My friends - It has been some time since we last reviewed one of Dr. Gordon Wilson's marvelous essays from his work, "Fidelity Folks". Dr. Wilson was born and raised in Fidelity, in Calloway County, which we know today as New Concord. He was a past master at storytelling, as these little essays amply prove. Today's subject is 'The Autograph Album'. I can recall autograph books still being popular in my high school days, and we had calling cards printed as a part of the graduation process in the senior year. The earlier time, though, of which Dr. Wilson speaks, was a much more ornate and formal era. -B ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ THE AUTOGRAPH ALBUM -Dr. A. Gordon Wilson “Fidelity Folks” The autograph album was formerly as much a distinctive part of the front room as the family album with its collection of tintypes and frozen-looking pictures. This prized book usually came into the home as a Christmas present from Sister's current beau. It was an elongated affair, with many a page just itching for verses and appropriate prose, "sappy inanities," as Mark Twain called the contents of the much prized gift books of the last century. Each friend of the young lady was asked to write in her album. A graduate thesis could be written on the penmanship and its flourishes, the loops and curves, the birds and other strange fowl drawn with many a push and pull of the pen. Still another thesis would treat of the verses, some of them hallowed by age, others tampered with slightly, and some--horrible to relate-­original and worse than banal. Many a verse found in these books had first come into the possession of the writer from the wrapper around a bit of candy, usually called a "candy kiss". Some of these wrappers found their way into the schoolroom and then across from the boys' side to the girls' side, if not interrupted by the teacher. But the penmanship in the autograph album often dressed up the inconsequential little verse until it looked like a first-class poem, written by some eminent poet who was not an adept at writing but long on decorations, like some medieval copyist. The autograph album lay in its own little space on the crowded center table, having to share quarters with the big family Bible, the stereoscope and its pictures, the decorated lamp, the big family album, etc., etc. Its contents were not copyrighted and were not secret. If some of them seemed a bit too sentimental after the ex-beau had long been married to some one else, I suppose that we attributed this to what the textbooks called "poetic license". Great men may err greatly, I have been told. Just as the later postcard rack displayed your private messages for all and sundry to see and comment upon, so the autograph album preserved your passing freaks of spelling and penmanship until the fad of the autograph album was replaced by something else, and the book was hidden away with other possessions that are too dear to burn and too worthless to lie around gathering dust. Very closely related to the autograph album was the ornate calling card, once very popular. These calling cards were in no sense what their name implies, for they were given away to one's friends and preserved thereafter just like other mementos. They reposed in a little tray and were open for inspection always, like some of the packages now sent through the mails. "Open for inspection" is hardly right, for the name was hidden under a lovely wreath or picture, glued down at one end. Two doves might be billing and cooing on this flap or two hands clasped in love or friendship. The name was in script or print, according to the passing fad. Long after I had left Fidelity--in fact, when I was a senior in a junior college--some neighbor girl at Fidelity had read in COMFORT or AMERICAN WOMAN how she could obtain some valuable prize for selling some dozens of these ornate calling cards. She approached Mother, who had a hard time in turning down house-to-house canvassers, and suggested that the cards might be for me. Mother was too old and too old-fashioned to need any calling cards, but I, illustrating a throw-back to my Scotch origin, carefully removed the flaps from the cards and used them in my commencement invitations. I did such a good job of trimming off all offending signs of the former flap that I am sure no one suspected the origin of my dainty little calling cards. ==========================================================================