Saturday, June 02, 2012

One Large Leap

They, whoever "they" are, say that time flies when one is having fun.  I have come to believe that one season flies after the other.  Is this the blessing reserved to the old?  Or is the curse of those of us that would prefer to have a few more years of good eyesight and the brains to read.

And there is a darling, yes darling, camera in its new box under the Math Card Catalog in our bedroom. The high school librarians chose the physical catalogs for a symbolic putting away of the cards when the collection was digitized. I have an assortment of prized things in that catalog.  I kept one drawer of the math cards and now wish I had gone into the collection and chosen a few from each drawer.  This is what is meant by older and wiser, perhaps. 

The one year old, new camera awaits my fumbling fingers and the two inch manual awaits my numb brain.  A person has to move around and pretzel oneself into many positions to take reasonably good pictures.  I don't know what happened to my once agile self.  I have to practice getting off of the floor now and do it sporadically.  A couple of decades ago I took a goodly number of photographs from the ground.  Little grand-kids are not tall and even though a stumpy 5 foot, I find that is not low enough to take pictures of my unfolding ferns, flowers, or little children.

On Wednesday I will be taking a four and a half hour test to see if I can still think.  If I can, I will clean out the Jeep Wrangler and dust off my driver's license and practice on the busy Omaha streets.  I might have a book or two in this old wise noggin and I have a book to clean up and send off to the Library of Congress.  During all of this testing and doctoring I now know I have no brain bleeds nor any brain tumors.  All I have left is plain old age atrophy of the frontal lobes and who knows what else.

Test or no test life is very enjoyable and I have a houseful of wonderful reading head of me.  We (He Who Must Be Obeyed) and I, the reader, started "Dust to Dust: A Memoir" by Benjamin Busch.  I learned of it on C Span II's Book TV and it is going to be as good as I expected.  I am easily captivated by a good book.

3 comments:

Hildred said...

Oh Willo, I know what you mean about getting up off the floor, - and getting the joints moving after sitting too long. I find it helps to lift myself off the chair as gracefully as possible and then just stand and look around at pictures on the wall, or out the window, before I start my journey to wherever I am going.

Charles has a driver's test looming too. Good luck to both of you...

Anonymous said...

Greetings Willo,

I am so pleased that you took my book, Dust to Dust, into your life. I would love to know what it awakened as you journeyed through it. Thank you for looking at the world again with my eyes.

Be well,

Benjamin Busch

Willo said...

Dear Benjamin Busch,
I often listen to Book TV on C Span. There you were again this past Sunday. Your unique thinking fascinates me as did in "Dust to Dust."
As a child in the short grass prairie of the northern high plains. When one's nose is close to the ground a person sees things that many others seem not to notice.
Having a Western Artist father, my childhood was often spent in describing aloud to him what I saw from the horizon to my bare feet. Hence, I think observation is a talent that can be developed.
Two 'crossings' (with you) in the same week is nigh onto a mini-miracle.