Books

I am a reader, though it seems that sometimes I am a sporadic reader.  But of late, I have read what seems to be a lot--three books since last Sunday.  Hardly the Evelyn Woods rate of reading but faster than some.  It is kind of funny.  As I read more, the creases in the cushions of my couch grow deeper and the seat of my leather chair, previously un-smooshed, is becoming more formed to the shape of my semi-large butt.  And the treadmill is lonesome.  There are different ways, I guess, to fill your soul and nourish your body.  I will, I promise, run tomorrow.

While these books weren't War and Peace, they were real books, not just the normal mystery?cop/spy books that help decompress the day.  Or is "that help the day decompress?"  No matter, I am sure you get the idea.  They use real words, often of more than one or two syllables, and they do require you to think.

The last book I read and the one I finished within the last hour was Michael Perry's Visiting Tom. Set in rural Wisconsin not far from where I grew up, it is filled with references and people I recognized.   I totally enjoyed it.  Plus, he went to and graduated from my school, UW-EC, so he has to be good, right?  I am trying to think of a brief statement that describes what this book is  about and I am struggling to make it that simple.  He writes about family and the pain and joy of watching children grow, but he also writes at length about the other end of life's journeys as he watches his friends and de facto family age and decline.  Maybe after experience both ends of this spectrum these past few years, this book resonated more deeply with me.

Most remarkable is how he describes a group of people I once heard described as "useful fellows," or really, "useful fellers."  Most of us have met the type, and some of us have been blessed to get to know some of them and benefit from their guidance.  My mentor and friend, a man who I worked with for 14 years, could fix a camera or a clock and that was just touching on his ingenuity.  My father and his friend traded skills and while he wired houses for electricity, his friend plumbed them so the pipes wouldn't rattle when you turned the washer on.  My grad advisor could make a fresser or a table and write books that changed the discipline.  I met a man this past year who thought nothing of being able to (and knowing how to) feed a reluctant calf, reload ammo, weld the  combine back together, or butcher  his own meat.  All saved tools and scraps of wood and metal because they knew it would solve some future problem.  Remarkable people, and in this book Perry describes a neighbor who is even more of a renaissance man. a man who can make a sawmill or a canon and/or make a toy for a young girl.  It makes me feel almost foolish--as Perry notes, what do I tell people like this, that I type real good?

I suppose when you can't find something to write about that is yours alone, it works to write about others' writing.  I am not proud--it is an accomplishment of sorts to just read, and even more of one to reflect and grow a little tiny bit from what you read.  I will, and I hope you will too, settle for that right now.