Rebuilding Rob

The coolest thing I’ve ever found (and kept) is actually a relatively obscure book, F.O.B. Detroit. I probably need to give you the back story on why this relatively unknown book was such a great discovery for me.

F.O.B Detroit was published in 1938. The author, Wessel Smitter, who was a former Ford factory employee tells a very-thinly veiled account of life as a factory worker. Think of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, but not nearly as gross.

At some point, the novel caught the attention of Henry Ford, or at least, Ford’s people. Much like William Randolph Hearst tried to do with the movie Citizen Kane, Ford managed to essentially kill the book. To the best of my knowledge, there was only one print run of the book. While doing a little research for this post, I learned that there was a 1942 movie Reaching for the Sun, that is an adaptation of F.O.B…

Fast-forward roughly 60 years to my time in college to where I first learned about FOB…. I was in a history course and our professor created a course pack for the class. He owners a personal copy of the book and photocopied it for the entire class. To the best of my memory, the novel ended up serving as our main text for the class. Growing up and living in metro Detroit, the novel naturally piqued my curiously as it is a local story.

A few years later, X1 and I were moving her parents from one home to another. They were downsizing and were happy to let any of the kids (or their spouses) keep anything that wasn’t needed in the new place. One day, when I was packing one of their overstuffed bookcases, I found a copy of FOB…

I’ve always considered myself to be a full-on nerd and bookworm; but this was, admittedly, the most excited I had even been about finding a book. It really was like finding “a diamond in the rough”.

Don’t get me wrong. This is FAR from my all-time book. But because of their history of the itself, the story’s local connection and the rarity of the find, this first (and only) edition of F.O.B Detroit is the coolest thing I have ever found. It still has a place in my book collect to this day.

What is the coolest thing you have ever found…and kept?

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. All of your views, likes and follows are greatly appreciated! Be sure to follow me on social media as well!

• My Baseball Kryptonite
• The Boy Who Looked at His Feet
• Even White People Get Ashy
• The Tricorder in My Pocket
• Challenger 40: The Generational Echo