thanks, nancy

I recognize your picture readily enough, but I don’t think it’s in the children’s encyclopedia, although it could be.
It’s a frequent still from the climax of a famous motion picture. Based on a Civil War memoir, the film is Buster Keaton’s The General (1927), the story of a stolen train and the chase after it. (You can read about it on Wikipedia and watch it on the Internet Movie Database.) He gets the train back and another train starts chasing him. The most expensive stunt of the silent era, as the locomotive steams over a burning bridge, the bridge collapses. Filmed in Oregon, the wrecked train was later retrieved during the World War for scrap metal. The photograph of this shot is often found in books.

(2) About THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE set, which I often read fondly… my mother’s set was brown (new it might have seemed burgundy) and I think came from the 1930’s. I especially loved the little French lessons. I’d buy it again in a second if I could raise the money. It was wonderful. How I loved reading it. The photographs of the pages are exactly the same, but the binding detail looked different. It also has excerpts from classic novels. I haven’t seen it for over 40 years, but my memories of it are vivid. The later, prettier New Book of Knowledge (I do have some of those) don’t begin to have the IMPACT of Mr Mee’s original set. He understood learning. If anyone has a few odd stray volumes from some broken set, I could buy a few at a time… not for old times’ sake, but to read NOW. As a bibliophile I prize fine, quality reading. I had access to it once. I have never forgotten it, and still smile when I remember its pages. How many books can you name which evoke that kind of reponse?
— Betty in NYC mtn542@yahoo.com

517-349-0764