Booked

     Books have always been important to me.  I wish that were true for everyone, but living in a country where more than half the people did not read a book last year, it's clear that reading a book is not high on the list of priorities.  Hell, many folks don't even read actual books these days. The ever-popular handheld devices do everything for them electronically.

    In the last few years, I have downsized my book collection.  I used to love to be surrounded by my bookshelves and had them everywhere.  The bedroom, living room, office, den, and even bathroom usually had some sort of bookshelf.  No longer.  In my household, we share books and pass them along.  Usually, something comes back to us from that effort too.

    When I first retired from teaching I found that my reading time increased 10 fold.  I could finally read whatever and whenever I desired.  I even went to my bookshelf and read some novels and non-fiction works I'd been toting around for years.  It felt great to complete them instead of carrying them around with me for the past few decades.  I'm ready now to pass them along.

    I think I could best be described as an eclectic reader.  I'll read a work of non-fiction, say history or biography, followed by a novel.  Then spend some time with a volume of poetry and perhaps re-read something from years ago.  Like the authors interviewed weekly in the New York Times Book Review, I have a small pile of books on my nightstand, in no particular order. I also have one book I've owned for almost 60 years that fits in no category and I may or may not complete before my time is up.  That special volume is the surrealistic novel The Journal of Albion Moonlight, by Kenneth Patchen.  For many, this novel is difficult to read because, in true surrealistic fashion, it plays around with space and time.  I pick it up now and again and spend time reading a few pages in spurts.  I may one day complete it.  However, I may not.

    Soon it will be time to find new homes for some of my books.  These select few are autographed by the author or qualify as rare, out of print, or are of such limited interest that they would bring joy to a select few.  I am strong in my desire to move them along to good homes.  I'm not sure my energy to do that will match that desire but I will definitely try.  A small bookstore in my neighborhood will be the first destination for some of my obscure stuff: a chapbook by poet Jack Hirshman, all my Kenneth Patchen books, and some rare books on hobos and riding the rails.  I have autographed books by John Nichols, Studs Terkel, and a number of poets.  

    So what will replace my love of owning books?  Probably a log of titles, which can easily be kept on sites like Goodreads, and the knowledge that new books will come and go until I can no longer hold  a book in my hands.  

American Idols

     I'm at that age.  The age when people you know and people you have followed all your life begin to die.  Just last week I heard of a high school friend that is now in hospice care.  Since my retirement, I can count six former colleagues that have passed on.  Seems like almost daily I hear of the death of a musician, an entertainer, a politico, or an athlete that I admire(d) that has recently died. It comes it the territory.

    On the other hand, there are idols of mine that are still around.  I was musing about Willie Mays to some friends the other day.  My first idol, I had to have his baseball cards and a signature glove.  That glove was magic to me.  As a Giants fan growing up in LA, it was difficult to find.  My dad and I rode the bus downtown to United Sporting Goods where they had a wall of gloves.  The McGregor Willie Mays model was there and I was over the moon.  Three years later, in the first league championship playoff game, that glove rained down some Willie Mays magic as I drifted back on a high fly ball to dead center and leaped slightly above the 4-foot fence, and robbed Joey Ball of a homerun.  His dad was none too thrilled with my catch, but I was certain the glove did the work and Willie was smiling somewhere.  After that play, the leadoff batter in the first inning, our shortstop, Mike Reynolds, drifted to the edge of the outfield grass and made a diving catch of a windblown pop fly.  Maybe my Yankee team would have a chance of winning after all.  Then the next three hitters, Chuck Fox, Richard Close, and Danny Slaugh, all hit monstrous home runs.  They were all big 12-year-olds, and the game was essentially over before the third out of the first inning.  But that catch was mine...forever.

By my early teens, another idol had come along.  Seeing the Civil Rights movement unfold on TV during the summers of  '63 and '64, by 1965 I was fascinated with a new idol: Bob Dylan.  Soon afterward, I picked up a harmonica and began writing poetry every chance I got.  There was something in the air that Dylan had captured and as the Civil Rights movement became entangled with the unpopularity of the war in Vietnam, new music was on fertile ground.  Dylan said important things and my generation was paying attention. 

    Of course, my idols grew, changed, and ultimately aged.  Both are still living as this is written.  I'm preparing myself for a world without them.  Willie Mays is in his 90s now and Dylan, who is still touring and writing, is in his 80s.  They continue to inspire me as I travel through this world a decade and a half behind them.