Last weekend I finished reading Spain in Our Hearts - Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939. The book is about Americans who volunteered to fight against Franco and the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. Many of those volunteers thought capitalism was failing, others had been union organizers in the US at a time when the government sent troops to break up strikes. In the end, of course, the fascists won and World War Two quickly followed. Terrific read, but probably a tactical error to read the book now.
My next book will be one I’ve read dozens of times, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. The copy of the book a friend of my father's gave me when I was seven has been on my nightstand for decades. Some of you probably know the book (at least one of your classmates has a personal connection to it). The book is about “a boy named Milo who didn’t know what to do with himself - not just sometimes but always.” One day a tollbooth appears in his bedroom. He hops in a toy car and drives through. Along the way to rescuing the Princess of Rhyme and the Princess of Reason, Milo picks up several travelling companions, one of whom is a watch dog - a dog with a big watch in its side - named Tock. Tock’s watch goes “tick tick tick” rather than “tock tock tock.” The explanation is sweet and sad, I won’t ruin it for you. During his adventures, Milo meets the Whether Man (“it is much more important to know whether or not there will be weather than what the weather will be”), the conductor of sunrises, and more.
In 2007 I started my own public affairs consulting firm. My name wouldn’t attract clients and it would have felt weird to name a company after myself. Generic names like "Advocacy Strategies LLC” didn’t add anything. So I named the firm Milo Public Affairs. If a consulting firm’s name doesn’t matter to clients, then at least my firm’s name would matter to me. A year or so later I wrote Juster a letter, care of his publisher. I made it clear I wasn’t looking for an endorsement or anything, just thought he should know. I assumed he would never get the letter, and if he did he would never reply, and if he did reply it would be in the form of a cease and desist notice. Instead I got a handwritten note thanking me, and asking if he had to wear a suit since a company was named after him. That letter is one of two framed letters hanging in my office (the other is from President Obama).
I won’t get any great insights from re-reading about the kindly which (not a witch) for the umpteenth time. But I will get to visit old friends who remind me to play with words, keep my perspective, and have adventures worth having.
It took a long time and a brutal toll, but fascism failed in Europe and Spain eventually became a democracy. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from books about political struggles like the ones the US and Europe faced not that long ago. There is also a lot to be said for the comfort of the known and in seeing the new through the eyes of the familiar.