The Curse of Learning to Read

I learned to read at a very young age and enjoy reading every day of my life. Without something to read before bed, I cannot sleep. I'm a lot like Felix in the Odd Couple TV series. In one episode, Felix finds himself in a hotel room with no reading material. He is in agony looking for something to read. Finally he finds a toothpaste tube with writing on it... after he reads those words, he is able to go to sleep.

Elaine is also an avid reader. The reading material does add up. Magazines, catalogs, newspapers, etc. Years ago I taught myself to speed read, but even with that, it piles up. A year ago, I set myself a task to read at least three magazines each day. I was able to do that for a whole year; however, it seems as though there are even more magazines to read than when I started. I wonder if I could do ten a day? Probably, the solution would be to throw all of the piles of magazines into the recycling bin and start over.

Why do I need to know everything that is written? Its an impossible task. Maybe I should just stick with the books that I read and the puzzles that I do. No.. I couldn't do that.. I might miss something.

This morning I sat down with the Sunday edition of the Baltimore Sun. I recently renewed my subscription (the price was right.) I started on page one and read for one hour. This is what I learned:

01. Mine That Bird won the Kentucky Derby. This was a 50-1 shot payoff! When I go to the track, I usually bet on the long shots. Why bet on the probable winners when the odds are not high enough to make you rich?

2. Preakness sales are very slow. (No wonder. No balloon festival. No BYOB to the Infield. No Mardi-Gras like fun anymore.) Will Pimlico be sold? Is this the last year for the Preakness. (Will the Baltimore area throw away another tourist bonanza, like Hausner's?)

3. The front page headline story is about the Lehigh Heidelberg Cement Company that is planning a 4 1/2 mile long conveyer to carry limestone from New Windsor to Union Bridge. The Lehigh Plant in Union Bridge, Maryland, is an amazing place with a sky-scraper tall building. My Men's Club spent some time there touring the facility. Its well worth a trip to find out what is going on in the cement business.

I've never been able to understand why Union Bridge, with all of its cement dust in the air, isn't a major home of people with lung cancer. I guess the company takes good precautions.

4. Colleges are luring students with all kinds of perks.. such as: climbing walls, swimming pools, Internet access, etc. It looks like the average college tuition in the Baltimore area is about $40,00 per year. Its quite a bit lower in outlying areas.

5. The Orioles lost again. But, I guess its still very early in the season for fans to get too worried.

6. There are now 4 or 5 cases of Swine Flu in Maryland. Four schools have closed down for 14 days because a student is suspected of having the flu. (Another source of news says that Mexico is saying that the flu epidemic is slowing down there.)

7. Representative Jack Kemp passed away. He served 9 terms in Congress and was Bob Dole's mate in a run for the White House.

8. Baltimore mayor, Shiela Dixon is planning a 60 mile bike ride today.

9. Governor O'Malley babysits his own children.

10. In 1789, Louis XVI called a meeting in Versailles. In attendance were the Etats General: 1st Estate: 300 members of the clergy; 2nd Estate: 300 nobles; 3rd Estate: 600 commoners. Years later, Edmund Burke referred to the Press Gallery of the House of Commons as the 4th Estate.. and the press has retained that name to this day.

11. Next week's temperatures will be in a range from 50 degrees to 73 degrees. Now that is more like Spring.

12. There will be a full moon on May 9th. BELLA LUNA! (Last nite I watched the movie Moonstruck for the hundredth time. I think that it is the best movie ever made. A LA FAMILIA!)

13. Humidity is around 75% today. (We have a weather indicator: a wind sock. We know that when it flaps, it is windy. When it hangs limp, it is calm. When it is wet, it is raining. When it is standing stiff, it is below freezing. When we can't see it, it is foggy. When it is covered in white, it is snowing. When it is warm to the touch, we are having a heat wave. When it has blown away, we are having a hurricane.)

14. Today, Ocean City, Maryland waves will be 3 feet high. (We got a call today that the condo we rent in OC is available for the three weeks we want in September and October. It is ocean front and we can sit on the balcony and watch those waves roll in... that is, if smokers don't rent the condo next door.. since they can't smoke in the condos now, they smoke on the balconies and the smoke is pushed towards us by the ocean breeze. For years, smokers could poison their lungs inside and we did not have that problem.)

15. Today, sunset is at 8:02 pm. (We had early Daylight Savings this year and some clocks are still screwed up. When I "save" this blog, the time is shown as one hour earlier than it is. Some clocks in Government buildings that adjust automatically, still have not switched over. Is this similar to the Year 2000 situation?)

16. Today, it will be 91 degrees in Las Vegas. (I swallowed a toothpick in LV back in 1958. It was buried in a sandwich and luckily I "burped" it up. If that happened in 2009, I would be able to sue the restaurant for millions.)

17. Today, Boston, Massachusetts is cooler than Anchorage, Alaska. (Perhaps "cooler" in many senses.)

18. It was 96 degrees in Frederick and Cumberland, Maryland last week. (How did I miss that?)

19. The City of Baltimore has found $40 Million dollars that had been in a file forgotten for a decade. (This also happened in Carroll County Maryland a couple of years ago, while I was on the Commission on Aging. I forget the actual amount, but it made a lot of people happy.)

20. Members of several Baltimore area communities had fun at the 2nd annual Boundary Block Party. (Baltimore's Butcher's Hill residents have block parties too.)

21. The Baltimore Sun has begun a newsroom restructuring.

22. Nicholas D'Adamo will not seek reelection in 2011, after 7 terms on the Baltimore City Council. He has ties to Highland Town. (New to Baltimore, I asked our landlords how to get to the famous Hausner's Restaurant. They told me to go to Hollandtown. We never found it that night because Hollandtown is how Highland Town is pronounced in Baltimorese. Luckily, we found it later and it became our favorite restaurant for many years.)

23. Crosswalk painting has faded away at one intersection and a student was struck by a car there. (Another case of the lack of maintenance because of a lack of money or motivation. When William Donald Schaefer was mayor of Baltimore and people would call him to complain about a pothole, the mayor would tell his maintenance people: "There is a pothole out there, find it and fix it." He would not tell them where it was. A lot of potholes got fixed that way. Maybe Shiela should say the same thing.

24. Four new trial judges have been appointed by Governor O'Malley.

25. I see the winning lottery numbers for Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and DC. Also the Megamillion numbers.

26. I see an ad for a very low rate of interest for a home equity line of credit.

27. I see an ad for a paving company that does demolitions.

28. I see an ad for the auction of upscale condos and homes in Baltimore.

29. I see an ad for a free seminar about dental implants. The ad shows Linda and Howard, "actual patients" with amazingly white and straight teeth.

OK... enough! This has been a recap of what I learned in one concentrated hour of reading the Baltimore Sunday Sun. I only got through 4 pages of the first section... so now you understand about my reading curse.

I should "Go and SUN no more!" But I can't.. as I said, I'm afraid I will miss something.