It was pretty dull around here last week. Even the sunrises and sunsets seemed a bit duller than usual. My distractions and adventures were mostly cerebral involving music (I’m still listening to Mozart – I’m in the middle of the string quartets now) and books.
 |
| The best sunset of the week on Saturday. |
When I was in seventh grade (I went to Tallmadge Middle School in Tallmadge, Ohio), I had a study hall in the school library. On one of the shelves near my assigned seat at a table at the back of the library, a book caught my eye. I don’t know why. The cover, a simple blue and white striped dust jacket, wasn’t eye-catching. The book was thicker than any I’d ever read before and rather intimidating. But for some reason, it called to me. I took it from the shelf and went to the librarian to check it out. She seemed to want to discourage me, telling me it was above my grade level, but I was determined and she let me have it. It took me more than a month to read it, I had to renew it several times, but I finished it and it changed my life. The book was The Once and Future King by T. H. White. Since that first reading in 1970, I’ve read it at least ten more times. If I was forced to name my favorite novel, I would have to choose it.
 |
| This was the cover of my first read. |
When I was finishing my bachelor’s degree at California State University, Northridge, I had to take an exam called the Upper Division Writing Requirement. Everyone had to take it and pass it before they graduated. It was a formidable exam. You had to show up on the scheduled Saturday morning with five of the lined exam notebooks called blue books. They gave you four hours to complete it. It consisted of an essay written on a topic announced at the beginning of the exam. The topic on the day I took the exam was “Choose a book that has influenced your life and tell how. Give details.” I think I might have smiled when I read that. It was the perfect topic for me. For a second I thought I should write about the Book of Mormon, which certainly was and is the book that has most influenced my life. But CSUN was a very liberal school and I thought the graders would be prejudiced right from the start if I chose the Book of Mormon (odd how being “liberal” equates to having a prejudice toward religion), so after a moment’s reflection, I chose The Once and Future King. It had greatly influenced me. Through reading it I’d come to love Medieval history, the Arthurian legends, and wonderful writing. Through its influence, I went on to read many books on Medieval history. In fact, the degree I was finishing was a history degree with a major in Medieval history. I filled all five blue books and it didn’t take me four hours. I don’t remember now all that I wrote, but I remember that the words seemed to flow easily from my mind onto the pages of those blue books. When I got the results of the exam, I had an unheard of perfect score and they asked if they could keep my blue books to use as example of a perfect score for other students. I don’t mean to boast (well maybe I do a little), but I was very happy.
Two weeks ago Josiah came to me and asked me to recommend a book for him to read. I love it when that happens. I persuaded him to read The Once and Future King. Of all my children I know that Geoffrey, Miriam, and Hannah have read it (I’m not sure about Rachel, Sarah, or Daniel). I’m excited to have Josiah read it now. I love discussing it every day as he’s making his way through it. The book is divided into four books, The Sword in the Stone, The Queen of Air and Darkness, The Ill-made Knight, and A Candle in the Wind. Josiah is still in the first book. I’ve enjoyed talking to him about it so much that I decided to take a break from reading my massive set of Churchill’s History of the Second World War and read The Once and Future King once again. It’s as wonderful and enthralling now as it was the first time I read it.
By sheer coincidence, I had the misfortune of watching part of the Disney cartoon, The Sword in the Stone, at school on Wednesday. I know that Disney is famous for changing classic stories to fit its studio formulas, but they really failed with this one. They took a magical and charming story and made it miserable, dark, ugly, and stupid. I wonder if they even read the book. And the cartooning style they used is awful. I hate that cartoon.
Josiah was away at district band competition on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. This year it was held closer to home in Emporium, Pennsylvania, just an hour away. He didn’t pass his audition to go on to the regional competition. I told him to practice more. Oh well. Stacey and I drove down on Saturday to attend the concert and bring him home. The concert was wonderful – one of the best we’ve attended. After the concert, while we were in Emporium, we had dinner at the Pizza Palace (named best pizza in America several times – and it was really good). This was our last band competition – another “last” for us as our last child finishes high school. This week Josiah will be gone Wednesday through Friday to attend the district chorus competition.
 |
| Northern Potter at our last district band festival. |
On our way home from Emporium, as we were coming into Gold, we saw a large flock of wild turkeys on the hill across the road from Burrell’s. We stopped the car and I took some pictures. There must have been 50 of them, but they were so spread out across the field I couldn't fit them all into one shot. Also last week, we had a Cooper’s hawk visit our yard. It came in the evening looking for little birds at the feeders to eat. It didn’t catch any. It perched in the maple tree just off the front porch. I ran to get the camera, but by the time I had it, it had flown away. It was a beautiful bird. Oddly, I don’t mind it when a hawk takes a bird at my feeders. A cat bothers me, but not a hawk. Hawks are part of the natural order of things, house cats are not.
 |
| Wild turkeys on Saturday. |
It’s warm today – an unseasonable 54° right now – and it looks like it will be like this for the next few days. The snow, what little we had, is melting fast. When we got home from church, I took a quick walk around the front flowerbed where the snowdrops bloom, half expecting to see them there. But there is no sign of them yet and that’s a good thing. Tomorrow is just the first day of February. February – the longest month of the year to me. I think that tomorrow, while the weather is still nice, I’ll make an inspection of the orchard. It will soon be time to prune the trees. One of the first garden activities of the year. Something I always look forward to.
 |
| A subdued sunset last night. |
