Wednesday, March 31, 2010

No rain today...so far...


This bird better hope for no wind.
I hung my laundry outside today, hoping for no rain. None so far, but it does not look good for later today.
I am enjoying reading The Big Burn, a history of Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot. They palled around a lot. Pinchot was in love with a young lady who died from tuberculous very early. He talked with her after her death. When he went camping with others, he would never sleep in the camp. Instead he went off to sleep away from everyone else, so he could chat with his dead wife. (He married her after she died...).
If you traveled to Washington State, you see the name of Gifford Pinchot as the name given to the big forest up there.
More than half of this book takes place before 1910, the year of the biggest fire in the United States since it became the United States. At times it burned 3,000,000 acres in a single day.
This why I like to read read biographies to learn about the times the person lived.
The worst biography I ever read was one on Sandy Koufax, my favorite pitcher of my favorite baseball team. That author put in one or two paragraphs at the end of each chapter to tell what was going on in society during the time he pitched. I remember most of his pitching career, but that book was terrible.
I have seven more books waiting for me at the libary plus 3 more "in transit."
I will spend the next two evenings reading The Big Burn to finish it before going to the library.
Steve

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