bookmobile

Bookmobiles Fall Victim to Budget Cuts

When I saw this headline, I was deeply saddened. And then I was thrown into a fit of nostalgia. I have written before about my early childhood, spent on the high plains of the Colorado open range. We lived several miles outside Peyton, a small town with a General Store, a post office, and a farm machine shop.

Peyton High School, where my mom taught, received weekly visits from the bookmobile. My dad and I would make the pilgrimage so that I could borrow Oscar Otter. I still have a vague memory of seeing the bookmobile parked by the school and being inside with my dad, book in hand. This pilgrimage was undoubtedly seminal in m lifelong obsession with reading.

Nowadays, information and knowledge are readily accessible at a much lower cost, thanks to Al Gore's internet. Still, I have a difficult time imagining how the Kindle will inspire a love of the written word in my children. The demise of the bookmobile is a highly symbolic event in the shift to digital knowledge. Still, because the internet has virtually eliminated the opportunity cost of searching for hard-to-find items, my mom located and purchased a copy of Oscar for my own kids to read. Maybe the world wide web can play a part in fostering my own kids' love for reading after all.

image from Wired.com

spinning

We love to complain about our long, arctic winters here in Minnesota, but there are plenty of reasons to get outside and enjoy the cold weather. A major reason, one that is an important part of Minnesota culture, is to spend time on the ice. After all, with more than 10,000 lakes, there's plenty of the hard stuff around.

Most parks feature an outdoor skating rink. Our house is close to Logan Park which has two hockey rinks with a skating rink between them. Last winter I was able to get out one time with Anna. I skated and pulled her behind me in a little red sled. This week we went back to the park. We ventured out onto the ice, even though we didn't have the skates or sled with us. Anna sure had fun spinning, though.

communion

Jesus does not eat with sinners to celebrate their sin. He does so to celebrate his grace.

Kenneth Bailey

in Jacob and the Prodigal