‘TO READ IS TO LIVE’

“It is often said that one has but one life to live, but that is nonsense. For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.” - Louis L'Amour, Education of a Wandering Man

           Anyone that knows Ol’ Burr can tell you that I'm never without a book, and with good reason, too. For each book that I delve into, takes me somewhere I’ve never been, allows me to experience different cultures and life in other time periods, and to witness daring adventures, by characters far more exciting than this over-40 divorcé what lives up behind his parents’ barn will ever hope to become.

I’ve ridden the highline trails of the Rockies with the likes of mountain men Titus Bass, Smoke Jensen, and the Sacketts, I’ve slipped through the old growth forests of Colonial New England with Natty Bumpo and Chingachgook as we made war on the hated Mingos, and I’ve ridden night herd on Mr. John Chisholm’s Longhorns on the trail to Abilene. I’ve hunted buffalo and fought the Cheyenne alongside Bill Cody, and thanks to Apikuni, I’ve hung on every word of the stories told by the Blackfeet elders as they sat around their fires during the dead of winter.

          I’ve sat across from young Aristotle, at the Academy, in Athens, as Plato himself lectured us on philosophy and science. I traveled as an ‘observer’, of sorts, with Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s Corps of Discovery expedition, and I was there as Prince Madoc oversaw the construction of a series of stone fortifications near the headwaters of the Coosa River in present-day Georgia. I’ve fly fished for trophy trout with Joe Brooks, and stoodby in awe as ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt fired round after round into a charging bull elephant before it finally collapsed, very literally, at our feet. I vividly recall the day that Dirk Pitt found the lost city of Atlantis in Antarctica, and just as fresh in my memory is that harrowing day in June of ’44 when ‘Easy’ Company of the 101^st jumped in behind the German lines at Normandy.

Photo of bear hunt from 'Our Southern Highlanders'

I’ve also endured the hardships of a Smoky Mountains’ winter bear hunt with Horace Kephart and his beloved Southern Highlanders, sat for hours at Sloppy Joe’s Bar in the Keys sippin’ Mojitos and listenin’ to Hemingway boast of the Marlins he’s caught, and I’ve traveled across Europe and Asia in the company of the Hansgraf’s merchant caravan, plodding along to the methodical beat of the Walking Drum. I also saw the look in Todd Beamer’s eyes when he gave the signal of “Let’s Roll!” as he and his fellow passengers revolted against their terrorist hijackers, causing United Airlines Flight 193 to crash in a Pennsylvania field instead of into the White House, and I was there amid the smoke, the dust, and the acrid smell of burnt gunpowder, watching in horror as Lt. Mike Murphy and his SEAL team were surrounded by the Taliban in the mountains of Afghanistan and cut down in the prime of their lives. These are only a small sampling of the myriad of lives I’ve lived.

Books not only engage and entertain one’s mind, but they teach and instruct, as well, opening new horizons and constantly increasing the reader’s wealth of knowledge. I have been fortunate, for I had Stephen Ambrose as my American history professor, and I learned oceanography from Captain Jacques Cousteau. I cut my teeth on modern political science with Beck, Levin, and Limbaugh, while Lee and Grant gave me the fundamentals of military leadership, and Washington and Adams, a primer on civic responsibility. Yes, I have been very fortunate, in-deed.

I can’t even begin to imagine how boring, how lackluster my life might have turned out had it not been for my love of reading. Thank goodness for my having enjoyed spending my elementary school days with Dick and Jane, and for having had such a wonderful person as Dr. Seuss to hang out with later on.