Sunday, September 18, 2005

Odds and Ends

I think that I reported here that I had sold the old motorcycle? Anyway, I had used www.Craigslist.org to sell it, since they offer free advertising for things like that. It’s just like a newspaper ad, only free and it’s read by millions. Ever since I sold it, I have been receiving inquiries about it and I have to tell each one that the motorcycle is sold. But what was most surprising, was the apparently low literacy level of those who replied to the ad. Only one of the respondents was able to type a complete and logical sentence. I don’t think it was the subject matter of the ad (motorcycles) that was to blame for the display of poor writing skills, but rather, a symptom of our society’s inattention to the teaching of those skills.

On Friday afternoon, before I headed to Susanville, I helped to load many boxes of books onto trailers for transport to the local Catholic church and the upcoming book sale to benefit the Friends of the Orland Public Library. I was amazed at the number of books they had! They hold the weeklong sale twice a year and it starts on Monday with 53 tables filled with books. So it appears that literacy is alive in Orland…but for how long? (I also noted that most of the volunteers were, like me, over 65 years old.)

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