Marvelous

I scored these mint-conditon 1976 and 1977 Marvel comics calendars at a great sale in a great neighborhood. I remember there were flash-flood warnings that day but I braved the deluge because the sale was in a long, low brick ranch that I'd driven by millions of times—I had to see what treasure was lying behind its midcentury facade! My fortitude was rewarded: One room had nothing but boxes of pulpy paperbacks and comics, humor books of the ’60s and Mad magazines. That was one hour of glorious sifting. Sigh. Anyway, I knew at a glance that Lindsay must've had these calendars when he was a kid—10 or 11 years old and, I understand, an even bigger comic book geek than he is now. Whoever owned these calendar originally was a similar geek—they are perfect, not a mark on them, not a tear. No one crossed out the days or noted birthdays, god forbid. They were only a quarter apiece so naturally I bought them and when I presented them to Lindsay that evening (I couldn't wait till his birthday), he was, as expected, quite verklempt. He floated down memory lane for a spell, stroking the pristine pages, ogling the amazing artwork and eventually put the calendars on the side table at his end of the couch. Which is where they have remained ever since, in the pile of guitar magazines and cooking magazines.

See, that's the conundrum. What do you do with a calendar once the year is over? Recycle it. Or, if you love it, tear it apart and frame the art? And mar the perfect integrity of the calendar? How could you even think of it, right?? He would never countenance that. We could sell these calendars to some other comic book geek for around 50 bucks a pop and let that guy slip it into an archival box or showcase and pull it out for fondling whenever the mood strikes. Right. That's sooo gonna happen.