December 2020

A List: The Venerable Bede--Ecclesiastical History of the English People.............132/360

B List: Ignazio Silone--Bread and Wine....................................................................139/319

C List: Carlyle--The French Revolution....................................................................432/727

Another month gone by, and we enter what increasingly feels like treacherous territory, as I have had to go to the hospital in December two of the past three years. So I am trying to pace myself a little more this month. So far, so good. 

My reading pace is not quite where I would like it to be. It isn't bad for a person with as many children, etc, as I have, who is expected to attend to them and do other things, but Other People get a lot more done, I know.

I'm not sure quite what to make of old Venerable Bede so far. He writes from the point of view that the Church is the be all and end all of existence, its officials and leaders the heroes of history, guiding and at times even forcefully admonishing kings and rulers for their reticence in adapting or lapses in demonstrating their devotion to the faith. The churchmen, particularly the successors of the original group behind the evangelization of England, Gregory, Augustine, etc, who did seem rather great-souled, come off as pushy and more interested in furthering a socio-political agenda than questions of spiritual salvation. But as I have read so little about this period of history in England (600-700s A.D.), and have quite a bit of familiarity with the later history and geography of the country both through reading and having done some traveling there, at least in the southern part of England, the book holds some interest for me, whatever its degree of accuracy as a history.

The Carlyle book is worthwhile to me, but it takes a considerable investment of time in a day even to read a few pages, and I have kind of limited myself for the time to reading it in the intervals between B List books. Last month I was reading Brave New World, and I am still working on my report for that. Since it is a book that people have remained somewhat familiar with and has status as a cultural touchstone, I wanted to go into some things in that line a little. Since this was threatening to take weeks, and even the greater part of a month to complete, I decided to go ahead after a week and start the other book to keep the line moving.

 

As usual, my pictures this month tend to be concentrated into a couple of outings. I put pictures from one of my outings on Facebook, and then didn't do it here, though there is no reason why I shouldn't have, since I don't think there is much overlap in readership between the two sites. But I didn't do it.

The outdoor scenes here are mostly from a hill called Table Rock in Walpole, New Hampshire, overlooking the Connecticut River, on which we walked on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I'm not sure if the river is visible in these pictures, but the town you see, apparently at the bottom of the hill, is actually Bellows Falls across the river in Vermont.

Sunday was my anniversary. I am not good at loading pictures from my phone, they load out of order and mess up my planned narrative. Like all people of my type, I like to show off my wife any chance I get (Look, someone loves me!). This is I believe the first ever picture of the two of us together, back in '93, though we had already been going out more or less for three or four months. People didn't take as many pictures in those days.  

After our hike on Thanksgiving weekend we went to a melancholy consignment shop which, especially this time of year, I like to go to as a place to get something of the atmosphere of the 80s pre-internet and other tech influenced New England of my teen aged years. There aren't any screens or beeping things in this store, just racks, shelves, florescent lights and piped in pop songs. I love these kinds of places, though their ranks are dwindling now. The photo above features unsellable drinking vessels commemorating the Duck Dynasty television show. Every pop culture phenomenon has its window of time, but I am hard pressed to remember anything that dropped off the face of the earth like those guys have.  

The old battleax again. This is around the time I first met her. I thought it might have been the very same day, as she was wearing a similar outfit, but according to the inscription on the back of the picture it was a different social event, which I probably attended but did not socialize with her at, which probably explains why she appears to be having such a good time.

We went back to Ogunquit again on one of our 50 degree weekend days in November, and I saw what struck me as this very strange sign outside of a rest area on I-95 in Maine.

Last Tuesday, December 1st, it was 63 degrees in the morning, so I took the opportunity to have breakfast outside. Since I began keeping this record I have never had breakfast outside in December. On the 5th it snowed and it's been cold and icy since then. I meant to take a picture of the icy yard today for this check in, but I forgot. The pictures really have to be somewhat organic with me, I guess. If I am moved to take a picture, I will take a picture.

You should be able to see the river here.

This is on the way up the hill. We had already lost the sun by the time we started down.