Reading

Dear You,

It is not possible for me to remember not being able to read, nor was there ever a time since I began when reading was not a deep pleasure. For many years I have said that if Heaven is the place with no books, I would seriously consider spending eternity elsewhere -- anywhere there might be the written word. I am compulsive about print. I read the cereal box even if it is the same material I read the day before.

My morning begins, though, not with cereal but with coffee and the newspaper, and I am distressed by the possibility that I will outlive newsprint -- I read that papers are folding everywhere in the world in favor of other media people are using to get their information. I linger over the newspaper, even though the one here in Rochester, New York is not much of a paper -- not compared to, say, the St. Petersburg Times, which I have access to in the winter months.

While I scan every headline and read most of the paper, I don't read every story. For instance, on page 2C today, under "My Pet World" I saw the headline, "Blot out cat urine before neutralizing the odor." Even then I registered the first sentence (Q: You once wrote about cleaning up cat urine.) before tearing my eyes downward in search of something . . . well . . . something a tad more interesting to me.

Still, reading remains always at least potentially valuable. Should I ever find myself with an incontinent cat, I will know to search the archives for this bit of information. But not today.