book

A friend of mine sent me a book by Verlyn Klinkenborg , a member of the editorial board of The New York Times , called ” Several short sentences about writing ” and I’m just over half way through reading it and it’s pretty good , I think , but I’m not sure why he sent it to me unless he thinks that I need a little help in my old age at writing or , at least , with writing sentences .

Not sure . Doesn’t matter .

I appreciate the gift . Might inspire me . Might energize me to write .

The friend who sent me the book is a writer , always has been during the almost fifty years that I’ve known him , as well as a musician (mainly guitar )and an artist who draws with a particular style drawings , mostly , and , lately , a prolific poet and blogger and , as well , a wonderful story teller if a bit meandering at times ; although his profession , despite starting out and ending up with teaching , was in a completely different realm , I’d say , of pursuit . Well , he had to make money to support his family and , as most of us know , teaching is not usually the place to make your fortune so at some point he temporarily ( for about thirty five years , I think ) abandoned that profession and applied himself with his various skills and determination to another field of endeavor but eventually he went back to teaching at a college level and , I think , found satisfaction in that and , perhaps , wondered if maybe he might have stuck with teaching from the beginning but maybe the thought never popped into his mind because he has otherwise built a good life for himself and his family for all of those intervening years earning a better salary that he would have in the teaching game and learning another universe of information and gaining a multitude of life skills from a whole different -from- teaching perspective and maybe knowing that , some day , he’d be teaching again.

Nice going ! , I say .

Oh , by the way , changing the subject , that trial in Wisconsin of the guy who drove an SUV through a parade killing several people and injuring dozens finally wound up . The jury went in for deliberations and I guess I blinked or went for a glass of water or something and they were back in the courtroom having determined a verdict. The judge was reading the verdicts when I peeked in. Seventy-six counts . Guilty on all of them as far as I know . Good . Justice done .

Next week comes the penalty phase of the proceedings . The prosecutor asked if some of it could be done over Zoom . The judge okayed that .

I don’t know if Wisconsin has the death penalty or not . I don’t know if I believe in the death penalty or not . Good thing I’m not on that jury . ( Of course , now that I checked on Google, evidently Wisconsin does not have a death penalty . )

Meanwhile , a couple of friends of ours are coming over to dinner . He’s a gourmet cook and she’s a talented decorator and gardener , but I doubt either of them has read a book of any sort from cover to cover any time in the last several years . Everyone is different . I haven’t cooked a gourmet meal . Ever. Or , for that matter , ever decorated a room . Ever .

But does assembling a table from Ikea count ? No , I didn’t think so. But assembling a table from Ikea requires a certain set of skills , nevertheless , you know , and extreme patience and some other interpersonal social skills in order not to alienate others in the vicinity during the process . As our friend Nancy says : Just saying !

I guess we all wander our own deserts always hoping for a Promised Land .

End.