Solonor's Inkwell

My wife knows me too darned well.

She works at Barnes & Noble, where they get advanced reading copies of books. (drool…drool…) As soon as she picked up “The Measure of All Things” by Ken Adler, she knew it was for me.

The book is about two Frenchmen–Jean-Baptiste Joseph Delambre and Pierre-Francois-Andre Mechain–who were commissioned to survey a path from Dunkirk to Barcelona as part of the creation and perfection of the metric system. What the author discovered, however, is that Mechain made an error in his calculations and that Delambre covered it up after the former’s death. Juicy AND geeky…can’t wait to read it.

While I was out galavanting, I got the chance to read a couple of books. Granted, they were not Dostoevsky, but compared to what I have been reading lately (i.e., nothing)…

Anyway, the first book was Summer of ’49 by David Halberstam. I can’t believe I never read this one when it came out. It concerns the incredible 1949 pennant race, between the Red Sox and Yankees, that came down to the last game of the season.

Continue reading →

Well, I’m back from Dallas. Holy crap was it hot! (100-deg hot). I am ever so thankful to be back in humid Florida, where it’s only in the 80’s. Plus, I didn’t have Internet access (to speak of), and I missed my Road Runner!

Miss Lucille was a preacher in Jessup, Georgia. That’s not hard to believe, after you sit next to her in a church service for a while. Where she is usually hard to understand (a combination of her thick southern accent and advanced years), she’s clear as a bell when she recites Psalm 23–“The Lord is my shepherd…”

Paul and I helped Miss Lucille go to church today. It sounds like such a small thing. How hard is it to walk downstairs, holding the hand of a lovely lady? But I haven’t felt much more joy than those few minutes at Westminster Care of Orlando.

We visited Grandma’s House, while we were there. That’s the wing where the children (and their dogs, cats, birds, bunnies and fish) reside. At Westminster, the concept is that a lonely old person can help a lonely young one to heal. So, both kids and adults are on the same grounds. (I’ll rant about how some of the kids wound up there another time.)

Meanwhile, Venita and Emily worked in the Gingerbread House Restaurant at Give Kids the World in Kissimmee.

Give Kids is the brainchild of concentration camp survivor, Henri Landwirth. He created a 51-acre, non-profit resort for kids with terminal or life-threatening illness to come with their families and visit the Central Florida attractions. There, they celebrate Christmas every day, and ice cream flows like water.

It doesn’t take huge wads of cash or hours of Mother-Teresa-like devotion to make the trip through space on this ball of dirt a little nicer for your fellow passengers. I’m sorry if this sounds preachy, but get out there and help somebody. OK?