Zero degrees and a scouring wind left Mark Russell wishing for a quick escape from the small town of Bennett, if only for a few minutes and within the confines of his own head.
Unfortunately, he had sold the means for that escape: his collection of 1,100 copies of National Geographic, spanning 1915-2007 and delivering the world each month in a canary-yellow binding.
“I’ve got to tell you, it was a little strange parting with them,” he said Sunday. “I’d had them for so long, and they were like having an oversized Encyclopedia Britannica in the house.”
I wrote about Russell in February, spurred by a newspaper ad he placed that caught my eye. He was offering his National Geographic collection for $2,000. Intrigued, I drove to his house in Bennett, 25 miles east of Denver, and spent the morning talking about the escape those magazines had provided both of us as kids.
Russell was feeling a bit fitful about his economic situation at the time, which is why he put the magazines up for sale — he has since returned to his job at Geotech. An Iowa banker wound up buying them for $2,400, which included the 16 old-fashioned wooden milk crates (Lucerne brand, if you need to know) that served as the collection’s shelving.
A few days ago he called to tell me of his windfall — and his touch of regret.
“I miss the milk crates as much as anything,” Russell said. “They had some sentimental value, since my uncle gave them to me. But I sold the whole thing, and the buyer sent a friend of his over from Boulder to pick them up.”
The guy showed up in a Ford Explorer, and it was touch-and-go for a few minutes on whether all those issues would fit into the vehicle.
But they did, although the guy had to drive up the street to the local Conoco to put air in his tires. That’s how heavy 1,100 National Geographics are, especially when they still have all their fold-out maps tucked between the covers.
Russell, who is single, took the money and bought a new sofa and dining room set. And he set a chunk of it aside for a rainy day. Or a snowy one.
He doesn’t miss the idea of lugging the magazines around, but there have been more than a few times since the sale that he wishes he still had the ready reference and opportunity for armchair travel they provided.
“I was missing them the other day,” Russell said. “I was watching the movie ‘Gladiator’ and wanted to look up the lineage of the Caesars around that time to see how historically accurate the movie was. And I thought heck, I can’t look ’em up.”
His cat offered no help at all, not being much of a history buff.
“So I’ve had a lot of bittersweet moments, wanting to look something up in them while sitting on my nice, new sofa,” he said.
Which pretty much represents many of life’s trade-offs.
I asked Russell whether he had any plans for the holidays. He was considering driving to Nebraska, where he has family. If not, he’ll continue his annual tradition: “I get a newspaper, drive to a Denny’s restaurant, and outrageously tip whoever my server is.”
Nice guy, Mark Russell.
That’s why come January, a year’s worth of National Geographics will start arriving in a mailbox on Elm Street in Bennett.
Happy holidays, pal. And happy traveling.
William Porter writes Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at wporter@denverpost.com or 303-954-1977.
