Coop's Corner: Some Books

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Some Books

Here we are in mid-February and I'm rapidly approaching the end of my own Reading Season. It normally begins mid-November but of course that's very weather dependent. To be more accurate, Riding Season and Reading Season almost never overlap.

This winter I've been especially indulgent....work days (only 4 per week but still) find me leaving the driveway at 5AM and then, after checking the mailbox, returning to the very same spot at 5PM, if I'm lucky and most days I am. By the time I finish slowing down, get something to eat with even a hit of 'settle', cozying up next to and beneath the table lamp in The Chair it all too often defines the height of my ambition although the last couple of months have found me putting in some treadmill miles each evening, I do seem to find ways around that more often than I should.

The Dewey Decimal system is not practiced in my library; the best books are at eye level on the very first shelf, a few drift down to the 2nd. Present right there in front are 3 that get read annually, the perennials. There are a few paragraphs in each of them that I almost know by heart, not because I've made that a goal but because over and over repetition seems to be the only way this sort of thing stays with me and those paragraphs happen to. It's now been decided that there are 4 books that will be residing right there in front. Michael Perry's Roughneck Grace is the new arrival and I'm confident that it will become as beat up and properly patina'd as the 3 that are first, second, third. I own 3 of his other books which have and will continue to be revisited, just not like this one will.

My Christmas List this year contained 2 things, one of which was this book and the other was a (small) box of chocolate turtles. I received the entire list I requested plus a couple of bonus items, all of which I'm very thankful for.

So, that one had its first read-through and is now placed up there, 4th from the end, ready for next year.

I've just started the brown one below, its 2nd reading, the first was done back in 1974 IIRC. Not really sure why this one came to mind again, it my most recent Southern Tropical Brazillian Rainforest Area acquisition....well, yes, I do too. It has a lot to do with where I'm making early plans to spend some time exploring late summer. Attempting to learn more about those areas and their history, I've been on a quest to find out more.

As long as I've been on a historical kick lately, I may as well mention these two books which as you might imagine, have been waaay, waaay in the back of the Reference Section. My Reference Section is out in the shop and is actually quite extensive, dusty and almost forgotten just like in real libraries. Between motorcycle history, travel and vocational tutorial/manuals, there are a few shelves packed out there with boring and specificational details though there is quite a collection of beautiful outdoor photography of wild and not so exotic places as well.

In just about the deepest and most obscure area in the R.S., these two have been tucked behind, usually their back bindings pushed in as deeply as the shelves will allow. Honestly, I haven't looked at them in years, or rather inside of them for years. I've glanced down there every once in awhile, smiling though apprehensive about actually reaching down and pulling them out for a look-see, just in case I might be tempted to fall back into a time from my past, a time the kids have referred to as "Dad's Vagrant Years". I've been told that I'm not ready for that relapse quite yet.

One old guidebook.....

A 2nd old guidebook......big, solid and no paperback this one, an honest to goodness hardcover!

Here's old Ed himself in the loving arms of his parents.....

From Ed's "Motorcycling" chapter......

There is no measurement system whereby I would be considered a reader and my page turning accomplishments pale in comparison to the titles Peg and our offspring have been through; voracious readers all. They'll read as many books in two weeks as I do in two years and they've got their mom(s) to thank for that. I'm proud of them and at the same time in no way ashamed of my little collection of volumes owned and borrowed.

February is winding down and my reading season is almost over, hopefully I'll get all the way out to Montana Territory and the origins of the Missouri River in the brown one before the ditch starts flooding. One bike was rolled off the lift this evening (with an effective front brake!!) and the next one is queued.

There will soon be little time for slothful reading.

(Our library makes the borrowing of audio books extremely swift and convenient......)

4 comments:

SonjaMFebruary 17, 2017 at 11:39 AM
I always love to (re-)read books like these to get myself into travel mood and bridge the non-riding season...
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David MasseFebruary 18, 2017 at 3:40 PM
Doug I commend you and yours for your excellent reading habits.

My own taste runs to non-fiction. At present I am reading three books, allbeit very slowly: Amy Cuddy's "Presence", Thomas Friedman's "Thank you for being late", and an exercise book "Aging backwards".

With a little luck I'll wrap them up by the time the riding season rolls around.
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)