Blogger Zero

You know, like Patient Zero.  The first one that gives the disease to everyone else.

Well, I think I’ve found Blogger Zero.  Her name is Joan Ranson Shortney and she wrote a book called How to Live on Nothing. I found out about this book through my reading of the Mother Earth News Archives.  I was immediately intrigued.  The title had me from Hello.

Of course, this book is out of print, the first paperback edition (and maybe the very first edition, for all I know) having been published in 1968.  I managed to find a 1973 Revised Edition on Amazon Marketplace. This cost me $5.00 for the book, plus $3.99 for shipping (the original price was .95).  About what you’d pay for a new paperback nowadays.  It’s in excellent shape, too.  It has no creasing on the spine, so I wonder if it’s ever been read.

This is why I call Ms. Shortney Blogger Zero: Her book reads just like a blog.  It’s organized very coherently, as you would expect from an actual published book.  But within this, she writes on specific money-saving topics, just in the same way a Frugal blogger would today.

Now, I’m not sure it’s possible to read this book all the way through from cover to cover.  This is because she often goes into great detail on subjects the reader may or may not be at all interested in.  For instance, the few pages she spends on How to Reupholster and Slip-Covering the Easy Way just didn’t capture my attention because these are two things that I would never, ever want to do.  And actually, I know for a fact that slip-covering is a grueling task, because my sister has done it.  It’s hard! However, these two articles are part of a larger and generally very interesting chapter called How to Furnish Your Home From Odds and Ends. So, just like a blog, you can skip around from topic to topic reading what interest you.

A very curious thing about  this book is that it only has one illustration in the whole thing.  That is for a pattern for a five pointed star for your Christmas tree.  This seems very odd to me, because I think illustrations would have greatly enhanced the long, long passages on, for instance, reupholstery (which also features a very complicated and confusing discussion on the proper way to tie seat-springs).  It’s one thing to read about things like this, but for someone like me, pictures really help.

Even though this book was published in 1968, it appears that it was written around the time of WWII.  I love, love, love this glimpse into the Frugal life, ’40’s style.  But this also means that a lot of this stuff doesn’t apply anymore.  I’m pretty sure that none of us need to know how to maintain a vacuum-tube radio.  But as Spock would say, “Fascinating”.

Sure enough, Ms. Shortney heads out into the woods for free food and medicine.  But, yikes, no illustrations here at all.  Maybe there’s an assumption that people of the ’40’s knew what they were doing out there.

The very last chapter, How to Make Something Out of Nothing, is spectacularly bloggy.  It’s a list of 100 “everyday objects that are usually discarded and some uses to which they can be put, either to make useful objects or to make life a bit easier.” I especially like this idea for old doorknobs (#26) : turn it into a pestle.  That’s a great idea! But I really hope this one isn’t valid anymore (#85): use an empty lead toothpaste tube for solder.  Yikes! And you can find the whole list here, if you’d like to see it (thanks, MEN).

The cover of this edition is great, too. It features a young, blonde hippy couple with their two young children, apparently eating wild food out in the woods.  That is completely awesome.  The little girl looks like she just can’t wait to sink her tiny teeth into those unidentifiable green leaves her hippie mommy is handing around.  This picture is  a little deceiving, as no hippies make an appearance in between the covers. But I guess the publishers had to think of the market of the times.

I really enjoyed this book, so that makes me now want to find out more about the author.  I am in awe of her extreme competence and ability to live on “nothing”.  But I think if you’re budget’s really tight, this would be a book to search for in the library.  I’m glad I bought it, because I like it so much, but I can see that it might be of limited practical use to many Frugals.