The circle goes on

People want such different things from life. Most people seem to want pretty much what their parents did, or at least they did before television. And now many of them end up doing similar things anyway because that is what they know.

Of course books expand the world, but in the world I grew up in there were readers and there were the rest of the people.  I knew people who only had two books in their house, a Bible and a phone book and the Bible was problematic.

Our house was divided.  Not against itself, but into readers of books and readers of magazines and newspapers.  Sunday morning saw the paper divided into sections, Dear Abby, comics, sports, obituaries, editorials, front page.  Various magazines were piled next to chairs in the living room, Life, Saturday Evening Post, National Geographic.  Various others were hidden in the linen closet behind the bathroom.  None were forbidden, some were just meant to be read more discreetly.  My father's library was never off limits either.  I could read anything in there, but he had the option of discussing it with me and he exercised that frequently.

Actually it was a pretty well rounded world.  I miss it.

Conversations were as much a part of my childhood as eating dinner or riding in the car.  Both of those times were chances to engage in topics that tickled my imagination and broadened my views.  I miss those too.

Politics were discussed, loudly and passionately, but there was so much more!  Everything from the Rosetta stone and the crown jewels, to Hegel and Tesla,  mixed in with Grimm's fairy tales and Frank Baum.  I might read the Sunday comics at breakfast, discuss William Blake at lunch and listen to a dissertation on Plato and Socrates at dinner.  I read about the Beatles in Playboy.

Life was diverse.

Then came the lean years, when conversations were sparse and mostly perfunctory ones about people, politics and religion and the world became smaller and smaller. I lived among people, but of a different species who spoke a different language in a different culture and I was starving.

Funny how living alone opened the door to a banquet I never dared to dream of for years and years.  Now my day can begin and end with the most fascinating conversations and in between I find so many wonderful things to occupy my time, all of them appreciated, that I sometimes wonder if I am only dreaming.

I am finding what I want in life and it really isn't too far from what my father wanted.  Isn't that interesting?