Homo sapiens – that’s us folks – have been communicating with written words for thousands of years. Some of us conquered Sanskrit at an early age, like me. Not true! I’m your typical American who can be identified anywhere in the world because we’re mostly mono-linguistic. I have enough trouble with English, let alone worrying about a bunch of foreign languages. I was forced to take Latin when I was in high school and I have to admit, I did not do well. As a matter of fact, it screwed me up for life, as you can tell by the way I write. At that point in my life it didn’t make a lot of sense for the simple reason the only time I heard it was on Sunday, and now they even quit doing that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking the classic languages. I saved the Latin primer for many years just to remind myself that – being dyslexic – there are certain things that you should avoid.
I imagine the Dead Sea Scrolls would be a bestseller if anybody could truly interpret their full meaning. There are some Mayan writings that nobody has been able to fully comprehend or find a suitable Rosetta stone. Even the cavemen tried to communicate in artwork on cave walls, which they left for posterity. It’s a good thing they didn’t have a paint spray can. Our contribution in this regard is best defined as graffiti and tagging.
My early reading skills were relegated to comic books and publications like “Mad Magazine.” I had an early alias, “Alfred E Newman.” My favorite saying was “What? Me worry!” I wish I had saved those comic books as well as Mad Magazines, because it turns out they’re worth a bunch of bucks these days. A good book to me in those days was one with a whole bunch of pictures. I did like National Geographic because every once in a while they would show a naked lady, which by today’s standards was no big deal and is rated PG-five. Some years ago, there was an ad that was touting cigarettes for women. The caption was “We’ve come a long way, baby.” I think that’s appropriate with some of the publications I see on the newsstand or at local grocery store. But I digress.
Our new technology has all but killed what used to be called “newsprint” or “the daily newspaper.” To a major extent it’s been replaced by the television news and certainly the Internet. The demise of some of these so-called newspapers is no big deal, because over the past few years much their publications weren’t worth wrapping fish in. There is an added advantage to having instant news and a real disadvantage if it is an erroneous report. We have a tendency to jump to all sorts of conclusions before all facts are in. Bad news travels fast, and good news has a tendency to take a backseat, or in the case of newsprint, a back page. It seems that thorough news reporting in any media has taken second place to ratings and advertising revenue.
Now, I make these comments as a man of experience. Amongst my many careers, I was once the newspaper business – I had a paper route! I was pretty young, maybe 12, but had this opportunity to become an entrepreneur. In those days, your family had put up a deposit with the local newspaper. I remember thinking that this must have been the way that Clark Kent got started, and he ended up as Superman. I also thought about the fact that he had to wear a cape and leotards, and I was not about to get caught dead in a pair of leotards. I can hear my peer group now “There goes JJ, riding his Schwinn and wearing his leotards.” The other discouraging side was the probability that my cape would get caught in the spokes. As a side note, that’s what killed “Isadora Duncan.” She was not on a bike though. Look her up on the web! Besides, I had developed an early fear of flying. So much for “Up! Up and away!”
So the routine was at approximately 5 o’clock every morning, a truck would unceremoniously dump the day’s papers on my doorstep and I would get up and fold the newsprint so that I could do my deliver bit. The smell of fresh newsprint is rather unique and not at all unpleasing. So I would hop on my trusty Schwinn and assault approximately 70 sleeping and unsuspecting homeowners with their morning news. Most of that time I would just throw the thing in the general direction of the front porch, except if it was raining, then I had to dismount and put the paper in a dry place. I really hated Sundays because of the size of the newspaper. It must have weighed 3 or 4 pounds. You could get a hernia trying to throw one of those damn things.
There were a lot of negatives to this new-found profession. One was the called-in complaints by subscribers who said they didn’t get a newspaper, which their dog probably ate and for which I would get docked money. The other was trying to collect for the monthly delivery from a bunch of people who were deadbeats. I lost my route when I came down with pneumonia, and I think the total escapade costs my family 30 bucks. I should’ve put in for Workmen’s Compensation, but I don’t think it existed then. So much for this scheme for wild riches.
Back to the concept of books and reading. My curtain climbers have introduced their curtains climbers the phenomena of ancient paper scrolls, currently called books. Some of them are actually on paper, but others are on yet another whole new technology. At least this one is possibly far less damaging than all this “game stuff.” I have one of these Kindle things and it took me six days to figure out how to use it. I exaggerate – surprise, surprise! However, it seemed like that. I can use this device for reading, and so far have little to complain about. However, I have a real difficult time trying to “dog ear” the page when I put the book away.
If you don’t know what “dog ear” means, find some senior (meaning more than 16), that looks like they can read. Ask them to tell you, or if you can still find a library, mention it to one of the people working in there. They used to be called librarians, and chances are they’ll throw you out on your ass after they’ve stripped you of your library card, which you probably don’t have anyway! If you don’t understand any of this, you will have to ask somebody old or get on the web, because there is a whole different world that’s potentially comatose, and is rather unique.
For those of you that have not had the opportunity and comfort of reading a book made from trees or rice chafe or whatever, you will discover that it has the added advantage that if you don’t like it, you can use it to start a fire. This can’t be said of the Kindle. It used to be called reading a book. I have a friend that got one of these “readers” and he was using it when he felt it get extremely warm. He put it on the counter and watched it melt. The only book that I ever read that could have a possibly done that was called “Ulysses.” Hot stuff!
There was a movie some years ago called “Fahrenheit 360” or something like that, which was basically a futuristic fantasy. It described a society which had a law, that if violated, was punishable by death or some other meaningful penalty. The crime – having possession of a book! The neat part of this fictional story, or maybe not so fictional, was the evolution of the secret society of people who memorize complete novels and formed a secret subculture to keep the concept of creative literature alive. Human books! Their meeting place was in the forest amongst the trees. More tree-huggers in action. To hear a book, you had to go up and whisper the secret words which were “You’ve got mail.” Think about that one a brief moment or two. I know, you’re out of breath, and sometimes thinking hurts or can give you the hiccups.
Looking at where things are going in our current and somewhat grievous social structure and our technological binge, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe fiction is turning into fact, and possibly, life is beginning an imitation of fiction. Other ancient publications that accentuate this possibility were written many years ago, meaning the last century, by a guy named Orwell (I think it was called “1984”), and another by a very intuitive female named Rand, who wrote “The Fountainhead!” Both of these pieces of probable fiction forecast the total demise of individualism, a lack of personal clarity in life, and the complete degradation of the intuitive concept of personal independence. I digress! God help us, this really isn’t any fun, but unfortunately very real.
Moral of the story – You can sleep with a real book and not run down your battery! Keep it clean!
J.J. Addingnuttin 