Frank and Joe and Fenton and Laura

Sometimes, milestones are remembered more fondly than the miles and none more so than those that mark childhood's road. So when I saw this Yahoo Pick of the Day, I remembered the experience of discovering books and libraries on one's own for the first time.

At the "convent school" library, where I first read a Hardy Boys book, choosing a book was complicated for a reason: we could pick a book that improved our minds or we picked a book that entertained us (but you got a disapproving stare from the librarian. Or so I imagined.) Hardy Boys did not save me from damnation.

What can one say about reading Hardy Boys' mysteries? (other than, how the hell did I read so many of them and not get bored?)

At the age of 10 or 11, the notion of two boys solving crimes is simply intoxicating. They owned a boat ("Sleuth"), drove cars, flew in planes and rode motorbikes. They even had girlfriends. Frank and Joe were just hardcore badasses compared to Dame Enid's alliteratively titled milquetoast detective "groups".

The library had this big stack of hardcover Hardy Boys' books. One day, while browsing through that stack (oh, what will it be, "Sinister Post" or "House on the Cliff"?), I found out that the book was first published in 1927. Now I am pretty certain the book itself was not a first edition from 1927, but from the 1960s. I was 11 and I didn't know any better. This was an old book! Perhaps it was the poor lighting in our convent school library, or the impressively aged oak bookshelf, but for that one moment, it felt like I had stumbled upon an ancient tome. Like an Egyptologist would upon discovering a new Pyramid, I did a little jig and picked up two more books from the series and rushed to the librarian before a rival explorer staked his claim on this stunning find. From there on, a blur of bus-ride, the school-bag tossed on the living room floor, lunch gobbled down and then the plop on the squeaky, springy bed with the two new books.

I don't believe I ever read a bad Hardy Boys book. But we know the truth: every story reads the same and the writing is smooth and bland, much like the Harry Potter series. But the repetitious nature of the characters actually made me like the books even more. An unread HB book would always be a surprise, but not too much of a surprise. The mostly sunny, occasionally cloudy universe of Bayport was good, book after book after book.

While I was reminiscing over these things, I was stumped by one simple question: how was I introduced to this series? Who recommends these things to a 10 year-old? Was it an older friend, a teacher or, was it mother? I wish I had recorded the name of my first Hardy Boys novel and my reactions (bet it was something along the lines of "I wish I had a boat, a car. Or at least a girlfriend." I was 10, remember?)

Hardy Boys, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Famous Five, Secret Seven...all milestones. Without them, one wouldn't know the magical towns that were still to come.