By Jim Heffernan
All around me, I hear advice to withdraw from the ceaseless noise of the news cycle. I am listening to those who tell me to look within and contemplate the grace that’s been bestowed upon me.
I am grateful events gave me the gift of learning to read early and well. Better yet, I was given the gift of loving to read.
I like to say I was redshirted* in the first grade. It sounds better than sent back to kindergarten. The parish I grew up in did not have a kindergarten so I went straight into first grade. I lasted a few weeks, but they sent me down to the minors at another school that did have a kindergarten. I was in the first grade just long enough to learn the rudiments of reading. My new classmates at kindergarten were amazed when I decoded written words for them.
When I got back to first grade, I excelled in the reading class and I was a year older than the other kids. It gave me an advantage on the playground. I was never bullied, but sometimes I was the bully. Thankfully, my victims often had older brothers and cousins, and,yes, sisters who disliked bullies. They cured that tendency in me.
I developed a mania for books. There was a branch library on my way home from school that fed my appetite. I still remember the thrill of getting my own library card in the third grade.
When I started caddying at age 12, I had money every day and as fate would have, there were stores with books on the way home. I amassed field guides and “Made Simple” books whenever I could. (“Made Simple” books were a series of cheap paper-bound books that were published in the 50’s. They covered subjects like “Chemistry Made Simple”, “American History Made Simple” and “Algebra Made Simple”. I must have bought a dozen. (The one about Algebra was lie.)
Fast forward to 1964. I’m an 18-year-old one stripe Airman taking college classes at night. An engineer pops into the shop after hours when I am using the typewriter for an English assignment. He tells me I should take a speed reading course.
It was good advice and I took it. I’ve read rapidly ever since. Sometimes the words seem to just pass through my brain, but most of it sticks.
The birds at the top of the page are something that have stuck in my head since, I’m guessing, 1968. I clearly remember the image of the birds, but it took a fair amount of mental archaeology to remember where they came from.
My first guess was “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley. Right author, wrong book. They are from another Huxley book, “Island”.
The rest of the book is fuzzy. I remember a man ship-wrecked on a futuristic island. Sex, gender roles and reproduction are wildly different. The drug Soma was in it and it was something like a sacrament.
But I clearly remember the mynah birds. They were throughout the island and were trained to say “Here and Now” and “Attention”.
“Here and Now” and “Attention” were cornerstones of the futuristic island, and those mottos should underpin our world as well.
“Here and Now” should tell us to avoid the media juggernauts that scream at us 24/7 about everything but “Here and Now.” “Here and Now” is our own community. “Here and Now” are the people we should see every day if only we can look up from our screens. Join a club, go to church, anything to build up the “Here and Now.”
“Attention” too, is precious. There is a cabal of media interests competing for our “Attention..” They want to convert our “Attention” into clicks that they convert to money. They have too much already, don’t give them anymore. They don’t want to inform us. They want to disorient us so we are easier to control. Don’t let them steal your attention. Keep it to yourself. Keep it in the “Here and Now.”
The library is bringing me the book “Island” and I look forward to seeing it again and re-gaining what the years have taken away.
As always, discussion welcome at codger817@gmail.com
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*”Redshirting” is the practice in college sports of keeping a player off the team to preserve a year of eligibility. Usually, the team is already well-stocked at the position. My wife thought “redshirting” was referring to “Star Trek” and the people in red shirts being the ones who were going to die.