Tom Swift, Sr was a fixture in a long series of cheap books dating back to 1900 or so, when “dime novels” were such a scourge upon American families.
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When Grosset & Dunlap ~ launched the Tom Swift, Jr. series in 1954, the conceit was that the original Tom Swift had married his girlfriend Mary Nestor, survived to middle age, and now had a teenage son. Better still, the senior Swift was head of Swift Enterprises and filthy rich. ~ For sixteen years, Tom Swift and his pal Bud Barclay tore around the Earth and to the outskirts of the solar system, defeating spies, consorting with aliens, and building the guldurndest things.
Wow, that takes me back. Cheap? Sure. Hokey? Always. But it’s surprising how many technological things I heard mentioned there first, as a child …
You, Joel, are a magician. I’ve been re-living some more pleasant parts of childhood ever since you posted this.
By the way, I check that email address semi-monthly.