The New World

I don't know what Christopher Columbus felt like when he finally saw land on the horizon after months filled with scurvy and dysentery at sea. You have to remember he was looking for a new sea route to the far east. Kinda got off track. I'm sure one of the emotions he had was a kind of intellectual bafflement. (I may have coined a new term for What the hey?)

I think I have been feeling the same way. Looking at this new world I'm living in. I was listening to NPR 91.5 FM on the radio and learned about a new website that is posting - much like facebook - everything a person uses his or her credit or debit card for. It's a social thing, not a financial thing. This way - the web site designers say - you can keep up with the Jones. You can see that the Mrs. spent $400 at Banana Republic and the two of them dined at Chez Louie. The designers say this is to help you make decisions on how to spend your money. You can see what your friends are doing so that you can do it too.

Huh?

Okay, it is understood that anyone my age is pretty set in their ways, but I'm typing this blog on a laptop, so I'm not hopeless. But, at the same time there are some things I just don't get, like wanting to know where my friend Charley spent his money. And there are definately some things I just don't want to become modern.

Like books.

I've heard of the I-Pad and the Kindle and can see the writing on the screen. But, I have a den. And in that den I have a wall length bookcase. And in that bookcase I have real honest to God books. And I love them. I love the way they smell. I love the way they feel. I can only set at a screen and read for so long but with a book I can go all afternoon. I recently picked up a book by Raphael Sabatini called Captain Blood. This was made into a great swashbuckling movie back in the thirties starring Errol Flynn. Half of you don't know who that is but he was the Tom Cruise of his day. The book is not a reprint. It is an original printing from 1922. The writing style is a little heavy handed, like it was then, but the story is a great one. Captain Blood was Doctor Peter Blood, a man who disdained politics but because of that and the fact he wouldn't choose sides between two - what he felt to be - silly factions, he is arrested and sent to a prison island in the south Pacific. One great thing leads to another and next thing you know he is the most celebrated pirate on the bounty main, exacting his revenge at the point of a sword. Great stuff for the romantic in us.

And it's a book. An old hard back book. And even when I'm not reading it again - I can look into my bookcase and there it is in all it's purple cover and gilded print glory.

And it's already downloaded for the next time.