You eat your hot dogs with ketchup until age six, before city ordinance banishes the condiment from your red hots forever. You liked the Cubs or the White Sox (or, in my case, could care less). If you’re a Chicago kid, there are certain inevitabilities. Back then, a visit to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum wasn’t too out of the ordinary. No doubt he simply stood back and let me delightedly run from exhibit to exhibit, agog at the displays of shrunken heads, creepy wax figures, brutal weaponry, and other esoterica. Yes, he did, but he couldn’t provide any specifics. I recently asked him if he remembered our visit. How appropriate then that Dad accompanied me on one of my only two trips to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum on Wells Street, toward the tail-end of the 70s. Really, my parents should have known better. I was likewise fueled by readings of DC, Marvel, Charlton, and Gold Key horror comics-through which the Ripley Company published a terrifying (if you’re nine years old) collection of “real” ghost stories. I pored over them during my most gullible childhood years, when Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, UFOs, and King Tut’s curse seemed utterly plausible. Like father, like son.Īmong Dad’s books were several paperbacks reprinting the cartoons of Robert L. I assumed everyone’s dad was like mine-an intelligent and benign weirdo. It may explain why, during my formative years, I never indulged in the more obvious rebellions like funny haircuts, confrontational fashion, or substance abuse. We’ve never discussed why, but we really should.
Among the sci-fi and apocalypse-themed fiction, comic strip collections, coffee table editions of old-time Hollywood and horror films, and books covering disaster, war, and other fun stuff, he favored books about the strange and anomalous. On the surface, Dad is a respected businessman and public servant, but from an early age he’d introduced me to plenty of oddness through the personal library he maintained in his basement den. Whenever my father questioned my peculiar interests though, Mom would level her gaze and answer, “Well, Berni, he came by it honestly. Over time, it reflected itself in my readings, writings, and collections, giving pause to peers and family members who practiced normalcy. If it’s scary, unexpected, or bizarre, I’m fascinated by it. I’m not exaggerating when I describe my visits to the place as transformative.įrom an early age I’ve always liked strangeness. The long-gone Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum on Wells Street was my first direct exposure to humanity’s heart of weirdness.
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