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Texas
Guest blogging by Tom Michael
As guest blogger for the week, it’s nice to be on the same page as mistersugar. Because he’s one of the most avid readers I know, he may appreciate this tale.
I live in the Big Bend region of rural Far West Texas, in the state’s largest county, at a spot called Calamity Creek. Big skies, few people. The nearby towns are Alpine, Marfa, Fort Davis and Marathon. Add up all four towns and we still don’t reach 10,000 – even on our tippy-toes.
I serve on the board of a local library, which is raising funds to build a new facility to replace the little cottage that houses it. The other day, an old man from the senior center walked in. He announced he’d never been in a library and had only read one book in his life (the Bible), but he wanted to try another. The librarian gave him Texas, by James Michener.
Since he was in a library, he thought the proper thing to do was to sit down and read. And that’s what he did, page by page – more than 1,500 of them. He came into the library in the morning, left in the evening and said very little.
A few days later, he finished Texas and returned it to the librarian. “That was a good story,” he said. “This Michener fellow ought to write another.”
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Anton Zuiker's personal website and
While I’ve read plenty of James Michener — The Source is my favorite — I never did crack Texas. See my earlier post about how Michener gave Richard Gildenmeister his nickname.
— Anton Zuiker May 1, 12:50 PM #Go Tom Go. Hope all is well in West Texas, hope we can meet your NC inlaws sometime. And of coures, Fiona Mae looks lovely.
— tift May 1, 01:51 PM #I love Michener. I think Chesapeake is my fav. I’ve never read more about breeding dogs or building boats, but I loved it!
— Mary May 2, 09:32 AM #If you liked Chesapeake, you will most likely love Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs, and the Chesapeake Bay by William Warner.
And, as for older Texans turning to books for the first time, one should really, really read Life is So Good by George Dawson and Richard Glaubman. Dawson walked into a Dallas literacy program one day and announced his intention to enrich his life by learning to read. He was 100 years old. His book goes back a lot farther, and the first chapter haunts me most days.
— Ed Darrell May 5, 11:42 AM #