Robert E. Regut
The books
I’ve never been interrupted by a commercial while reading a book. There’s no volume control that has to be adjusted for being too loud or too soft. I can interrupt, stop, or restart the program any time I want. I just open or close the book. If I want to take what I’m reading with me, I can carry the book. I’ve never tried to carry a TV set. Another reason for not having to carry a TV set would be that I don’t have one. For the last 10 years or so. I’ve never missed it. The reading of books alone would be able to fill all the time in my life if I lived a thousand years.
The really greats in life, be they Shakespeare, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, or whoever, have never personally been on TV. If you’re looking for them, they’re in the books. All of them. And many more.
Occasionally, people ask me what I like to read. The best answer to that is probably the word everything. If anyone wants any more detail, I’ll usually say, “Just look at my bookshelf.”
None of this ever involves having to explain anything like how to get information through some piece of equipment that’s the newest rage in technology. I’ve never encountered anyone who has trouble understanding how to open or close a book.
I have encountered and heard of a few people who have never read a book.
Is it the opening and closing that they have trouble with?
The joy of gardening
Both my woodchucks and my raccoons have made it through the winter. I tell myself if they can do it, so can I. They don’t have central heating, either. I don’t have a vegetable garden, so we don’t have to argue with each other about who owns what’s in one.
As youths, my sister and I had to spend most of every summer weeding everything in my father’s vegetable garden. He’d plant enough vegetables in our New Hampshire garden to feed about three Russian armies. After planting everything, he’d go away and leave us to weed all of it. That did it for both of us. Today, I’m getting my vegetables at Hannaford and I don’t care if peas are $28 a can.
REGUT
(Robert E. Regut is a graduate of West Point and a teacher with 20-plus years of experience in the teaching of foreign languages, specializing in the teaching of spoken German. He can be reached at P.O. Box 101, Nobleboro, ME, or at robertregut@gmail.com.)
