I had meant to find the television series “In Search Of…” on DVD. There’s a bit of irony in that, I suppose. Similar to the irony surrounding the fact that the release of a movie called “Be Kind, Rewind” that will never see the light of day on VHS. Alas, I did not find the desired series. Another lost item with the ‘forget-about-it-wish’ of finding a locally produced program similar in nature called “How Come?” Those were fun Sunday nights, listening to Al Wallace explain how things worked, arming me with a week’s worth of things to bother my parents about.

As I admitted before on more than one occasion, I am a space cadet. Spock was my hero, sitting only second to Easy Reader from Electric Company, but that was because Easy was reading to and with me daily, whereas visits with Spock and company were few and far between for different reasons/babysitters/rules of how long Saturday morning cartoons could last. Spock was the smartest person on Earth (never mind the Vulcan origins).

So, stumbling upon “In Search Of… was a ‘grown up find’ for my young mind, a find that would not immediately be released. From the Bermuda Triangle to Atlantis and the Loch Ness Monster, it wasn’t so much what Mr. Spock – I mean Leonard Nimoy was looking for, but the search itself. It added validity to my constant pestering of parents with impossible questions.

Can I find anything similar on television today? No. How come? Because I’m not actively in search of it – the television serving better as a place to stack books on than anything else now (and hey, it keeps the books off the floor!).

Speaking of books, a few new fascinating reads found include:

• Sundays in America: a Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith by Suzanne Strempek Shea
• Balance: In Search of the Lost Sense by Scott McCredie
• The Naming of Names: The search for Order in the World of Plants by Anna Pavord and
• In Search of Paradise: Great Gardens of the World by Penelope Hobhouse.

Who knows – maybe by the time I’m done reading these four, I might be able to track down an episode or two from my favorite science officer.