Outside of a Dog...

Thing I am thankful for this week: books.

My house growing up was jam packed with books.

Our front hall had two walls covered with book shelves made out of old army rifle cases.

Forget about swords into plowshares; I’m all about rifle cases into bookshelves.

The back room had three walls of floor to ceiling shelving. Well, not quite ceiling; but the space between the top of the shelves and the ceiling was crammed with books on their side.

In fact, books were crammed anywhere that had space.

On nights when I couldn’t sleep, I would sneak downstairs and into that back room, pulling off books randomly and reading. If I got bored with a book, I’d stuff it back into the shelf and grab another.

I still can’t get comfortable in bed at night without a book.

When I was a kid, I had three desires that would mark the perfect future.

One was to have a wine cellar, but instead of wine, it would hold bottles of soda. All kinds; all in big glass bottles.

The second was to have a two-story library in my house with a rolling ladder. Like in the movies.

In fact, my favorite scenes in MY FAIR LADY were all in Higgins' study. Not that I cared for where the rain in Spain fell; I just admired the scenery.

So here’s to books – with special thanks to Jack and the gang at my book club for refreshing me with that same childlike wonder.

Just my thoughts,

Sean

Oh, title to this post comes from Groucho's quote: "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog, it is too dark to read."