If one is not careful, this article could be confused with an attempt to promote a now deceased writer/television personality named Charles Kuralt. It is not. Nor is it an attempt to sell his books or any specific book for that matter. What it really is intended to do is to make us aware of how fortunate we are in America. Not only does our nation have the diverse landscapes we too frequently over look, but we have an almost unlimited range of cultures across our great land. For families of limited resources, the opportunity to explore the diversity can be very small during the formative years of the children’s development as occurred during my period at home.
The military years took me away from the Ozarks and I was able to view the history of the southwest in San Antonio, the heat of Louisiana’s summers and the shoulder deep snows of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The military also took me to New England where we were introduced to clam chowder (New England style) and fried clams along with the statue of the Lexington, Mass., minuteman and the Old Concord Bridge before they sent me to the frontier of Alaska before it gained statehood.
That was 50 plus years ago and, as seems to so frequently be the case, the busy activities of career, family and those things that come between those years and retirement can easily cause one to overlook the incredible opportunities we have in the United States just waiting to be rediscovered if we allow it to happen.
Our society offers many opportunities for us to spend our time reliving some of the joys of reading — if we just turn off the television. That is in no way to condemn television although there are many — way too many — things that should not be on the tube in my opinion. Professionals in the field of psychology have determined that I am a single-minded workaholic. That may be true. If so, my family and I were the losers since society in many ways prospered from my workaholic behavior.
But, the point I am trying to make is simply that we can spend too much time reading technical books and studying ways to improve our way of life and forget how much fun it can be to read a novel or a biography — or a travel book.
For $2 at the Rogers Friendly Book Store, I purchased a practically new copy of Charles Kuralt’s “America.” For years I had watched his Sunday morning travel program and always admired the manner in which he seemed to develop a “story” about each place he visited. After his retirement, he decided to visit specific places and spend time, weeks, at each, meeting people, seeking the true atmosphere and character of the locals and write a book — “America,” published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in 1995. (He died in 1996.)
It has restored my “joy of reading” and made me dig deep into my memory of the years as an avid reader in my youth. The Zane Grey novels that produced a fantasy view of the Western cowboys and numerous other authors fed my appetite for something more than the just humor of Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies comic books. I never dwelt on the true classics except when required for book reports, but being prodded by our Sugar Creek neighbor and Rogers High School librarian, Ruth Clawson, I did develop a love for literature. That love, as mentioned, got suppressed by college, graduate school and the technical reading required to fulfill work expectations.
This book is probably not a major award winner and most likely was not one of the New York Times’ top 10 best sellers, but it has been a true pleasure to read. He obviously enjoys writing for the pleasure of his readers. How else could two pages of North Carolina barbecue tidbits be so entertaining without a single recipe. The episode in his book is about comparisons of regional flavors, people, places, personal attitudes about sauces and the adventure of eating in as many establishments as time allowed. It reveals his favorite being found on a mountain-top retreat that doesn’t even make its own but serves someone else’s specialty and he doesn’t reveal the source. You learn a lot about North Carolina along with the barbecued pork — it must be pork, not beef, in North Carolina and is best prepared with real hickory wood.
Reading the book has been a delight for me and Kuralt’s style makes me a bit envious. But, the point of this is simply we can use our mind’s resources to travel and learn from others’ experiences and enjoy the benefits without a television screen and at a pace even my aging years can best handle. It makes me appreciate all those people who helped teach me the importance of developing an interest in reading as a child. A gift that had been hidden for a long period but found as a side benefit to this $2 investment from Friendly Book Store in Rogers.
The moral of this story must be it is never too late to renew one’s interest in reading.
•••
Editor’s note: Leo Lynch is an award-winning columnist. He is a native of Benton County has deep roots in northwest Arkansas. He is a retired industrial engineer and former Justice of the Peace. He can be contacted at [email protected].