The Bookmark Project: August

Photo illustration by Stacy Reich

Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place 

you occupy in the world.

— Gustave Flaubert

So much of who we are is where we have been.

— William Langewiesche

Emily Dickinson wrote, “There is no Frigate like a Book / To take us Lands away.” And while she was absolutely right, there is also much value in physical travel. Many of our book donors leave behind mementos of their travels, some of which I have included in this collection. Here is the info I was able to uncover about the items pictured above:

• The blue leather luggage tag once belonged to a gentleman from Ft. Lauderdale.

• Peeking out from behind the luggage tag are a pair of public transit tickets from 2019 Switzerland. Translating the German printed on the tickets, I learned that they are adult one-way tickets, valid on trains and buses within the Swiss city of St. Gallen.

• Behind the Swiss transit tickets, you can see most of a postcard from the Seaside Hotel & Motel “located in the heart of the fabulous Atlantic City Boardwalk area.” The New Jersey hotel boasted indoor and outdoor swimming pools and an ice-skating rink. The Seaside Hotel, built in 1862, was one of the grand hotels that lined the famous wooden boardwalk. It closed in 1982 and was later demolished. This postcard was printed in the 1960s.

• To the left of the Seaside Hotel postcard is a Florida Turnpike toll ticket. Some of you may remember that these printed cards, once given out at toll plazas, used to be larger. Now, even this shrunken down version is a thing of the past. The almost all-electronic tolling system on the Florida Turnpike uses cameras and sensors to determine the number of axels on your vehicle and collect tolls electronically. If you want to know the cost of your trip in advance, you have to use the toll calculator on the Florida Turnpike website.

• The card from Iberia Airlines of Spain is from a deck of cards used for the game of Canasta. This particular card has the Canasta scoring table on the other side.

• The Delta Airlines boarding pass, the Cathay Pacific Airways boarding pass and the map of Florence, Italy are just a sampling of many such items found by Friends Bookstore volunteers. It appears that many of our book donors are seasoned travelers!

Have YOU caught the travel bug? Stop by the Friends Bookstore and check out our Travel section. If travel is not your thing, you’ll also find tons of “frigates” to take you lands away!

The Bookmark Project is an ongoing effort by Friends Bookstore volunteers to collect all items left in donated books. We are incredibly grateful to our book donors as they allow us to offer gently used books to the public at affordable prices which in turn allows us to fund major library programs and projects. Please enjoy this collection of found items, and visit our bookstore, Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., closed Monday. (For more information, call us at 561-544-8596 and press 9.) 

To read about the origin of The Bookmark Project, click here: https://www.bocalibraryfriends.org/post/the-bookmark-project-by-stacy-reich