412 Books

 

I decided to do a book purge. The wife and I have been cleaning out the basement, cleaning out of it 17 years’ worth of accumulation. A big percentage of my accumulation is in books. The vast majority, that is. So I spent all evening taking about twenty or twenty-five trips up the basement stairs with a small tower of books in hand each time. I stacked them here, in the dining room, for further classification.

 

 

All told, there were 412 books in my basement.

Not pictured are 8 “essential” books stored in the armoire in my bedroom, and a set of Great Books of the Western World, 56 volumes in all, a gift from an aunt, stacked exclusively on a single bookshelf.

About two years ago I donated 220 Catholic themed books to my local parish. Around that time I also gave my student engineer nephew 50 physics and mathematics books. And I’ve roughly donated 150 books to my local libraries over the past two years.

Adding all that up, it seems I’ve collected 896 books. I think I brought about a hundred with me when we bought our house in 2004, so let’s pin that number at 796.

Divided by 17 years, that’s an accumulation of just under 47 books a year, or almost a new book addition every 8 days.

In retrospect, that seems so exhausting to me. How did I ever do it?

The next step is to divide them into categories:

   - DONATIONS

   - MILITARY HISTORY

   - SCIENCE FICTION

   - RELIGION

   - MISCELLANEOUS

I’m hoping to donate around 75 percent – 300 of those books pictured above. A friend suggested reaching out to the “vets”, an organization that would gladly accept books of all stripes. I’ll get the number from her and call in a few days.

How is Hopper feeling? Actually, pretty good. Light. Light-hearted. Like that lead vest the dentist covers you with when taking X-rays. For the ones I’ll keep are the real worthy ones, the ones worthy of a second, more in-depth read.

Breaking an Addiction

 

Two institutions that completely surrendered to FEAR and PANIC over the past year are the churches and the libraries. I’ll save the churches for another post, if I’m so motivated to overcome my utter disgust, but I’d like to take special note of the library panic since Covid.

It helped me break a serious addiction.

For the past, oh, three decades or so, I’ve let an addiction fester. It started slow, perhaps a fraction of what it was at its worst, but then grew, and grew some more, exponentially almost, absorbing my free time and eventually impinging on my obligations.

What am I talking about?

My ever-present, ever-growing, growling, incessant search for the Perfect Book.

It didn’t matter what my current interest was. Catholicism. World War II. String Theory. Therevadan Buddhism. General George McClellan. Number Theory. It didn’t matter. All I knew – I knew! – was that somewhere, in some library in my county, in one of those 88 linked libraries, was the Perfect Book.

So every Saturday morning, with the girls in tow, we’d hit a different library from an ever-widening circumference of libraries my habit familiarized itself with. And the special Saturday where we’d visit a NEW library. Oh, the Perfect Books to be found there!

Then it became a weeknight thing. Sometimes, if I ran across something at work that piqued the interest buds, I’d go on the county library collective website and survey a collection of tomes on said topic. Eventually I’d select a library, preferably one on the way home but not necessarily so, and stop in and make my steal and gleefully thumb through the book(s) when stopped at traffic lights.

It got to the point where I probably borrowed 300 or more books a year.

At my best, I only read 10 or 15 borrowed books cover-to-cover annually. That means I’m spending my waking hours thumbing through the indices of 290 or more books a year! I could waste a good two or three hours skimming chapters, tables of contents, and pictorial credits on one book alone!

Then, mid-March of 2020, Covid descended, with unbridled fear and panic in its wake.

The libraries shut down.

Shut down.

And I was forced to go cold turkey.

Fortunately, I also buy books. I generally have a 30-40 book backlog – the “On Deck” circle as I like to call it in these electronic pages. So I began making inroads into those interesting books I had but never had the chance to read ’cuz of all that thumbing through nonsense.

I even bought about twenty books in the past year – six of which were actually brand new!

The result is I haven’t read a library book in twelve months.

Now, the libraries partially re-opened a few months back. But when I entered one, I lost any respect I had for the institution. I’ve been patronizing libraries for almost 50 years, my mother was a librarian and I spent plenty of idle hours in one as a youth, and I even worked in one at college. But after what I saw, I swore off libraries forever.

Entering one you’d think you were in a post-Apocalyptic CDC lab during a bubonic plague breach. Police tape. Angry magic marker scrawls on white boards commanding one on the do’s and don’ts. Traffic cones preventing entrance into rest rooms. One library had a strict call-in-advance policy where they’d pick the item off the shelf for you and have it waiting in the foyer – no browsing allowed! Several have “quarantine shelving” for Returns. Another made me check out my daughter’s books – by angling the books to a scanner underneath a Plexiglas screen.

“You all must be terribly frightened,” I said to one librarian, in a moment of frustration and disbelief.

“We have a lot of seniors come here.”

Really? I thought, glancing about the abandoned wasteland of chairs stacked upon tables – NO SITTING! – and mobile shelving blocking off hallways. Really? I can’t recall the last time I saw a senior at a library, and if I was in a high-risk group I wouldn’t go to a library in the first place.

But I’m not bitter.

In fact, I’m grateful.

I’ve gained back control of my focus, and that is a gift beyond measure.

 

Tolkien Describes 21st Century America

 

“The Men of Númenor were settled far and wide on the shores and seaward regions of the Great Lands, but for the most part they fell into evils and follies. Many became enamoured of the Darkness and the black arts; some were given over wholly to idleness and ease, and some fought among themselves, until they were conquered in their weakness by the wild men.”

 

  - Faramir speaking to Frodo, Chapter 5 “The Window on the West,” Book Four of The Two Towers

Messages from the Mail ...

 

First, these arrived via post:

 

 

Then, a few days later, the doorbell rang, the dog barked and growled himself hysterical, and I found these on the porch:

 

Both packages had no return address.

A message has been sent to me; however, I am at a loss as to discern whether it’s a simple warning or something much more darker …

 

Places I’d Like to See in Texas

 

Okay, have some writer’s block, but it’s due mainly to being overwhelmed. Lotta stuff going on with the work front, on the home front, well, in fact, on a whole lotta fronts. I’m even struggling through The Two Towers, fer cryin’ out loud. So, when I get the block and feel the itch to write, the best thing I’ve found during these dozen or so years on the Hopper, is to write a list.

So, without further explanation, here’s a List of Places I’d Like to See in Texas, in no particular order:

 

The Alamo (San Antonio)

Yeah, this is the most tourist-y thing on my list, but I’d still like to see it. Especially the basement :)

 

The Lubbock Lights / The Marfa Lights (Lubbock and Marfa)

OK, these are cool, hair-raising tidbits of spookiness from some readings of my youth. In the 50s, Texans reported seeing strange lights in the skies and mountains around these two areas, looking off the local highways. Not sure if the mysterious lights have been explained to everyone’s satisfaction, but I’ve heard they range from headlights of faraway cars traveling faraway roads to campfires on distant mountains. Whatever they are, some think they ultimately have an otherworldly explanation.

 

Globe Life Field (Arlington)

To take in a Texas Rangers baseball game. Provided the whole wu flu thing is consigned to the dustbin of history and the MLB dials back on its wokeness to pretty much nil. I’d love to sit in the bleachers as the sun’s setting, overpriced beer in one hand and hot dog in the other, listening to the PA announcements, hearing the crack of a bat and the crowd cheering as the perennial mediocre Rangers win a game.

 

Dealey Plaza and the Sixth Floor Museum (Dallas)

This is a given. Might even re-ignite that bonfire of interest I had in the JFK assassination from 2010 to 2013 or so. So much to take in from that tragic day. I’d like to look down from Oswald’s perch, and then walk over to the “X” in the road where Kennedy was hit, and look back up to the School Book Depository. For extra points I’d like to track down the boarding room where Oswald was staying, but I don’t know if that’s still standing.

 

Stonehenge Replica (Odessa)

This is just weird, and it is exactly what it says it is. I’d check it out, because odds are I’ll get to Texas before I get to Wiltshire, England. Plus, there’s a 600-foot meteor crater located in the vicinity.

 

The National Museum of the Pacific War (Fredericksburg)

As a WWII buff, especially over the last year or so, I’d love to wander the halls of this museum. I’ve read they have one of the midget submarines the Japs used to sneak into Pearl Harbor on that infamous Day of Infamy. Just read an excellent book on the December 7, 1941 attacks in January, and have two more on deck dealing specifically with the Pacific. I would soak this up in awe and wonder.

 

Stevie Ray Vaughan’s grave (Dallas)

Ah, my great unrealized dream as an aspiring musician in the 80s was to see SRV live. I had two opportunities, in 1986 and 1990, and let them both carelessly slip away before the master guitarist’s untimely demise. I have several CDs and have always been amazed by his technical abilities. Plus, the wife is a fan, and unusual conjunction of our musical tastes. A visit to his graveside would be quite reverent and moving.

 

NASA’s Johnson Space Center (Houston)

Visiting this place would be like me as a kid in a limitlessly infinite candy store of infinitude. Saw some pics on the web, and I would love to actually see up close the capsules that launched the men into space and ultimately to the surface of the moon and back.

 

Aurora UFO Incident (Aurora)

Back in the late 1890s a wave of “airship” sightings spread across the US. The most famous occurred over this Texas town. An airship is alleged to have crashed on a farm, resulting in the fatality of its pilot, said to be “not of this world.” The creature was buried in a nearby graveyard, marked by a stone, but over the years both the stone, as well as the body, vanished. Spooky goodness!

 

USS Lexington (Corpus Christi)

WW2-era aircraft carrier, the replacement for the Lexington lost in the Battle of the Coral Sea, docked here permanently since 1992 and functions as a museum. It participated in some of the “island hopping” invasions after August of 43 and fought in the Battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf.  As fascinating as the Pacific War museum but more “hands on.”

 

There ya have it. Things to do if I ever get down to Texas.

Cape May

 

So the Mrs. and I motored down to the southernmost end of New Jersey, “Exit 0” on the Garden State Parkway, and spent the weekend at a bed and breakfast in Cape May.

It was a relaxing two days. The weather here is finally turning from winter to spring, and though it was still a little too cold and too windy to go sans jacket, the sun shone brightly both days with nary a cloud in the sky. Saturday we walked close to 9,000 steps (according to the wife’s Apple watch) as we walked among the shops and the streets lined with bright-painted Victorian gothic mansions.

Our bed and breakfast was this sprawling two-century old complex located two blocks from the beach and two blocks from the town center in the opposite direction. We were able to park in a spot on the street right in front – metered parking was not enforced – which helped greatly in unloading our bags. The room was on the third floor, a large bedroom / sitting room / bathroom affair, with six windows overlooking the town. Two church spires highlighted the landscape. There was an extremely comfortable couch, ancient hardwood floors, and, best of all, a king-size bed! I was so enamored with the layout I pronounced that if we could only take the room, put it by itself in a cottage a mile from a beach anywhere, that would be the Platonic form of a retirement home for us.

We ate like royalty all through the weekend; me, specifically, like King Henry the VIII. Friday night, after sitting in Jersey shore traffic for nearly four hours, I was craving a burger and a beer. We checked in, and in less than twenty minutes I found myself sitting in an old Irish pub, drinking a fruity, chunky IPA and downing the messiest burger I ever ate. This set a trend for the weekend. I tried a whole slew of IPAs and wolfed down fish tacos, crab cakes, apple waffles, and egg soufflés. (Though I had my breakfast with OJ, not IPAs.)

In our down time relaxing in the room or in the early morning hours I’d read while the wife watched her newest British historical melodrama on her iPhone with her ear buds. I finished The Fellowship of the Ring and put away fifty more pages in The History of Venice. During our shopping strolling time I slipped into a book store, found a well-stocked World War II section, but could not justify paying full price for what would be a roll of the dice.

One of the sights of Cape May is a gorgeous Catholic church, Our Lady Star of the Sea. Two years ago on our last visit down here I was able to go inside and soak up the atmosphere. Saturday, however, there was an Irish funeral going on (there was a shamrock on the Hearse and a horde of green ties), someone very major based on the turnout and the fact the church was essentially walled off. But I did get to take in the amazing stained glass windows all about the outer stone façade. It was quite transcendent.

All in all a refreshing 40-hour break from the daily grind.   

Our room was at the top, the two windows on the right ...

Annnnnd the picture doesn't do the room justice ...

458 Miles to Rivendell

 

I’m not a big Facebook guy. Maybe log in a few times a week, mainly to see what’s up among my childhood friends and extended family scattered about the US. However, I noticed that whenever I do log in, I am bombarded with three types of ads:

– Dog-related products

– Keto diet food products

– Virtual walks

Now, I can understand the first two. I’m sure I posted something at some point about my dog and about my on-again off-again love affair with keto. But these virtual walks? I don’t know.

These are promotional gimmicky things where you can virtually walk the length of Hadrian’s Wall or the Camino del Santiago or some other noted historical length. Hadrian’s Wall is the winding barrier in Northern England established by the Roman Emperor Hadrian. And the Camino is the walk Catholic pilgrims take from France to Spain, with markers along the way. That might not be a bad thing to put on the bucket list.

Anyway, I got to thinking. Now that I’m two-thirds into The Fellowship of the Ring, my fifth foray into Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings in forty years – why not do a virtual walk of that? Accompany Frodo from his comfortable home in the Shire, Bag End, all the way to Mordor and Mount Doom, a walk that takes place in the story over six months (with ample rest in Rivendell and Lorien).

Superb!

Then, after a bit of research, I found out that the journey is something of the order of 1,800 miles. At my leisurely pace of 1.5 miles a day, that’d take me over three years. Ugh. These hobbits can walk, man.

So then I decided to shorten my trek with Frodo. How about only to Rivendell? How far is that?

Turns out, per the title of this post, it’s 458 miles.

Up here in northern New Jersey we’ve had a very cold and snowy January and February, particular last month. So my 2021 mileage has been a mere 10.5 miles. That puts me still firmly within the bounds of the Shire. But now that the thaw seems to be leaving, and if I can average 10 miles a week (that’s my route, slightly increased, five times weekly), I can get to Rivendell in 44 weeks, or sometime the middle of next January. If I up my daily walk to 2.5 miles, five times a week (doable for these old bones), I can reach Rivendell by Thanksgiving.

I texted out to the family my desire to walk to Rivendell.

To which my oldest daughter replied with a nerd emoji.

Sigh.

But at least it gets me out walking in the sunshine!

 

N.B. One of the most interesting references for the devout Tolkien fan is The Atlas of Middle-earth, by Karen Wynn Fonstad. I bought it about a decade ago and was astounded by the degree of detail found within its pages – distances, geography, elevations, it is a legitimate atlas of a wonderful, though imaginary, world. Once I’m through with this re-reading of Tolkien (probably by mid-April) I plan on taking a walk through the atlas again.

 

Historical

 

Now firmly ensconced in my sixth decade sojourn on this spinning rock, I made a surprising self-discovery about my non-fiction book habits. It came suddenly upon some reflecting over my past year of reading during these crazy times.

I’ve always been a reader, but as each decade goes by I’ve read more and more, something not quite exponential but certainly more than just linear. In my twenties I read maybe 5-10 books a year. Thirties, about 20, 25. In my forties I upped that to 40-50, and a few years back, just shy of fifty, I read 60 books cover-to-cover one year, my personal record. I’ve reviewed a couple hundred of them here on the Hopper, but for every book I review there are three or four that miss out on that dubious honor.

Here’s what I found. In the mid-to-late 90s, as I was wrapping up the whole garage band thing and going to school for physics, my reading was majorly, quite naturally, in the physical sciences. Primarily physics, but with a hefty dose of astronomy and some math. And by majorly, I guess about 75 percent. Yeah, I still read thrillers and horrors and SF, but this is my nonfiction I’m talking about.

In the 00s, I pivoted from physics to majority philosophy. Why? Well, I had dropped out of my physics core at Seton Hall and finished up with a degree in business, so there was no practical need to immerse myself in the sciences anymore. The people I was hanging with at the time were not scientifically minded. But why philosophy? I guess I was trying to find out the meaning of life. Or, to put it in a less cliché way, find out how to navigate it. A set of rules, principles, guidelines. I had just married and soon bought a house and had children. And I needed to know why.

Then I had some major health issues in 2009 and 2010. So, again not too surprisingly, my major nonfiction reading trended toward religion. God. Jesus Christ. Christianity, Catholicism. And other major belief systems, such as Buddhism (Therevada Buddhism appealed to me intellectually), Hinduism, Christian Science (which, as Mark Twain snarkily remarked, is neither Christian nor Scientific). Yes, I had had a conversion experience in 1992. But I am a creature of recidivism, in need of constant consistent convincing. Which I still am to this day.

Now, since the Bad Year of 2020, I have primarily read nothing but History. In fifteen months I’ve put away nine books on World War II and am currently twenty percent into a thick volume on the History of Venice. Why Venice? Why not? It intrigues me at this moment of time. (Plus, it fits into a subplot in this master novel I have been outlining for the past couple of months.) After Venice, I want to return and revisit more intensely Rick Atkinson’s WWII trilogy I had previous read in stages over the past few years. Then, an overview of the medieval age and a pre-“woke” biography of Christopher Columbus. After that I want to travel through the definitive history of the Holy Roman Empire, whatever that might be.

Why? Perhaps it’s just me feeling historical myself, here in my sixth decade sojourn on this spinning rock.

Perhaps some interesting and intriguing tidbits about Venice in the days to come …