Monday Morning Musings
Posted on February 25, 2019 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet
Free Books!
Sometimes, I think I’m a Luddite. I’ll save you the trouble of looking it up. A Luddite is someone who opposes new technology.
My wife bought a new car last week. We have been driving the same trusty vehicle for ten years but decided it was time for an upgrade. Ten or twenty years ago, going to pick up a new rig was pretty straight forward. You were handed a couple of sets of keys and the owner’s manual. You shook hands with the salesperson and drove away. The entire transaction may have taken 15-20 minutes tops.
Our old car had old technology which suited us fine. You walked up to the car, unlocked it (manually), sat in the driver’s seat and inserted the key, put it in drive and off you went. If you wanted to open the windows, you grabbed the handle and turned.
After a perfunctory welcome, we were brought to the staging room. Our car sat alone in a temperature controlled, well lit room. The salesperson got in the driver’s seat, my wife in the passenger seat and I sat in the back seat with a new set of tires. Charming. For nearly 90 minutes, we learned about new car technology. It was both spell binding and headache inducing. There is no way a technologically challenged person like me will ever figure out all of the features. Give me my 1970 VW Beetle!
This reminded me of a day last summer when our washing machine was on the fritz. My sister in law offered us theirs. She wasn’t home when I went up to do the wash. More new technology. I loved the old washers and dryers that had an on/off button and a timer. I thought about calling NASA to see how to get liftoff but wisely chose to wait until our repair man was back in town to fix our washer.
I’ll keep this brief as I have alluded to this topic probably a dozen or more times. It’s a lineup story but for once, it’s not about me choosing the wrong one. A friend was coming behind me with her groceries. Our lineup was short but when she saw me and knowing my history, she opted for a busier checkout. She exited the store before me. Just sayin.
It’s official. I have booked my flight for Spain on May 1st. I will spend the month of May walking some 750 kilometres across northern Spain in hopes of completing the El Camino. I have decided that my fifth and final book, will document these travels.
Speaking of books, please keep your eye out for an event coming up in the near future. Most of you know that libraries like People’s Place are chronically underfunded. Tens of thousands of people use the facility in the run of a year. Friends of Antigonish Library (FOAL) are a group of volunteers who raise money to help the library buy extra materials.
I have decided to donate a bunch of my books to the library. For one week, anybody can come to the library and take a copy of any of my first three books for free. They’ll be at the circulation desk. The caveat is that I’m asking you to make a donation to FOAL if you are able. At the end of the week, I’ll be doing a presentation about the perils of publishing books. My first book sold extremely well but numbers 2, 3 and 4 have been less than stellar. If I can’t give them away, I’ll have to do some soul searching. Actually I asked one of my siblings to comment on tepid sales of my India book. In characteristic brutal honesty she said that people are sick and tired of me! I was hoping for something a little gentler like “people aren’t reading actual books anymore.”
African Heritage month winds up at the end of the month. On Thursday, I will be publishing a contributed story. It’s long so grab a large coffee and take a look. It is a true story about the Mason family from down Sherbrooke way. It took place in 1865 and it chronicles the events of a black slave being rescued from jail. I love the story and I’m sure you will to. It was written by a member of the Mason clan.
Have a great week.
P.S. I remain puzzled. In this age when communicating is so simple, why do we end up in this small town with three marquee events on one night? It happens regularly and is so sad. The audience gets dispersed. The entertainers are cheated and patrons have the unenviable task of choosing one over the other. This is particularly troubling for groups trying to fundraise.
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