Saturday Musings

1. Browsing through a book in the New Books section of the library today, I found a folded twenty dollar bill and a check for $578. Fortunately the check was endorsed "For Deposit Only." Who uses a twenty dollar bill and a $578 check as a bookmark? Or a library book as a hiding place for valuables?
   
2. I checked out One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (yes, I'm a little behind on my reading). Check out the opening sentence: Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. Now that's an opening sentence.
3. I took Lovett (and Marquez) to the skateboard park this afternoon. Watching Lovett try to do an Ollie brought back frustrating reminders of him trying to learn to ride a bike. After we got home, in the back yard, he did one. I don't know who was more happy/relieved, him or me.
4. Dora had two little girlfriends over for the day. They spent most of the day in the woods behind the house. And in the creek. That's my baby girl.
5. Buck Owens died today. He was 76, and predictably his obituaries led off with his stint as co-host of Hee-Haw. But Buck had a pretty impressive career before that. His Live at Carnegie Hall album is in my CD collection. His harmonies with Don Rich are hauntingly tight. Don died in a motorcycle accident in 1974. I remember it well.
   
6. I finished Bob Spitz's biography of the Beatles this week and I realized how illiterate I am about their music (can literacy be applied to music?). I was still into Sesame Street when the Beatles broke up, so most of my familiarity with them is the yeah, yeah, yeah stuff. So I polled a couple of co-workers who are a decade older than me about their favorite Beatles albums. One chose Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, while the other chose The Beatles (The White Album) and Sgt. Pepper. So I ordered Sgt. Pepper and Revolver. Apparently, I'm behind on my music too.