Dreaming With My Eyes Open

     I like to read, for me it is like dreaming with my eyes open. I have run across people who don't enjoy reading. I have a hard time understanding this (along with a lot of other things). How could you not enjoy going to places you might never have an opportunity to visit; experiencing a time in history; meeting people you would never have the opportunity to know.

I like fiction and non fiction books and I love libraries. My after school job in high school was working in a library. I was the person who put away the books when they were returned. It probably took me a little longer then it should have because of my need to look at the books that caught my interest, many times taking several home. Whenever I walk into a library I feel such a sense of wonder. Thinking of all the stories, of all the information contained in one building, it is exciting and sad. Exciting because it's all there for anyone to enjoy; sad because I know I'll never be able to read them all.

     I'm not a particularly fast reader. But faster then I would be if my 7th grade English teacher hadn't helped me. She suggested I take a special reading class that would help me increase my speed but also retain my comprehension. The class did wonders for me and increased my enjoyment of reading. As you can see from the following photo I've been reading up a storm ever since.

     Most of the books are nonfiction. But I do have a fair number of fiction also. I try to go through them periodically and get rid of some. If you're a book lover you can understand how hard this can be. I always donate to our local library. 

     Back in 1972 I wondered how many books I actually do read in a year. So just for fun I started keeping a list. Well here I am over 40 years later and still keeping track of my reading. What started out as a short investigation turned into a habit. I write down the title, author and whether fiction or nonfiction. As of the end of 2015 I've read 1,785 books. I've had a year where I only read 14 and one with 77 read. Of course the amount is influenced by the type of book and what is going on in my life at the time. The year with only 14 included three very long and more difficult books. The year with 77 included easy short books. But I seem to average 40 to 50 a year. 

     It is interesting to look back and see the different types of books I've read over the years and how my interests have changed. In fiction I've read all of Jane Austin and also a number of other classics like Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment. Other authors include: Gustave Flaubert, Herman Hesse, D.H. Lawrence, John Steinbeck, Voltaire, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, just to name a few. But I've also read a lot of what might be considered lighter reading such as mysteries (love Agatha Christie), historical romances and such. My nonfiction reading covers a wide range of topics including biographies. Really whatever catches my interest. 

     P.G. Wodehouse is one of my all time favorite authors. These are just three of his books of the over 60 that I own. For just sheer fun and the joy of reading such wonderful use of language, he is a must read. I've read several more then once. 

     Now days we have electronic devices for reading books. I have one myself, which I really like for travel. You can download books from many sources.  If you don't already know about this site try: Book Bub. They offer downloadable books for free or very inexpensive. As much as I like my Kindle, there is still something about holding a real book in my hands that is very satisfying. 

     I just finished reading "The Casual Vacancy". A very good book with well developed characters. I've read all her Harry Potter books, this is nothing like them. It is a very well written modern day story. Give it a try.

    I have a lot of quotes in this post but I still need to add one more.

A thought to ponder: "Whatever the cost of our libraries the price is cheap                                             compared to that of an ignorant nation."                                                                                                         Walter Cronkite

Participating in: Grand Social, Share the Joy, Seasons, Amaze me Monday, Share Your Cup

A Frog's tale

     When I was a kid my aunt and uncle owned a ranch near Hemet, California. It was a bit of a drive, about two hours, from our house. In the summer my parents would go out on a weekend, leave my brother and I and come back for us the next weekend. We loved it. Not only did we have our three cousins to play with, but also the whole ranch to roam. 

Me at the ranch, about 1950

     We never could roam too far as we were on foot. We were always in hearing of the car horn. My aunt would honk it, 3 shorts and a long, to let us know it was time to come back to the house. One summer we discovered some tadpoles in an old cistern. So we got some containers and collected a bunch.

tadpole (stock photo)

     My mother and father were fine with us bringing them home. They felt it would be a good learning experience to watch them develop into frogs.

     We placed them in a large fish bowl in our kitchen and dutifully fed them. We watched as they developed, getting bigger and growing legs. When the front legs started to develop my mother said we needed to find a place to release them. We knew that we couldn't keep them, there were probably 10 -15 or so. Besides wild things are better in the wild. Time got away from us and one morning my brother and I woke to our Mother screaming. We ran into the kitchen. Our Mom was frantically trying to catch little frogs hopping all over the place. We both started helping her scoop up frogs. It took us a bit but we managed to get them back into the fish bowl, covered so they couldn't jump back out. Needless to say that day they went to the pond area my mother had located, and were released to hop to their hearts content.

     The following photos are of a frog that lived in our backyard pond for awhile in 2007.  We've had frogs come and go over the years but this is the only one that let me take it's photo.

A thought to ponder: "The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is                                            important to the quality of life of humans."  Jim Fowler

Participating in: Grand Social, Share the Joy, Seasons,Amaze Me Monday, Our World Tuesday, Around the World, Share Your Cup

D.O.S.H.H.D.

     My father was what you could call a self made man. He dropped out of high school and joined the navy during WWII. He was a member of the Seabees stationed in New Guinea and the Philippines until the end of the war. After the war he got his GED, got married and went to work for the City of Los Angeles as a laborer. By the time he retired over thirty years later he was superintendent in charge of running the Los Angeles Convention Center. He got there by hard work and study.

Milton aka Mel     1943

     Although he did very well for himself, he felt deeply his lack of college education. Because of this it was very important that his three children attend college. He didn't care what we chose to study as long as we got a college education, and we all did.

     He was veracious reader. He mostly read for his personal education. If he didn't know how to do something he would read everything he could on the subject. I always considered him a very intelligent and informed man. There was very little that he couldn't do. He set a positive example for his children when it came to hard work and education.

Mel  1946

     When I was about 12 my father bought a ping pong table for our patio. He then proceeded to teach my younger brother and I how to play the game. Needless to say we weren't very good at first. So of course my father always won. I remember thinking at the time, 'I'm only a kid why doesn't he let me win sometimes?' The more we played the harder I tried to beat him. But I was also getting better at playing the game. Until one day I finally did beat him, just by a couple of points, but I won fair and square. I remember jumping up and down and running around screaming, "I won, I won!" My father just smiled and laughed. A little while later my brother also finally beat him. We continued to play, I lost some and I won some. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized I had learned a very important lesson playing ping pong. When I won it was because I worked hard to improve my game. I earned my win, it wasn't handed to me. Because of that the win was that much sweeter. That's the kind of man my father was, he always tried to set a positive example.  Although he's been gone since 2005, those positive examples are still very much with me.

Mel at the LA convention center (early 1970's)

     Are you wondering what the D.O.S.H.H.D. has to do with this post?  I guess before I end I should explain. It stands for Dear Old Soft Headed Hearted Dad. We got this from a cartoon we watched in the late 50's early 60's, called "Augie Doggie & Doggie Daddy" by Hanna-Barbera. My brother and I started calling our father this in fun.  Our sister took it up as she got older and it continued into our adulthood. We would address his birthday cards with the initials and even had a t-shirt made.

A thought to ponder: "The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary."                       Donald Kendall

Participating: No Rules Weekend, Weekend Blog Hop