Dropping In Reading - Religion

 Today, I decided to look at two small books on my Bible shelf: the Jefferson Bible and Lincoln's Devotional.

 The Bible was actually a reprint of Jefferson's attempt to make a "Bible" from Jesus's words in the gospels. He began it in 1804 but didn't complete it until 1819.

Lincoln's little book was a devotional from a sect in England in 1852, with a short saying for each day of the year.

Interestingly, just as I was sitting down before lunch, and after I had looked at the two books above, I glanced at one of my Shakespeare shelves. I was going to read a novel from the local library, "If We Were Villians" by M.L. Rio, and it involved college students and Shakespeare and murder, etc. I noticed on the shelf a book by Joseph Pearce titled "The Quest for Shakespeare". When I pulled it off the shelf, expecting it to be about who Shakespeare really was, I was surprised to find it was an argument for showing that he was a Catholic in a very un-Catholic period of time in England! 

I am adding this to my Reading List - along with the two small presidential books. 

Varia 4

 Yes, it's been a while since my last post, so I thought I'd try to log in a few things that I may or may not expound upon later. I'm calling this #4 since I went back and checked to find I had used the varia word in the title three previous times. (Before I did that, I was sure I had done it many more times!)

So here goes:

• I am joining two more real, meeting-in-person book clubs in addition to my monthly Zoom mystery club, I've been a member of since COVID.
• My 81st birthday passed with nothing really notable.
• Drop-In Reading - a new thing I am starting. More later.
• I recently had a scratched cornea. Kinda limited my reading. Almost completely better. Will talk about it later.

Speak of the devil - "Later."  ;)

Reunions

 The last two days have been exciting in terms of finding old friends. Yesterday while I was sitting in my living room chair watching English football, or soccer, my phone rang. It was an unknown caller, the address was Glen Bernie, MD. Usually, when I get an unknown number I ignore it. I don't know why I didn't this time, but I answered it. A man responded to my "Hello" with "Could I speak to Ron Grandel?". I replied, "This is he".  He said, "This is Rich Morseburger, your driver from Vietnam". 

I couldn't believe it. When I first on Facebook in 2010, Rich was one of the very first people I looked for, but couldn't find him. Turns out, that he doesn't have a social presence online. Anyhow, we chatted for almost an hour trading stories, mentioning common friends from Vietnam, and each other up-to-date to some degree. We left our phone call of almost an hour promising to each other some photos we had each taken.

About two hours later, I got another call from a northern Virginia area code.  I didn't recognize it, but feeling good about my earlier call with Rich I answered.  It was Cordell Burch, my 3rd platoon leader from Vietnam. Rich had called him and gave him my phone number. Once again we reminisced about 1969 Vietnam and brought each other somewhat up-to-date.

It was a very gratifying afternoon. 

Then this morning I FB message from one of my Xavier ex-cadets, Mike Patti. He found a favorite teacher of his, Al Nilles, who lived in Lexington, Virginia. He sent me the address and I am going to try to look Al up (Al and I would run the annual school walkathon instead of walking it). 

All in all, it was a good last two days.

A Family Death

 My Uncle Wayne died last Friday. He was eighty-nine. He would have been 90 next month. Only nine years older than me.

He was a very good man. He was a juvenile delinquent. He gave my mother's mother many a day of angst, fear, and anger. But eventually, he married and settled down, had two sons, and had two grandchildren by the time he passed. He was an Air Force veteran of the 50's. He was a welder for most of his working life.

He would always call Jerry and me on our birthdays and wish us a happy birthday.

I will miss him.