I'll take Brains Benton over Nancy Drew

Some of Shocho's recent nostalgic blogging has gotten me to reminiscing about the books, TV shows, toys, and other detritus that were part of my childhood. So I've been digging around on Amazon.com, eBay, and Google looking for info and pix on some of my memories.

I was a voracious reader from the age of 5, devouring such fare as The Hardy Boys long before I could totally understand them. Being a girl, I got lots of Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, and other "girl detective" books for Christmas and birthdays. (Nobody gave girls The Hardy Boys -- so I read my brother's books.) But I also remember fondly one short series of "boy detective" books that I was given that in many ways appealed to me much more than Nancy Drew and her little roadster. (Hell, I didn't even know what a roadster was.) This was the 6-book "Brains Benton" series from the early 60s.

"Brains" was a minor genius, indulged by his parents with his own hideaway/laboratory/workshop over the garage. He invented cool gadgets that helped solve the mysteries he kept stumbling onto, and, tomboy that I was, I longed to be like -- and have the resources of -- Brains Benton. I suspect that my mother got me the books around the time that I was hooked on the TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.; Brains Benton's escapades had some "secret agent" flavor to them so theytied right into that theme. (I wanted desperately to belong to U.N.C.L.E., also.)

Believe it or not, I still have my original set of the books. Or perhaps I should say I have them "again," because I long ago passed them on to my 7-years-younger brother, probably when I left for college. When my mother passed away in 1993 and my brother and I were going through stuff in the house, the books were still there in his former bedroom. (Like many kids he had never completely cleaned his stuff out of the family home.) He gave them back to me, and I've kept them for the sake of the memories they evoke.