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Along the Natchez Trace

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Reading Material....

I'm getting kinda tired of this weather. ...  rain, snow, dreary sunless days.  Of course we have the option of turning the key in the switch and going somewhere else, but we had things that really needed to be done here.  The rig of course...  that major overhaul.  Very necessary if we wanted to keep living in this rig.  And then there was the mammogram, ultrasound and the colonoscopy.  Also necessary if we wanted to keep living .... period.

We're here at our daughter's place once, sometimes twice a year and sometimes for long periods of time.  It's become a very familiar area and we can zip into Ft Worth to a Trader Joe's or Cabela's...  or down to Stevenville to a great Ace Hardware...  or into the H.E.B. in Granbury...  It's kind of funny, but the church I go to in Glen Rose is almost next door to the bank we use...  which is right next door to the US Postoffice.  I mean, how convenient is that? 

The library in Glen Rose is just a few blocks away....  which brings me to the subject of today's blog.

I know there had to be a time when I couldn't read.  In fact, I remember spreading out the Sunday comics on the floor and pretending I could read the captions.  I could tell you about Dick Tracy and his sidekick, Sam Ketchum.....  and of course B O Plenty, Gravel Gertie and later on, Sparkle Plenty.  I knew who The Phantom was...  as well as Brenda Starr...  and of course Dagwood and Blondie as well as Little Nancy, Alley Oop and Joe Palooka.

I started school when I was 5, no kindergarten back then.  The school I went to was a small country school and the first and second grades were in the same room.  The teacher divided her time between the classes so it's not surprising that the first graders caught on fast to what the second graders were doing.   

Like many others I learned to read about Dick and Jane, Sally, Puff and Spot.  I can remember Zeke, the handyman who raked leaves and burned them in the fall.  We were fortunate in that the Bookmobile came to our little town every week or two.  That was a magical place for a kid just learning to read.  Heck, it was a magical place for anyone who loved to read.  If you were old enough to know what you wanted the librarian would even bring you your chosen books the next time through.

When we moved to the city (I use this term kind of loosely...  but it had a university AND two libraries), it wasn't long before my siblings and I were introduced to Miss Lineburge and the university library.  The Children's Room was another magical place.  It was huge, and Miss Lineburge always decorated it in whatever season it was.  One very special display was her Ukranian Easter Eggs...  I'd never seen such a thing!

It's funny how our tastes develop....  I moved right along into the Bobbsey Twins and into Nancy Drew.  Mysteries have always been my favorites.  I know that we're "supposed" to read certain books at a certain age, but I kinda skipped ahead of Little Women and the such and went right into stuff like "The Life of Bridey Murphy" (reincarnation), and the Loeb and Leopold murder trial.  Got me in all kind of trouble in junior high school when I'd do my book reports.

Now I enjoy a variety of subjects...  mostly travel essays, mysteries and historical novels.  I almost always finish a book once I start it, but recently I bought what I thought was a travel essay, (Carsick by John Waters).  Heck, I'd never heard of him...  what did I know?  It just wasn't my kind of book...  sent it off to my son, who has a warped sense of humor.  He loves it.

So...  this yukky weather?  I knit a while...  I read other folks blogs...  but most of all, I read.  And with 500+ books loaded on my Kindle, I guess I won't run out of reading material until the sun shines again.


That's All For Today!

9 comments:

  1. I'm a reader. And I was all excited because I have 133 books on my NOOK. Not anywhere close to you. Travel, history, mysteries. Those are my biggies. Can't imagine my world without books in it. We listen to books on the Kindle was we travel. Sure does make the time fly by.

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  2. I remember all those characters that you mentioned, too. BTW, my first three year of school were held in a one room school house with no indoor plumbing. There were two outhouses, one for the boys and one for the girls. They were fairly large and kept clean. When we go older (fourth grade) we moved into a brick building. I guess we had to pay the initiation fee first. . .

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  3. Dizzy... We had 2 outhouses also. I remember so well that we had to hold up either 1 finger or 2 when we had to "go". How embarrassing to let the whole class know exactly what you had to do. Thinking back, I wonder if the teacher determined how long you should be gone by what your "business" was? When we moved to the city the school had restrooms with flush toilets (and the house we moved to had an indoor bathroom with a tub AND a toilet!).... what memories...

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  4. I grew up in a truly big city, and never experienced outhouses until I went camping with the Girl Scouts in high school! I would like to recommend to you my favorite book. It is a historical novel about the Lakotah/Dakota tribe. "Hanta Yo" by Ruth Beebe Hill. I read it at least once every two years or so. It was written in the 70's I think, but the story is timeless.

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  5. I also have a similar reading history and I've read all my life. I like finding out what other people read and talking about books others read.

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  6. We both love treading, mostly detective mystery types and have hundreds loaded on our e readers too. Have not had much reading time since we have been back here in the great white north yet.

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  7. I did the same thing--pretending to read until I could.

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  8. I remember many of those cartoon characters as well. Also attended a one room school house in northern Ontario one time but I can't remember where the washrooms were. Maybe we never had any. Recently I managed to kick start one of my long lost favorite hobbies again, reading. After an absence of about 35 years it was an easy for me to read Kindle that re-kindled my old reading interests. Favorite reading for me are factual history type books. I always enjoy learning new things as I read along.

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  9. We're having nice weather here in Oregon, not hot, but sunny (about 60, or almost 60 degrees). Unheard of here, but we love it. Come visit! Not that far, really, from Texas. You might make it in three days or four. My neighbors deceased and would not mind you parking in his driveway.

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