts removed the plates and gave them to Robert Hogg, head administrator at the polio school in Warm Springs. Robert left in 1943 to join the Army Air Corps and retired years later as a Lieutenant Colonel. He died in 1989 and passed the plates to his son James who today lives near San Francisco. I acquired the plates from him prior to Christmas 2005.”
BG is still into plates big time, and he edits a collector’s newsletter. If you’d like to know more about license plate collecting — perhaps you have some old plates for sale — let me know in the comments section. Bob will get in touch via e. How? Let’s just say zat vee bloggas have our vayce, and leave id at zat. Seriously, he’s a straight up guy, and is always looking for license plates for his collection . . . .
Except when he’s writing novels and enjoying his fab family.
For those of you curious about my Christmas, mine was quiet and sane — no bent fenders and hardly any broken glass — and I hope yours was the same. If it was something I could brag about, you may be certain I would have told you about it by now. In the meantime, I’m working on my “humble” and not opening any “se><ual enhancement” email from repelvican parcedental canidapes and their hinchpersons. ..
Live long . . . . .and proper!
