What's That?

Waking up. Sipping on my first cup and looking out the window; into the dark. And thinking that wouldn’t it be great to have an artificial geosynchronous ‘moon’ for us to enjoy. A huge Mylar disc that would light up the sky with reflected sunlight. Sort of a global night light. OK, I know; astronomers would hate it! Obviously I need more coffee.

In preparation for the weekend, I stopped at the library in the afternoon and browsed the new book section. I found a good one; Books by Larry McMurtry. Non-fiction. A story of the reading and collecting Mr. McMurtry and how he came to be.

As he is only four years older than I, there are some parallels in our lives, but only a few. He remembers being sick and in bed quite often during the ages of 5 and 6; for me it was the ages of 6, 7 and 8. He doesn’t remember learning to read at that age; he just did it, even though there were no books in his house. His seminal event came when a cousin gave him a box of 19 books and he read them; all of them. I was almost 8 before I learned to read. And after that moment of clarity, I couldn’t be stopped.

I’ve often wondered as to why I couldn’t read at an earlier age. Could it have been that Dick, Jane and Baby were simply boring characters and not worthy of my attention? Spot and Puff? Oh, please! So that might have been true. I know that once I had mastered the mechanics of reading, I went directly to books that were far beyond my so-called ‘age limits’. I remember that I enjoyed listening to adult conversation, so why wouldn’t I enjoy reading books that contained adult conversation in print? Are we making a mistake by dumbing down our children’s first school books?

Mr. McMurtry also cites radio and movie attendance as helping to form him in his youth. And his favorites at the matinee were the serials. Yes! There was nothing better than a Saturday afternoon spent in the dark confines of the LaMar theatre as I watched Flash Gordon battle Ming the Merciless; again and again.

And some light criticism of the book; yes, he rambles quite a bit. He can if he wants. He's Larry McMurtry.