Remembering childhood reading makes today's reading seem kinda tame. Rabble In Arms by Kenneth Roberts, now there was a good one. How about Ironheart about an Iroquoi Chief that was pretty good too. Or, Down the Colorado in a Canoe, that'd keep me inside on a sunny day, long enough to get my mother worried about me and want to shoo me off to the beach or the swimming pool. A bit later, a few years older, reading over in a corner at boarding school, me and, believe it or not, For Whom The Bell Tolls at about age 13. Yep, at thirteen I conjured the earth moving.
What's to read today? Reread the old stuff probably best. Sampling the latest published feels like eating stale doughnuts. I want to read again The Snows of Kilamanjara and spell it right. Most of all The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. Now that I'm nearly grown up maybe I could tackle once more the novel about the guy whose equipment was a bit off. I'll remember the title when I walk into the used book store. I could have the patience to again plough through Crime and Punishment. In today's Red and Blue America I wonder if a novel about offing your landlord with an ax could get published? Well, it's been done. Maybe you'd have to try something really, really awful to compete with Reality Shows.
Writing letters to my friends may have to suffice. Not that they answer very often, and never at length. Oh, and be sure to include a photo. Of the kids is safer.
Barry
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