book 'em, Danno

       Ever since I can remember, I have loved to read. 

       Loved to read a lot.

        Reading books is edifying. Instructional. Motivational. Spiritual. Comforting. Exhilirating. Challenging. 

    According to Lincoln, it is a great loss to NOT have grown up among books. No less than Jane Austen said that "I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book!"

    I remember spending hard-earned cash on Scholastic Book Fairs in junior high. The Weekly Reader Book Club delivered new titles monthly. The big prize was a trip to the Lewis Cooper, Jr Memorial Library, Opelika's public library. I remember checking out countless Sherlock Holmes and Black Stallion titles, taking the maximum number at a time then gobbling them down in an afternoon or  two.

    I even used to read the encyclopedia. Yep, I read the entire World Book set cover-to-cover. Several times. Special emphasis on the multi-page spreads on the Apollo Moon Missions, with their glossy photos and technical specs standing out among the surrounding short blurbs about Bella Abzug and Huey Long. I was fascinated by the article-length depth of information about the Civil War, WWI, and WWII. Maybe the set was from 1977--at any rate, it did NOT have anything about Star Wars in it, to my disappointment.

    

    So, anyway, I have been a life-long reader, but it took me until Covid to join a book club. Left to my own devices, I have always read an eclectic--but thoroughly predictable--varety of genres based on my own predilections. With little chance of adding anything beyond the pale. Hmmm...why does  'little chance' mean about the same thing as 'fat chance'? Fodder there for another entry....

    So..my preferred reads have been science fiction. Classics like Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, CS Lewis, Tolkien.  The Longmire series and other Westerns. WWII and Civil War military histories. Bios of rock stars, Founding Fathers, scientists. Doom-and-gloom tomes on how the modern world is going down the toilet. 

     But, as always, that is a tangent. Back to the business at hand. Egad..why so many idioms today??

    Anyway, so I joined a book club right after Covid, hungering for engagement with other people. Also, like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, I sought to expand my knowledge by expanding my reading choices. Joining a group of other readers would force me out of my literary comfort zone.

    Has it? Really, I dunno. I still have my favorites, not likely to change. Nothing flows as smoothly as anything by Agatha Christie or Bruce Catton or Tom Clancy. Give me a breakdown of Grant's brilliant campaign in the Western Theater, which has always received less study than the over-analyzed Eastern Theater. And anything by Larry Niven is sure to make my pulse quicken.

    But I have found new favorites, too. The darkly comedic Murderbot series. The steampunk-y A Rip Through Time and all the rest of Kelley Armstrong's novels--even the romcoms. Fluffy and light beach reads and even--gasp--horror. 

    And the best of it all is the enjoyment, the sheer pleasure of interacting with other readers. More than once I have changed my mind about a book--even AFTER reading it--by listening to how other people were moved by it. How their minds were changed. How the book engaged their own personal experiences and emboldened or inspired them a bit.

    This must be one of those overarching life lessons I attempt to look out for. Just because a novel is not my cup of tea does not mean it does not have a lot of a value for other people. Maybe my part in the community should also be to listen and to suspend my judgement--of which I have plenty--and give a book another chance. 

    That is perhaps my favorite outcome, that I have gone back and re-read something I did not like at first in the light of another's opinion and found merit in what initially fell short for me. Even books, like people, deserve second chances sometimes.

    However, this does not mean that I am changing my opinion of Thomas Pynchon, Marcel Proust, or Henry James. Ugggh. 

    They still suck.

    It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.

                                -Oscar Wilde

    

    

Hit it

     Some things you can take for granted in middle school. The pungent smell of ripe BO post-PE gives way during the 7th grade year to the harsh chemical fug of Axe. Kids who inhaled their lunches only 30 minutes ago moan of intense hunger. Black eyeliner and Egyptian cat eyes make their appearance on the pale white visages of this year's budding crop of goths.

    And boys launch themselves like so many spindly gazelles to slap doorjambs, exit signs, clocks--well, just about anything.

    I wonder how many exit signs have been broken by adolescents wanting to leave an imprint on the world? 

    Thankfully, wearing backpacks has a grounding factor on young acrobats. But returning from the office or the restroom and not encumbered by 20-odd pounds of LL Bean's or North Face's finest 420-denier-nylon ballasted with books and binders and bottles--that is when they slip the bonds of gravity. Sprint and soar through the hallway. Smack exit signs and wall clocks with their grubby hands. 

    I wonder how many exit signs and wall clocks are replaced each year due to jostling and breaking? I wonder how many gallons of industrial degreaser are used to scour sweaty palmprints from transoms and jambs?

    And yet I can't condemn the kids who leap and cavort. There is something noble and aspirational in a kid who extends his reach beyond the norm. Something universal in that urge--as well as the underlying love of rhythm that makes kids beat out a quick rat-a-tat on lockers as they slouch by. In a world where most of us loll on the couch all night, anyone who stretches and jumps and slams is a hero. 

    

    In particular, I think of Andrew anytime I see energetic kids. Boy, he had energy and to spare. Whether it was slaloming his bike downhill or racing a golf cart to the green, he has always been in motion. Always restless and enthusiastic, even as an adult. Albeit with more focus and practicality now than at six or ten.

      Even teachers are a bit light on their toes....at the end of the school year. I have seen more than one teacher--maybe even a staid administrator--take to their heels in joy over the close of that last day. Maybe that is one of the benefits of teaching--surrounded by all this boundless energy of youth, it is inescapable that we get revitalized by it ourselves. 

    Or maybe it is the anarchic strains of Alice Cooper blaring over the PA system that invariably plays as soon as the corridors are cleared. School's out for summer, indeed

    

    

    

   

    

Do good fences make good neighbors?

    Most high school students still read examples of Great Literature. Some American, some European. Regardless of the current cultural touchpoints that the Tik-Tok Generation understands, we leave a preponderance of 19th and 20th century works in whatever passes for a national English curriculum. That is why the high school equivalent of Great Books selections still bedevils teenagers. 

    Which brings us to the much-beloved poet Robert Frost. I don't even know if you can graduate high school without analyzing "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening". Or "The Road Not Taken." Or "Nothing Gold Can Stay"-yeah, I'm looking at you, Ponyboy. Which is how I get to the topic of "Mending Wall."

    In case you've forgotten this one, it neatly describes and deconstructs the idea of fences and boundaries. The narrator, while helping along with his neighbor to build and maintain a stone wall, finds that it turns into a meeting place of shared purpose and community. Walls can both separate and unite people.

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    We moved from Pelham to Katy in 2012. When we moved, we left behind the best of neighbors. No New England stone fence separated our back yards from each other

but a modest chain link. Galvanized, four feet tall, with posts and end caps and top rails and all the rest.Just sturdy enough for the kids to clamber over as they transited from yard to yard. Because with good neighbors, kids don't have to go around and use the front gates--they just climb over.

    We lived there next to Brian and Stacia Watson and their 3 kids about 12 years. Well, Brian and 2 of the kids were there from 1999-Stacia came on the scene several years later. Added her daughter to the mix. Stacia quickly became an astounding cornerstone of the community on the street-making friends all up and down the street. Checking on everyone.

    When my charcoal smoker burned a hole through the deck and fell through to the level below-Stacia called us with the alarm. When the water pipe from the roadside burst and a plume of water jetted to the sky-Stacia called it in to the city and let us know. If the kids ever misplaced a house key. they knew they could go next door to the Watsons. Nothing special-just everyday neighborliness. Like what Mr. Rogers talked about.

    I have heard from Stacia several times since we moved. When a tornado destroyed our old house. Several various catch-ups and check-ins. I check out her feed on Facebook every now and then. They moved from the old neighborhood in Pelham down to Montevallo. Their kids, like ours, are all grown up.

    Yesterday I was astounded to see that their youngest, Kyle, has gotten married. Far from the skinny little schoolboy I remember hanging from trees and asking for a slice of bread or an apple, he is a handsome and bearded young man with a beautiful bride. Absolutely lovely pictures of family and friends in the wedding party, all gathered to celebrate young hearts joined together. 

    But it is Stacia's commentary that is the most breathtaking. She praises her beautiful new daughter-in-law. Introducing pictures of the bridal shower--

    "We could not have picked a better person to join our family!"

    Some families little realize that a marriage is not just a union of two souls, but a creation of a new family, in which two communities are joined together. Stacia has it exactly right.

    My favorite part of her Facebook profile? In her posts and in her family/relationships information, there is no distinction between her 3 children. Step-children? Nope, Stacia has 3 children. Period. Equally proud of all of them. Just like you should be. You think all 3 of those kids know that she loves them? Sure looks like it from here.

   I Didn't Give You The Gift Of Life, Life Gave Me The Gift Of You-unknown

    Thanks for being such a good neighbor all those years. And thank for giving such a perfect model of family acceptance.