 Hello everybody, E here. Today I want to do something completely different. Maybe it's a new series, maybe it's not. A lot of people have been asking me to do some kind of Stephen King content. The channel started out as a Stephen King themed channel. I did Stephen King Top 5, Top 10s, whatever. I did Stephen King Thursday Theorist, I did Stephen King Reviews, I did all that stuff. And I've been trying to recently diversify the channel and bring in more differing types of books and authors and different things. And there are some people who are legitimately upset about that. And I understand completely, so I want to do something to not really appease, but something for those people out there that just want to hear me talk about either my history with Stephen King or how my collection, how I started to collect their books. This is going to be a pretty rambly video. I don't really have a, I don't know, there is no goal in mind. I do have one situation I want to talk about and we'll go from there. So what I want to start with is way back, in the way back before I was even born, my mother started collecting Stephen King books. She started with the stand, the original uncut version way back, 1980. What is it? Let's see here. Hang on. I think the book actually occurs in 1980. So it might be before that. Never remember. Let's see here. Oh, 1978. But the book happens between 1980 and 1981, I believe. In future installments, it would actually be in 1990. But my mother read this one. She was a nurse at the time and during flu season, everyone she seemingly took care of had to flu. And here she was reading the stand, which is about a flu virus named Captain Trips that kills most of the world. She started reading him not because she was a horror fan or she liked that type, she wasn't even much of a reader, period. Her friend, Andrita, was a huge Stephen King fan, a huge, huge reader. She read Dean Coons, John Saul, those are just some of her favorites. And she passed on those books. Every time she would get done, she would pass on the book to my mother. The stand was the first Stephen King book that my mother read. And she talks about something that I'm not 100% sure she's correct on. In fact, I think the scene is actually in the talisman and not the stand, but she talks about how there's a character unwrapping a stick of gum and King went into such detail that she could see it so clearly. Whether I still, to this day, I've read the stand three times, I still haven't hit that point where I found that. I am currently rereading the talisman. And there's a scene in there kind of like that. But, you know, with anybody's memory, things are going to get jumbled up, especially with Stephen King, who had, you know, who even by the stand already had, you know, three, four books out. But the point I'm getting, the way I'm getting to is she started to collect him after that. She didn't collect anybody else for years. And it wasn't until maybe 85, 86, when I started reading and enjoying, you know, even writing at that age. I used to write and I used to write journals, journal entries that weren't true. So basically I was writing, you know, I would write journal entries about what I did during the day and they wouldn't, they'd be fiction. So essentially I was writing fiction based on what actually happened to me. And a little funny side note, I got in trouble in the first grade because I told my class that my baby brother had died over the weekend. And the teacher called my mom to offer her condolences. And my mother's like, I don't have another, I didn't have a baby in the house. I didn't have a baby brother who had died. But I had the whole class crying, I had the teacher crying, I had everyone fooled. So that was the start of my own writing, which only happened because my teacher and my mother discussed it and said, maybe we should, maybe we should get him a typewriter, or maybe you should give him a typewriter. I'm not sure exactly who said, who said what, but it came out of that one discussion instead of punishing me, they made me into the writer that I am today. So you can thank Mrs. Crats and my mother for, if you're a fan of my work. But mom started collecting these things. And it was around maybe five or six years old that I realized that there were some, there were some very cool things on her shelves that, you know, I wanted to read that she wouldn't let me read. So she ended up sticking all these really cool covers, these horror novel covers, these books and everything into a closet that I ended up calling the great book closet. And I would sneak in there and just look around. I shared, at that point in my life, I shared a room with my middle sister. Both my sisters are 12 and 14 years older than me. And the middle sister was the only one still in the house at that time. I shared it with her. So she would go and tell mom anytime she caught me, you know, looking at something like that I wasn't supposed to. So I couldn't sneak the books then. It wouldn't be until much later that I came across Dolores Claiborne, which, to try and keep this video as concise as possible, I'm already rambling. But to try and keep this as, you know, a cogent enough thread, we'll save that for another video. Going back to the collecting, mom bought every single one of Stephen King's books at the store as soon as they came out. And I remember waiting in line for it. I remember waiting in line for the Tommy knockers. It was a Walden books in California. And we would stand outside and wait for them to open so we could go in and get the newest Stephen King book. That right there, I was already being, you know, shaped into the fanboy that I am today by my mother's own, you know, fan girling. Mom knew that there was something special about Stephen King that she couldn't get with any other author. So when she read John Saul or Dean Coots or any number, even James Herbert, she read any of these other ones, she would always end up going back to a Stephen King book as soon as she would finish one of these other books that didn't live up to her expectations because nobody writes like King. Nobody writes like Stephen King. Even to this day, people try to imitate him. But you always know when it's King. And a lot of that has to do with, you know, the tropes and the styles and just the language he uses. There's certain things that he repeats over and over and over again that you just, you know that it's like having a favorite uncle and that favorite uncle has these lines that he always spouts. And that's why most people call him Uncle Stevie. Most of the fans do. Um, anyways, so we moved in 19, let's see here is 1995. We moved from California to Alabama. And this is the meat of the story. This is what I've been trying to get to for the past couple of minutes. But, um, and we took along my mom's first edition Stephen King stuff. Now, uh, everything up to that point, up until I would say probably Pet Cemetery, was, uh, Stephen King book club. Um, and Stephen King had his own book club, his own, uh, his own mailing service. That only thing they sent you was Stephen King. Um, but way back in a way back, double day had, uh, the book club additions. And oddly enough, the original versions of Carrie Samuelsot, um, the stand, night shift and the shining were all book club addition size. Even the first additions were, but she had, she didn't have those. She had the book club additions, which were the, uh, the, the regular size. They were the reissues through Stephen King's book club because I think is double day reissued them. I think in 90, I want to say there's another channel on here, uh, on YouTube called Reem C, R E A, let's see, Reems. Yeah. R E A M C E here on YouTube. And he does a bookshelf tour. He explains it much better than I do. If I can find the video again, I'll link it down in the doobly-doo. But, um, we, we ended up moving from California to, uh, to Alabama in 1995. That was in the summer of 95, right at the tail, and I would say August, roughly. And when we moved there, we moved in with my sister. Um, my sister's new husband was a truck driver, and he's the one who talked her into moving out to Alabama. Um, when we got out here, all of our stuff sat on his flatbed trailer for two months. Um, we couldn't find a place to live. It was tarped up. Um, most of our boxes and everything, things that probably shouldn't have been outside that long were outside that long. And then in October of 1995, Hurricane Opal came through. Um, we ended up moving all of our stuff from, well, not moving all of our stuff. We ended up moving ourselves from, we were living in Tillman's corner down in Mobile, Alabama. Um, we ended up running to Mississippi to try and get away from, I'm not sure if we, I think we went as far, um, as the eastern side of Texas. And then we turned around and started coming back. Um, and then we got a hotel room in Mississippi. But basically we were running and we ran too far. We turned around and came back. When we came back home, all of our stuff was either destroyed or just gone. Um, I remember very vividly walking around the side of the house where the trailer was. And the trailer was on its side and most everything was gone. Um, there were a few things like the washer and dryer, a couch. I remember this very, very, very clearly. Um, the couch sitting just like it should be sitting in someone's living room. And then the washer and dryer on their side leaned over just as if they just, you know, tipped over with the trailer. Um, they didn't blow anywhere, but they did fall over. And just about everything else was gone. There was a box stuck up against a fence over in the corner where it had blown up there. But we lost mom's entire Stephen King collection, which is basically, I don't know if you guys can see that, but it's the top shelf. And yes, that is my father, that dark skinned man. Um, he was half a Native American Cherokee tribe. Um, and I am a quarter. So I know I don't look it and people always bring up how much I don't look it, but it's true. That's my father. That's my King collection. Uh, well, not mine. It would have been mine, but that's the King collection right here up here. I'll put a, I'll put a better, uh, I'll put a better image of this at the end of the video. Um, but that, that Dumbo blanket that my dad's holding up, that's the kind of stuff my mom used to make. And then up here, I believe that's a, yeah, that's one of my mom's crocheted. He called them Indian blankets. So I know the proper term is Native American, but we didn't call it Native American back then. So, but he called it his Indian blankets and these stines up here are, uh, also a Native American style. And then if you see, there's a picture right here. I don't know if you guys can tell or not, but it's a, uh, it's an Indian chief, Native American chief, whatever. Um, so, and then there's a bunch of stuff on the shelves and what night does a cowboy hat over here? There's a fireplace. Um, and on the, uh, this is completely off topic, but the, uh, over here, there's some stuff sitting on top of the fireplace. Those are actually vials of water from like, uh, from, uh, the Jordan river. I think it is. My grandmother went to Israel and got a bunch of religious kind of souvenir junk stuff, of course, but I mean, that's, she brought a bunch of that stuff back, but, uh, I still, I look at this and the very last one up here on the shelf is it. Um, if it's in, I don't even think it's in proper order though. Um, pretty sure it isn't. No, it's not. Um, because there's Tommy knockers. Anyway, so we lost all of that in 1995. I started to rebuild the collection when I moved out. Um, I was around, um, let's see here, 97, 98, I was working at Burger King at the time and I started to rebuild the collection one book at a time, buying things at thrift shop, thrift shops, uh, used bookplaces and I continued to buy Stephen King stuff brand new. Um, and then in, uh, 2005 when I hurt my back, we were kicked out of our house and because I couldn't afford, um, the rent working workman's comp. So me, Shell and my newborn baby were kicked out of our house and went to go live with my mom for a while. So we, we ended up making it eventually. Um, even though at one point in time I was homeless, um, that a shell and the kids were always taken care of, but I was trying to rebuild our life and it didn't go over too well. I've been homeless twice in my life. Um, one was just out of other stupidity and one was because of my back and I hurt myself, workman's comp wasn't paying enough and we were living well above our means. That's why now we live well below our means. So no matter what happens, we always have a roof over our head. Um, but I started to rebuild and then we got kicked out of the house and the only thing I couldn't bring with us was the books. It was the only thing that had to be left behind. So once again, I lost probably about 13, um, books. I'm not sure. Some of them were first editions that cost me quite a bit of money. Um, some of them weren't, some of them were just book club editions that I've wanted for the shelf, but I had fought for so long to try and rebuild that collection that they meant quite a bit to me, but my family meant more to me. So the books had to stay. There wasn't enough room in the car and where we were going, we weren't going to be able to come back. And by the time we would come back, you know, we'd been evicted so we wouldn't be allowed in the house anyways. So we lost that. Um, and then it wasn't until probably, I want to say that the thing, and this is, this is going to sound weird, but the thing that got me back into collecting Stephen King books is two things. First off, I read an author named Joe Hill. Um, I read his, his debut novel horns. I'm sorry, not debut novel. I read, I guess it was the second novel. It was the first novel I read from him. I read horns and I was like, this feels awfully familiar. This feels like, you know, someone that I grew up with, namely Stephen King, but I, I didn't know at the time that I was feeling that I, you know, I, I was enjoying this because he sounded like Stephen King. Um, so I bought all of his stuff that was available, 20th century ghosts, uh, and a heart shaped box. I ended up liking that. And that got me back into wanting to collect King. And then my next door neighbor's wife died and she gave all of her books that she had, which were quite a few first editions. She did, she, well, sorry, the husband gave them to us because he didn't know what else to do with them. And he knew that I'd like to come over and just go through her collection. So ended up giving me that, I think there was something like 20 books and they were all first editions, all brand new. The, the only first edition that I have paid an actual like first edition cost for is my first edition of Carrie, which isn't as safe with my 25th anniversary it. Those two books do not leave those saves. One of these days when I am not doing this show in a shed, um, if that day ever comes, if I ever get, you know, I'm not saying this is going to happen. I don't really want to get this big, but like a studio or if we move and I have like a garage somewhere safer, then I will put those books in here. But I spent enough to buy a used car on my cloth back actual first edition. I had, I had it appraised. I had every, everything. I made sure that it was the right thing and I finally got my hands on one, but I maxed out a credit card and I could have bought a car for what I paid for that book. That's the only book that I paid a ridiculous amount of money for. My it, my 25th anniversary it is worth a lot of money now, but it wasn't when I bought it. I think it was like a hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred dollars, something like that. And it wasn't like the thousands it's worth now. Um, but I started rebuilding because it didn't feel like such a unattainable goal after, you know, receiving all these books from the neighbor that died. Um, and after that I decided, okay, let me start hitting up eBay. So for those of you, if you're still here, if you're still watching, for those of you who are wondering how I got most of my books, most of my books either came from aid books. I still to this day get them from there. Um, or they were gifts. Um, or a lot of the fans of the channel just send me stuff. I have several different copies of it and uh, on writing that were sent to me as gifts and I love you guys for it. Thank you so much. Um, Anthony, Sarah, uh, Berksie, uh, all that you even landed to send me a copy of Dreamcatcher. All you guys rock. There are too many of you to name here, but you guys are amazing and thank you. Um, but it, after getting that big pile of books, I think there's about 20 books. I want to say it's about 20 books. I lost 13 when we moved. I think it was about 20 she had. They were all first editions. I was like, let me start hunting eBay and aid books. So I jumped back into it. And that's how I got the majority of my books. I also was gifted them. People just sent them to me or people in real life gave them to me. Friends that knew, that came across them while they were out. And I don't know too many readers. So when my friends here, actually, I don't know any readers, my friends locally, when their parents have died, they're like, Hey, I found this book. That's how I got my first edition of the shiny. That was absolutely free. Um, someone, it was their mothers, their mother passed away and they just gave it to me. So a lot of this stuff I just came across because I'm a patient person. I'm not going to go out and spend a whole, except for that version of Carrie that I was able to get it appraised and, you know, that verified that it actually was a first edition. I couldn't pass it up. I mean, I bought that in Maine, by the way, in Bangor. So I bought it. Not only does it have the appeal of, you know, it being a first edition first printing, not only that, but I bought it in Stephen King's, the town that Stephen King lives in. But going on, so I started, it didn't seem like an insurmountable task. So I started collecting and collecting and what you see behind me is are the books that I feel comfortable showing to you guys. There is over here, this version of Carrie is a book club edition. It was just one that I grabbed for the shelf. I do have an older first edition that's like, I think it's a sixth printing. I want to say I'm not entirely sure. The thing is they don't have the numbers on them. There's not, there's a number bar down there. You can tell which printing it is, but back then they didn't do it. So I'm not sure what printing it is. I do have that one, but that one doesn't have a dust jacket and I want a pretty one up here for, you know, for the backdrop, I guess. Ever since 2007, I have bought two copies of every single Stephen King book. So I got a lot of those put away also until the, until the ebook craze took off because I had to have one to read. I had to have one that I was able to destroy and one that I was going to, you know, collect. So I have a bunch of those. Now one, so I have a bunch of doubles, but and I've gotten, I've done some giveaways from them on the channel. What I'm getting at is once the ebook craze started, I just ended up buying the ebook and the audio book once I started listening to audio books. So, but nowadays I buy a first edition hardcover, a, an audio book, and the ebook and the eventual paperback of everything Stephen King releases. I've, I'm close to 500 copies of just Stephen King books, which is kind of ridiculous. But I also have up here on the shelves, I've done the paperback tour. It's actually grown. So I need to do another one. But I have all Stephen King's paperbacks also. I have a few that I don't have like Rose Matter. I don't have that one, that kind of thing. But those aren't big deals. I use those for rereads. And if I don't have the paperback, then I can always end up reading the ebook. So, because I own all of his ebooks also. So that's, I guess my collection story. There is one last thing I want to say. I, back in, back when Insomnia came out, Insomnia was the most recent release when we moved to, to Alabama. So I read Insomnia on the way from California to Alabama. I hated that book. Oh, oh, another thing. If you made it all the way to the end of the video, these are the only surviving copies of my, my mother's original collection. We bought these luckies in, let's see here, in Fontana, California. I want to say, yeah, actually these are from 1996. So this has been after, I always want to say that they, they're surviving. But I don't, I don't guess they are. I guess they bought them. Cause we ended up moving back after the whole Hurricane Opal thing went through and destroyed all of our stuff. We ended up moving back to California until 1997. And then we moved back to Alabama again. That's a, that's a story for a whole other episode. That's just, that's way too much to tell, but a bunch of drama with not having anywhere to live, being kind of semi homeless, but we were living with friends. So we were never out on the streets as a family. But yeah, these are the, I guess you would say that this is the, the first bit of the rebuild that mom, because we would go up there, I think it was every month and buy one at luckies and they were $2.99. Wow, $3 for these. And I remember going up there every month and grabbing them. I wasn't a huge fan, still am not a huge fan of this, this series. But yeah, we go, we go up there and we get them and it was exciting. Mom would read them, then I would read them. And sometimes we'd read them at the same time. But yeah, so that's my collection story. I don't think there's anything else I want to add. I guess I should probably, when I do these videos, I guess I should probably write down what I want to say to you guys. But I also like talking to you guys, like, you know, we're just sitting around, we're just friends, we're just chatting. And hopefully that's what this came off as. So if you guys have any of your own stories that you want to share about your collecting, it doesn't even have to be just Stephen King. If there's any stories that you guys want to talk about as far as your love for reading or books or whatever, please do share them down there in the doobly-doo. But until next time, I have been E, you have been U. This has been a little history lesson, whatever. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye.