Neat quote about books

I am reading the book: DEWEY, the small-town Library Cat who touched the World by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter.

If you have not read it yet, its a great read. About Iowa, Cats, Libraries, Small Towns. I am not done yet but its better than Marley, in that Dewey Readmore Books touched more lives when he was alive, than Marley possibly did posthumously.

Anyway on page 164 I gleaned this truthful tidbit about the Book as a media type.
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The covers may be more colorful, the art more expressive, and the type more contemporary, but in general the books look the same as they did in 1982. (when Dewey showed up as a frostbitten kitten in the book drop of the Spencer Public Library)
And that's not going to change. Books have survived television, radio, talking pictures, circulars (early magazines) dailies (early newspapers), Punch and Judy shows, and Shakespeare's plays. They have survived World War II, the Hundred Years' War, the Black Death, and the fall of the Roman Empire. They even survived the Dark Ages, when almost no one could read and each book had to be copied by hand. They aren't going to be killed off by the Internet,

And I can add Kindle, and video games, and all kinds of other things to this quote. It is a very user friendly media. Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobles and other bookstores are thriving. Libraries may not have the circulation statistics that they used to have, and the book drop at the Spencer Public Library is no longer full, because many are using the Internet for research, but books are handy, comfortable and will be around for a long time to come.

Saturday Morning Confusion

Saturday Morning Confusion
the song above by Bobby Russell is funny, and tells about the sacrifices Dad's make to enjoy their families and have their families remember them well. Aside from the reference to a hangover it reminds me of my own Dad. He was a good one.

It has been so long since I posted, I almost forgot how. I posted to another group my sentiments about Dad's Day. Hope you all have a blessed one.

A friend who commented about another friend's weight loss, which was easier, because they are not dealing with meds that halt progress, nevertheless got me thinking that in spite of the pain from trying to walk yesterday, I must get back on program. So I made up a blank spreadsheet based on the one I had been using to track nutrition. Doctor wants me to do 45 carbs a meal. Except for snacks.

When I transfer the data, Excel will take over for my poor math. And poor handwriting, and give me a food diary to present to the doctor. I get the nutritional info from Spark People. com

I will be happy if I can actually start seeing the needle on my scale move.... Downward, that is. It doesn't move at all. Maybe I should take the scale apart and remove the superglue?

Anyway. This is rambling, so my apologies to those on the mailing list. I am watching Charles Stanley In Touch, which is my Sunday Morning luxury. Choir is not singing this morning so I don't have to leave so early to pick up Joyce, the lady down the street in the senior building, who just got up. Stanley is good this morning. He usually is. Why are all of the good preachers old, like me?

This morning, my feet hurt, but everything else is good. My friend in the hospital is going to be released Monday, and sent home with 24 hour aide! Guess the insurance company of the guy who hit her on her bike is going to pay. Glad. She will like being home. Basically her attitude is good, but her bod is not cooperating. Suffice it to say an enema did not work yesterday. My friend who is a nurse is her nurse this weekend. She is in good hands.

I will check on her this afternoon. I hope things will be better and I hope if they are not, that they don't send her home, even though she would like to be home with her stuff and her little kitten. Considering she could have been killed, she is doing very well. Trust this little set back will be changed.

Well. Time to go. If you get to watch In Touch with Charles Stanley later on today on another channel, do it. He is so throrough. God bless you all, especially the Dad's.

Childhood memories fast forwarded

TELEMARKETERS FEB 18, 2009

My mother was probably one of the first of those annoying telephoners now known as a telemarketer. However in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s this was a relatively new phenomenon. In fact in those days the job was known as Telephone Solicitor. Initially she worked out of the home using none other than Ma Bell’s Telephone book and called people to make appointments for such folk as Kirby Vacuum Cleaner salesmen, or awning sales. It was always sales, and the job was good, as my Dad had retired in 1955, and had a limited pension. Mom’s extra income helped with our small family that time-to-time had to rely on surplus foods from the government, which was before the days of food stamps. Sometimes we ate a lot of bean soup, but we got by. Since I had fought with a weight problem most of my adult life, I was surprised when someone who knew me from those junior high school days, referred to me as a “skinny girl.” I had matured earlier than my peers and always had thought I was “fat.”

Well the other day I got one of those annoying calls on a Sunday, and since I do not have caller I.D. on the phone in the basement, I answered it. The poor gentleman on the other end got an earful from me, I am afraid, first for calling on a Sunday, and secondly because he represented Comcast in its never failing effort to make me take up their telephone service. I did tell him that I understood it was his job, and not his fault, but that I did not do business on Sunday, and I considered A T & T’s independent from DTE power lines an asset. While the Electric could go out, and the Cable could thus go out, the phone company seldom went out and when it did, usually it was not at the same time that the electric did so. Thus a separate phone line was a huge asset and I did not intend to disconnect myself from this resource. In fact after the blackout of a few years ago, I went out and purchased a “land line phone” which can work independently of electricity, so I would not be without phone service should another blackout occur. Comcast’s assurance of battery back up, is not insurance enough for me. I felt bad that I had let this young man bear the brunt of my frustration, but he was well prepared and handled his end of things fine, and even has taken my name off their calling list, at least the calling list for Sunday.

Back to my mother’s day. Solicitors were not quite as annoying as computer generated phone calls, or the guy from a third world country, or the person in an office somewhere calling five people at the same time in the hope that one would pick up. My mother progressed from using a normal phone book, to using the City Directory and later on something called Donnelly’s yellow book which listed numbers in our town not by name, but by street name and number, thus making it easier for salespersons to go to appointments. And most people were polite to her including the matron of the county jail, who had a regular listed number. This woman responded to my mother’s pitch by exclaiming, “I don’t need no awnings. I live right here at the jail!”

Later on the sales pitches became more pressing, and as a result, the people on the other end had to become ruder and sometimes just plain hung up. This was long before caller I. D. By the time I was sixteen and old enough to work, sometimes I would go with my mother to some of the makeshift offices her supervisors would set up. One such was in the Harrington Hotel, an old but formerly glamorous hotel in downtown Port Huron. I would imagine that having young girls come to old hotels to visit rooms that salesmen from out of town had rented, was somewhat suspicious, but even then we were still called telephone solicitors. It wasn’t until the 1980’s that I heard someone tell me they were in telemarketing, not soliciting. I guess it was earlier that the term Solicitor fell into ill repute, although it is still used to describe some members of the legal profession. Apparently Lawyers do not mind.

Groundhog Day and other trivial pursuit

GROUNDHOG DAY

Anyone who handles a toothed rodent on a cold day in February ought to have their head examined. Especially if the rodent bites them, as one named Chuck did in Michigan. Nevertheless we were told there are six more weeks of winter. Since this January has had the most snowfall in Michigan (or is it Detroit) since they have been recording such things, I guess six more weeks of this is a bit much. You folks in Florida, best stay put for a while. And my friend Katie who has not gone down there yet, will soon be going and no doubt will be very happy doing so.


FACEBOOK: The person who got me to be aware of Google blogspot, invited me to join Facebook a social networking site, originally set up for college kids. It recently opened to the general public. Much to some of the kids chagrin, Mamas and Papas, Grams and Gramps, and this Auntie are now on board, and enjoying ourselves on it as we check in on what public news our own friends and families have deigned to share. Mike Wendland of the Detroit Free Press wrote a column about this phenomena at about the same time that many of my friends and family were signing up.

Facebook is why I have not made many entries here, but I am presently typing all of this up on MS WORD, and will add it, but not send it out to my mailing list for reasons of length. I kept putting off my newsletters which I have to get to, because my blog entry came first in my priority and needed to updated. So here it is. I shall add graphics later, as I am up quite late typing this and need to get to bed as I have a doctor appointment tomorrow AM.

THIS ‘N THAT

Senior health concerns: Sometimes when we seniors get together it is an organ recital. We are so amazed at how in such a short period as perhaps five or ten years, we could go from an occasional pill to a regular regimen of medicines and vitamins. Or how we now have several doctors whom we regularly visit, whereas in years past we only had one or two, like a dentist, and a GP. Now there are endocrinologists, and Podiatrists, and Chiropractors, Optometrists, or Opthamologists, Acupuncturists, or muscle doctors. It’s a little hard not to talk about these doctors and the procedures and fears that have become such a new portion of our daily lives. Today I had lunch with two friends, both of whom are seeing muscle doctors. I wonder if my frequent visits to the chiropractor and an every other month full body massage at my hair salon has any impact on why I don’t seem to need that particular type of medical care. I feel for my friends.

Mortality: A while back I had the disarming thought that if I live to be 80 years old, the age my father was when he died, I have sixteen years left. That surely gave me pause. And yet, I feel I waste so much time, reading, watching TV, and having fun. Seems like I should be doing something that will contribute more to my final mark on earth. The biggest involves filing and thinning out files and shredding documents. I have had a good week when more than one bag is put at the curb on Thursday nights.

CHRISTIAN MUSIC.: I noticed today on WUFL that many old songs are being set to new music. Music with a beat so intense you could dance to it. Not that the old tunes did not have a beat. All music has a beat. But these have been redone in a tasteful way to appeal I am sure to a new audience. I found that the old tune was retained, and the old words were emphasized, but a rocking beat was inserted. I tried today and was able to sing the old tune along with the new one and it worked. Not perfect for congregational singing but the message of the song (Leaning on the Everlasting Arms) was retained, so that was hopeful. These are good songs and it would be sad if they did not make it through many generations of Christians.

Then my friend Joyce brought an article to my attention from Christianity Today about the loudness of many church worship bands. Since many in my church have taken to wearing earplugs in church, for the part of the service that used to be enjoyable to them, I include the link in this article.

Also yesterday I heard that George Beverly Shea, Billy Graham's long time friend and singer in his crusades in the Fifties through the 1990's, has turned 100 years old. What a heritage and influence he has had on modern day Christians, and our world in general.

MUSIC OF THE SIXTIES AND EXERCISE CLASS
My new exercise class is an hour long. It includes about twenty minutes of varying degrees of aerobics. These aerobics are the equivalent of doing twenty minutes of jumping jacks, but include various dance steps, like the Mambo, the Grapevine, etc. I find my coordination suffers during this part, so it must be good for me.

Irene, the teacher, allows us oldies who can’t do it all to go to the bikes when we have severe pain. I find that each class I can endure a little more before my bike time, so I must be doing better. The second part of the class is much like the exercises we used to do for an hour in our arthritis class, but that class has been cancelled twice because not enough folk signed up. I tried a chair exercise class the first time it was cancelled, but found that I cannot do all of the exercises sitting that these chair folk can do because of my deteriorated disk. I thought that because it hurt it was doing me good, but discovered I started retaining fluid and gaining weight.

So hopefully, this class, Senior Fit, will work for me. It is a lot more enjoyable because there are a lot of folk in it including five very brave men. Once a month the ladies and one man go out to eat lunch after, and that was fun. Today while exercising to the music of Wild Thing, I experienced pain and thought “This is the punishment we get for getting old, or for listening to that precursor or hard rock back in the sixties.” Fleeting thought. The good thing about exercise this way is that the pain only lasts a little while then you switch to exercising some other part of your body that does not hurt as much.

SUPER BOWL. So how about that game? Best one I ever saw. A real “heart stopper’ as a friend said on Facebook. Good game. Wish the Arizona team had won, but then Pittsburgh did set a record. Sixth Superbowl win and first team to do so. It was a great game. Far better than the ads this time and the halftime show was not bad. Music of the 80's Loud but well done. What was that about the choir in the background on the last number Springstein did? Looked like some choir robes I have seen recently.