Entry for June 22, 2007 - Bookworm...

I read a blog recently that brought back a lot of memories. Memories of a time that was without computers, video games, and cable tv. Or at least a time where those modern devices and conveniences wasn't a part of my life.

Possum posted a blog on a book she was reading. She posted an excerpt from the book that made me think. I had read the book, eons upon eons ago. I could remember a few of the characters and some of the plot, but some of it was very vague in the recesses of my mind. I got to thinking just how long has it been since I picked up a book? A real book...a book of substance and quality. I hate to say it. It's been ages.

When I was a kid I loved to read. I looked forward to going to the library each month and picking out books. I always picked out the maximum amount of books that I could, then take them home and have them all read within a week or two. I would anxiously be waiting for a return trip to the library for more reading material. I read a lot, an awful lot. I blame it on Dick and Jane and Spot. They are my earliest memories of reading. From there I graduated to Dr.Seuss, Curious George, Ramona the Pest, Pippylongstocking. As I got older and what I call the "prairie years", I read all the Little House books. I read books by Willa Cather, Bess Streeter Aldrich, and Janice Holt Giles. I read old westerns, books my mom had, books found at rummage sales. I read, "The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew", and found out they really weren't vegetables at all.

I got older and read Victoria Holt, and Phyllis Whitney, and got into mysteries and Stephen King. In college I read more of the classics, Shakespear, Euripides,Faulkner, and others. I in no way read everything or even all of one author's novels, but I read a wide sampling.... I was a bookworm.

Things change though. Time seemed to be at more of a premium and I traded in those novels for magazines and short stories. I read more on gardening, alternative medicines, art and photography and other hobbies and interests I had at that time. I still read some, but not to the degree that I had earlier.

It was a time I call B.C........"before computer".

With a computer I now read on-line,... newspapers, stories, webpages, and blogs. The computer has become my library. Everything seems to be at your fingertips with a computer. Online encyclopedias, dictionaries, references, public records, books in pdf format,... it's all there.

Or is it?

The computer is a wonderful invention. I don't know what I would do without it. I think of all the friendships I have made, all of the things I have learned and read without having to leave the confines of my home. With all of the progress that has been made and the knowledge available at my fingertips, I still don't feel any smarter though.

I went back and read Poss's blog today. To read those words that moved her from the passage of that book. It drew me in as if I was holding that book in my hand and rereading it again. I had almost forgotten that feeling,.. that feeling you get from a story that draws you into it. Where you read the pages faster and faster as the plot thickens....When you read the words slower as you come closer and closer to the ending, and wanting to savor every last bit of it and wishing it wouldn't end so soon.

A good book will do that...and sometimes a good blog will do that too.