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| A water color on paper by Adolf Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel (1815-1905) |
I'm not yet on board with reading devices. I've played with them and I appreciate the marvelous factor. Truly.
But here's the moment I keep returning to:
It's 2005 and I'm sitting heaven side (seat #21) in the library of the St. Louis Historical Society. I've been here for hours already, am thinking the day has brought all it can and am wondering the odds of finding a second Mounds Bar in my purse.
The librarian who's been bringing my requests all afternoon steps to the table and whispers quietly, "Judging by what you've been asking for, I thought you might like to see this."
She sets down this small and quite worn black book that's maybe 4x5 inches. Her hand rests on it a moment before she smiles and walks away.
I realize something special has been set before me but I can barely read the faded handwriting in this book. It takes another moment for me to realize I'm holding the diary of a Civil War era southern woman. She had written her thoughts as Sherman's troups camped on the grounds of her plantation. Her husband was elsewhere in the war.
It was a moment my friends. A moment where thoughts of Mounds Bars fade. A moment impossible with even the most marvelous of reading devices.
Perhaps that's the rub. As one who smells books, who caresses pages, who believes objects - especially books - possess their own energy, then maybe it's the sterility of iPads and Nooks etc. that I'm resisting.
They're the way of the world, I know. But I wonder your thoughts. Am I alone in this resistance?
Neither here nor there, but I would have been part of the French Resistance.
One more confession...I haven't a smart phone either.
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