Bøger af Richard Edward Noble

I seem to have inadvertently accrued a rather extensive resume in ... food. I've harvested vegetables commercially as a laborer in the fields all over America. I've plucked fruit from the tress and filled thousands of bushels for sale and consumption by my fellow Americans. I worked as a farm laborer, a fruit picker, a sorter and a grader, a dishwasher, a cook, a sous chief, a gourmet chef, a kitchen manager, a restaurant manager, a restaurant owner and small business operator and a restaurant and small business entrepreneur. Tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of Americans have spent time in some area of the food service industry at one point or another in their lives ... for better or worse, for richer or poorer. Like most of the books and stories I write, this book is about people. This book is about dishwashers, waitresses, bartenders and maids, broiler cooks, porters, managers, assistant managers, owners, secretaries, fry cooks, sous chefs, real chefs and wannabe chefs. It's about supervisors, general managers, cashiers, and owners. It's about blacks, whites and Hispanics. It is about successes and failures. It is about the steady and dependable, the fly-by-nights and runaways, the compassionate and the heartless, the upright and the criminal. I doubt if "Monkey Dishes and Cocktail Fawks" will be the last word on this subject but it definitely provides a new word and an insider's perspective - a perspective that ranges from the bottom to the top. I hope you all enjoy it. It has been an honest effort on my part and it has been a long time in the thinking and planning.

It's All About Love, is all about love - the seeking, the losing, the wishing, the passion, the exhilaration, the humiliation, the joy, the sadness. It is about all types and kinds of love - friendship, parental love, elderly love, childish infatuation, teenage romance, early adult entanglements, dating, marriage, old age and retirement. It's about kiddy crushes and nursing homes, about mom and pop and One Night Stands. It's all about love. Some of the poems are very serious, others are funny. Some are sentimental; some are cold. My favorite poet was Robert Service. He was often accused of writing poems that were on the intellectual level of a child and others that were considered refrigerator poems. A refrigerator poem is the type of poem that one might snip from a magazine or a newspaper and fasten on the refrigerator. I would guess that many of my poems would be considered, in certain intellectual circles, as refrigerator poems. Like my idol, Robert Service, I would be more than pleased to have a poem of mine fastened to someone's refrigerator. I also believe, as Robert did, that on closer inspection my intellectual friends might find much to think about in some of my "little ditties." Every poem in this work also contains a prose introduction. I borrowed this technique from my buddy, Robert Service, also. He used this prose introduction style in his volume Ballads of a Bohemian. I immediately fell in love with it. I felt the contrast between his prose and his poetry was wonderful. More important to a young aspiring poet like myself, was the insight. I felt that Mr. Service was giving me private tutoring in the art and inspiration behind the writing of a poem. I can only hope that just maybe, I could provide such inspiration to other young, aspiring poets out there struggling in the wilderness. What impressed me most about this technique was how a simple, everyday experience could stimulate the mind of a poet and end up becoming a most intricate and fascinating piece of art. I was very impressed by Robert's wonderful imagination along with the music of his words. I, of course, had many everyday experiences just as Robert did. Now could I turn them into works of art? That would be a serious goal and a huge challenge.

"Don't Laugh - This Could Have Been Your Life" is a compilation of short fiction about some interesting, and for the most part, unusual events and some equally unusual characters. Some of the characters in this volume are laughably strange and others sadly odd. But none of the characters or events are so out of the ordinary as to not exist. They are all very real. None are fantasies of a distorted, overly creative mind struggling to write something new and different. I am, more or less, just reporting life as I did when I worked for the local newspaper. It is not difficult for me to write stories like these, since everyone I have ever encountered on this planet is, in my opinion, sick, diseased, mentally ill or totally out of their mind. It is all just a matter of degree of seriousness. I do not exclude myself from this intellectual observation, nor do I exclude myself from my analysis and recorded documentation. I have been putting the pieces of my personal lunacy together for as long as I can remember. It is all documented in many of my other works. If I were to meet you and we were to become friends, it would not be long before I will have discovered that you are basically insane, and I would be writing a story concerning what I see as your problem. I might change your name to disguise your identity but not always - especially if you are already dead.

This is the new revised and updated 2009 edition. A Summer with Charlie will make you laugh. A Summer with Charlie will make you cry. This is a story about a young sailor who is discharged from the Navy with a terminal illness. The Story begins at the YMCA in Lawrence, Massachusetts and then migrates to Salisbury Beach for a summer of wild and crazy fun in the sun with Charlie and his old neighborhood corner buddies. This is a story about love and friendship.

Noble Notes on Famous Folks is, first of all, a book of historical essays. This is to say that they contain the opinions, insights, and interpretations of the author along with historical facts, quotes and situations. This is not a history book. It is a book about history. Most of the sources are stated in the individual note. All these notes were originally written for my own edification and to assist my memory. You might look at this work as my homeschooled college diary or study notes. I've included in this volume a variety of ancient and modern characters ranging from Constantine to Bill Clinton. Some are treated humorously, some satirically and some seriously.

My column "The Eastpointer" appears each week in the "Franklin Chronicle." In 2007 I won the first place award for humor from the Florida Press Association. Eastpoint is in the Florida Panhandle. In a way this is a history book because the Eastpoint and Franklin County that existed when we arrived are gone. Franklin County has been, traditionally, a seafood community and Eastpoint is the oyster capital of Florida. This volume contains a selection of columns that create a portrait of life in the "sleepy, little fishing village" of Eastpoint, Florida. The book presents an entertaining variety of columns that paint a picture of what Franklin County has been to me and my wife Carol. Most of these columns are light spirited, a few are serious and hopefully some are downright funny. My goal is that they all contain bits of wit and a trace of wisdom.

This book contains a variety of selected poems by Richard Edward Noble. The book is divided into catagories: My Hometown, Humor, Love and Other Nice Things, Tenderness and Tears, and On the Serious Side. It concludes with a helpful first line index of poems.

Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother is a tragic novel. The main character is a little boy. The reader learns to understand Richard by listening to his thoughts. We read his mind as he tries to make sense of those around him. We follow Richard's thoughts from ages five to thirteen as he translates the people, the circumstances, and the society around him. The reader will walk through a tragedy of personal, religious and social confusion. Any one who reads this book will be left with some very difficult impressions and many shocking images that will never go away.

Come along with Carol and Dick and live in the places where Charles Kuralt was afraid to park his bus. Feel the pain, joy and anger and shake the calloused hands that make America what it is. See America in its glory and its shame. See it from the highways, the sidewalks and the gutters. Meet Asians, Indians, Jamaicans, Haitians and Mexicans - meet most of them in one chicken factory in central Arkansas on the third shift. See America from the bottom of the cracker barrel.

The unique stories contained in this volume are either long short stories or short long stories. They are too long to be considered short stories and too short to be considered novels. When I first started working for a local newspaper, I asked my boss how many words would he like my stories and articles to contain. He said, "Write the story until it is finished. Once it is finished, we'll deal with the length." I liked that idea. Write the story until it is finished. Don't worry about how long it should be or how short it could be. Write the story until it is done and then stop. That is the case with the six stories in this account. I wrote them until they were done. When they were done, I stopped writing them. Simple enough. I consider each of the six stories contained in "It's a Long Story" to be worthy of the Hobo Philosopher tradition of thoughtful reading. I do hope you enjoy these stories. And remember whenever you see the thoughtful Hobo on the cover, inside you will find me. Just like Buster Brown, I will be in there too.

That Old Gang of Mine is my third volume in this series about Lawrence, my hometown. The word hometown means many, different things to different people. It is a word that has numerous meanings for me also. Some of them are good and some of them are bad. Lawrence, Massachusetts was not a pretty place when I was growing up there way back when. It is even less pretty today. The paint on the old tenements was often bubbling and peeling. The railings on the steps could be wobbly and often there was a wooden step to be avoided here and there. All the apartments were filled with used or secondhand furniture. Our clothes were often hand-me-downs ... as were our bicycles, scooters, wagons, baseball bats, gloves and toys of whatever type. There was very little money floating around in my hometown. Nobody I knew or hung out with had much to spread around or to brag about. Our parents were tight fisted and so were we. It was not just a matter of nickels and dimes, even pennies mattered. My hometown was not an easy place to be a child ... or an adult for that matter. All was not sweetness and light. But it is where I was dropped ... for better or worse, for richer or poorer. The word hometown to me is synonymous with friendship. I met most of my best friends there in the streets and out on the street corners. It is where I learned most of what I think I know. It is where I got my values. It is where I learned what mattered. It is where I learned who mattered. I've taken my hometown and all my old buddies with me wherever I've gone. They have served me well. In these pages and books, I've done my best to share all my old pals with all of you. I do hope that these stories and the knowledge of "That Old Gang of Mine" will serve you as well as they have served me. Cheers!

"Come On-A My House" is the fourth effort in my Lawrence - My Hometown series. Like the last three, this book contains varied anecdotes about the old neighborhood and the old gang. In it I try once again to create a picture of a time and a place and a neighborhood that once was but is no more. On the front cover of this volume I have a picture of the old tenement where I was raised. This is a very old picture of the structure at 32 Chelmsford Street in North Lawrence. It is the house as I remember it as a kid. Most of the folks in the photo are my relatives - grandmother, grandfather, uncles and aunts. This old homestead stands as another icon of my hometown as I remember it. My grandmother owned the building and it was passed down to one of her children, my Uncle Ray. But the song title, "Come On-A My House," is equally significant. The song was written by William Saroyan and a nephew of his while traveling cross country to visit a much beloved aunt. It was a nostalgic song reminiscent of all the ethnic foods and shared childhood delights that William and his nephew were lusting for upon arriving at auntie's house. This is a very common feeling for all of the folks raised in "The Immigrant City," my hometown of Lawrence, MA. One of the first books I ever read was written by William Saroyan and it was titled "My Name is Aram." It was a book very much like this Lawrence series of books that I've been putting together, ethnic in tone yet universal in its message. It has been my inspiration.

In answer to this depressing question, "Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot," my answer should be quite obvious. This is number eight in my series about the old gang and me hangin' out on the various street corners, alleys, hallways and barrooms and watering holes of our hometown in good old Lawrence, Mass. I have two more volumes to construct and that should, without doubt, give me the world's record for the most short stories ever written about a city in New England that no one ever heard of and that many of the folks who have lived there are still trying to forget. It was twice voted the stolen car capital of America. Today it can boast of a 40% jobless rate, a 50% high school drop out rate and more cirrhosis of the liver victims than Moscow and Leningrad put together. Most Lawrence liver victims attribute the overabundant diseased liver subscribers to the contaminated water supply, left to the residents as a legacy of the textile mills who took their pound of "liver" and absconded to bluer waterways and greener, less well informed victims around the world. Alchoholism had nothing to do with it. Instead of calling it Lawrence, it is now referred to as Lawtown by critics. There's no gun shortage in Lawtown as I understand it. Everyone over the age of ten has one. There is though a death by gun problem. Lots and lots of killings. The last mayor, I heard, is hiding out in a mountain village somewhere in the Dominican Republic with two Lawrence fire trucks, four ambulances and a suitcase full of one hundred dollar bills under his bed. But love it or leave it, for richer or poorer, for better or worse, till death do us part, su casa es mi casa, it will always be "My Hometown." Oy Vey! Dios Mios! Gesundheit! And last but not least, Jeezus, Mary and Joseph... please pray for us sinners, amen.

In 1976 my wife and I decided to celebrate the American Bicentennial by taking a tour of the United States. We cashed out of our conventional lives and hit the road ... Hobo-ing America. We landed in Franklin County on Seafood Festival Day in the early 80's. We've been here ever since. We were told that once the sand from the beautiful beaches of Franklin County got between a visitor's toes, he became a prisoner of the area for the remainder of his days. That has certainly been the case with Carol and me. We had no intention of ever settling down. We hungered for the life of the vagabond. We held aspirations of becoming professional wanderers - gypsies even. But somehow here we sat on the edge of paradise enjoying the perilous life of an endanger species ... the Coastal Seafood Worker. We bought a boat and a motor and began our apprenticeship exploring the depths and the shallows of Cat Point and East Bay in beautiful Apalachicola Bay on the Florida Panhandle. We joined the ranks of them dang oyster people in the tiny town of Eastpoint. Whether they be homeez, mill hogs, townies, local-yokels or them dang oyster people the current indigenous population of a community always seem to rally under a banner of ridicule and snobbery from the la-di-da class of wherever it is they live. It has been no different here in Eastpoint, the oyster catching capital of Florida. Them dang oyster people have always been the maligned underdogs of Franklin Country which made Eastpoint the perfect fit for me and Carol. This book contains a variety of the stories that I wrote and published in a local Eastpoint newspaper. The stories were good enough to garner me a first place award for humor from the Florida Press Association. This book of stories makes a nice companion to my first book written about this area entitled The Eastpointer. Both books are written in a spirit of fun and entertainment. They make quite a contrast to my series of books written about my early years growing up in the 40's, 50's and 60's in a crowded, tenement filled, northeastern, industrial mill town. My wife and I feel quite blessed to have stumbled upon Eastpoint, Franklin County and Apalachicola Bay. We've enjoyed our stay here ... so far. We hope for many more years of fun, sun, sand, seafood, fishing, eating oysters from Cat Point, good times and laughter. I hope in the pages of this book my readers will find a taste of all of the above and get a little Franklin County sand between their toes. It's hard to beat.

Introduction In 1976 my wild and crazy girlfriend and I (she has been my wife now for over 30 years) decided to go on a tour of the U.S.A. in our Chevrolet as Dina Shore once recommended in word and song many moons past. As a consequence I wrote my first book Hobo-ing America. We felt that we were vacationing even after we decided to supplement our vacation fund via manual labor. My older brother told all his friends and any of our relatives who may have asked about me, that me and my girlfriend were Hoboes. We bummed our way around the country in an old van and lived under bridges and in hobo jungles. We made our living doing hobo jobs, like picking oranges and apples and helping farmers bring in their crops. I laughed at his description of our adventure but then after some thought, I adopted the notion. After all, were we not roaming about the country in an old Chevy van, camping under bridges, living in apple orchards, and doing hobo jobs - like helping farmers bring in their seasonal crops? But calling myself a Hobo wasn't exactly me. I once majored in philosophy. I was a thinker. Unfortunately, not very many were interested in my thoughts. In today's world one may find other philosophy majors standing on a street corner with a sign that reads: Philosophy major: I will think for food. I decided, rather than being just a plain, old Hobo, I would be a Philosopher Hobo. I dubbed myself The Hobo Philosopher. When I opened my little ice cream parlor in Carrabelle, Florida I named it Hobo's Ice Cream Parlor. My web blog handle is The Hobo Philosopher. I like the inference. I'm a working man who has always been willing to do whatever and go wherever it takes to make a buck - and I do a lot of thinking. I like the title and I've decided to make it my brand. I am The Hobo Philosopher. I intend to write a series of books under The Hobo Philosopher title. I feel it will give me certain advantages that I am not privileged to as Richard Edward Noble. As The Hobo Philosopher I feel I will be able to relate thoughts and discuss topics not necessarily accepted from the likes of a Richard Edward Noble. Under The Hobo Philosopher brand, I hope to write, the gods willing, a number of books that might not be expected or approved for a Richard Edward Noble. In this volume I have included a number of stories, tales, and anecdotes that my regular readers would not have expected of me. As an artist this is what we all complain about. We don't want to be trapped in a mold and then be required to meet the demands of an image. The Hobo Philosopher will set me free. I hope you will all enjoy the Bits and Pieces in this book written by The Hobo Philosopher and in the future you will want more and will keep an eye out for works written by The Hobo Philosopher. Look for my wife's artistic rendition of The Hobo Philosopher on each cover. If you see her portrait of the thoughtful Hobo on the cover, inside you will find me. Just like old Buster Brown, I will be in there too.

Tenement Dwellers is the second volume of anecdotes from my series of books about the old neighborhood and growing up in a collapsing, forgotten industrial mill town along the Eastern seaboard of the United States. Lawrence, Massachusetts was my hometown. It was seven square miles of three-decker tenement houses, housing projects, kids and congestion. It was schoolyards, churches, smokestacks, pool halls, back alleys, barrooms and mile after mile of abandoned, redbrick mill buildings. Life was difficult trying to raise oneself in such an environment. As I said in my first volume, "Just Hangin' Out, Ma," thank God for the street corners of Lawrence, Mass. and hangin' out. My best times growing up in the 40's, 50's and 60's in Lawrence were those many hours spent with my childhood buddies hangin' out on the street corners, shooting hoops in the schoolyards and just idling here and there. Lawrence was a forgotten town and we were its offspring. We were not only forgotten; we were ignored and avoided. But in that abandonment we kids found companionship and camaraderie. We discovered the intricacies of friendship, breaking chops and having fun. I have no definition of the term love other than friendship. I learned it as a tenement dweller hanging on the periphery of a social disaster with my buddies. I learned it hiding from the cold in a stranger's hall way, sitting on the wall up at the Howard playstead, shooting hoops under a streetlight or going out of my way to walk a buddy halfway home in a snow storm on a late evening. I've had a good life, making friends wherever I've gone and I'm still at it. Enjoy this book, my friends. If you don't learn anything from it, I do hope you at least get a few laughs.

In Lawrence, my hometown we had "Lawton's by the Sea." Lawton's was typical of Lawrence and atypical of everywhere else in the world. First of all it had a fire hydrant in the lobby. It wasn't really a fire hydrant but it looked like a fire hydrant. It was some sort of on/off valve that had something to do with regulating the flow of water or water level of the canal that sat just behind Lawton's back door - hence the comic description, "Lawton's by the Sea." The canals that were constructed back in the 1800s to provide power to the textile machinery and were the reason for the initial existence of the town of Lawrence, MA, added another colorful euphemism to the old Mill Town lore. We laughingly referred to our polluted, little, textile village as the Venice of the Northeast. Reading about that other Venice over in Italy, surprisingly, it seems to be just about as polluted as our little Venice. Not only that, that Italian Venice is sinking. Lawrence may be going down hill, but it is not sinking ... yet. They only served Essem hot dogs at Lawton's. Essem dogs were another local icon. Everybody ate Essem hot dogs in Lawrence. A butcher shop needed no large variety of hot dogs, only Essem's. "Yes 'em, it's Essem," was their famous advertisement. It was on the radio, the billboards and wherever the option was available. Lawton's was also famous for deep frying their Essem hot dogs. I imagine it just happened one night after a Lowell/Lawrence football game. The crowd piled in and some imaginative grill man decided to speed things up and just started tossing the dogs off the grill and into the Fryolator. Bamb! A new dog with extra grease added was invented - the Speedy Deep Fried Dog. But Lawrence had more than hot dogs and hamburgers. We were "The Immigrant City." We had over forty different nationalities. Our tenement hallways were steaming the wallpaper off the walls with the sounds and smells of Europe and the Middle East. You name it and we had a walk up or corner eatery selling it - Italian cutlets, French pork pies, Syrian kibbie, German knockwurst, Polish kielbasy, fried clams, batter dipped onion rings, pierogies, golumpkies, ravioli, stuffed anything and everything. Food, food and more food! So let's take another trip around the block, listen to the shouts and laughter, look at all the pretty ethnic girls and equally handsome worldly lads, enjoy a French pork pie or Italian pizza, pick up a sauce sandwich or a cutlet, get a Holihan's Black Horse Ale or dark beer on draft and drift off into the land that never changes or gets old, that land of friendly faces and teary eyes where we were all once happy and hopeful - that imaginary land of yesteryear, snuggled in the far off town of pleasant memories and good friends. See you there. Take care and have fun.

Standing on the Corner We were always standing on some corner in the old neighborhood. I don't remember the actual date that we moved the gang to the Howard Playstead and settled on the corner of Lawrence Street and Birchwood Road but we were still little guys not even teenagers. We called that corner pictured on the cover of this volume "home" right up until we all were graduating from teenager hood. On some evenings during the summer months we could gather fifteen or twenty guys up there. I thought the song "Standing on the Corner" by the Four Lads was really written by a guy from my hometown of Lawrence, MA. I was still parking my old 1946 DeSoto Fluid Drive up on the Birchwood Road hill when I was attending Northern Essex Community College in my early twenties. The starter had gone out and parts were few and money was tight. We had to get it rolling in order to jump start it every morning. The old corner and up the hill a bit on Birchwood Road was perfect. So that corner was home to the old gang for over a decade anyway. There was a glob of cement on that little castle tower at the right of the picture. That one smooth spot on the jagged wall was the most desirable seat in the house. After a few years we managed to heist a bus stop bench and cart it up there. A monumental battle ensued between us guys and the local authorities but we eventually won out. The bench remained there for many, many years. It wasn't moved until the old gang and that corner parted company when I was in my twenties. We never did all that much standing out on the corner. Spitting in the sewer was big at the Howard corner. Other than that, we just shot the bull and goofed off. All our old hangouts; Walter's Variety, Jimmy Costello's back yard, Nell's Variety, the Howard Playstead and the lobby at the local YMCA all stand out big in my memory's eye. They were each my home away from home. They were my sanctuary and my solace. All my positive memories of home stem from one of those old hangouts and the old gang. Today I can get all teary eyed just staring at pictures of that old jagged wall. I don't see an empty corner. I see the old gang. I see their faces. I hear them laughing. I see many of the faces who are no longer here with us today. My mind begins flashing pictures. I see all the cars passing. I see the faces in the cars too. I see the old ladies looking out the second and third floor windows. I see the little guys playing in their yards or out in the street in front of their houses. I see old folks carrying their handmade, cloth grocery sacks back to the apartment. I see gas stations and Coke-a-Cola signs. I see the kids on Chelmsford Street, and Willow and Spruce and Exchange. I see the old school house. I see everything bit by bit, snapshot by snapshot. I've done my best to capture it all piece by piece in these volumes about "Lawrence - My Hometown." This makes number six and I still have a few more to go. It has been a trip for me. I thank all of you who have been following along and I hope you enjoy "Standing on the Corner" as much as you have those five volumes that came before this one. Take care and I hope to see you all again in volume number seven. Have fun.

I've come to the conclusion that most of what I write can be classified under one category, Creative Non-fiction. It is all true ... but not exactly. When I write about things that are common to my wife Carol and me, her comment is, "I love reading my husband's descriptions of our adventures. I get the enjoyment from the adventure that I experienced and then the added pleasure of reading about the trip he went on." And that about covers it. All the stories in this book happened. They just may not have happened exactly as I have described them.

Thank God for the street corners of Lawrence, Ma and being able to "hang out." I started writing stories about the old gang and hangin' out when I was about eighteen years old. Then life came along and got in my way. But now I'm back. As far as I am concerned, I'm stronger and better equipped to do justice to the old gang and the street corners that made our hangin' out so memorable. This is my first book on this subject and it covers more than just the variety stores, drug stores and street corners of my youth. It branches out into barrooms, nightclubs, poolrooms, bowling alleys and the complete Full Monty of the "I'm just hangin' out, Ma" experience. I hope you all enjoy the experience, feel the love, get the jokes, and have some laughs.

"Down by the Old Mill Stream" was one of my dad's favorite songs. My dad would have a few beers and then turn up the radio. He and I would then begin to harmonize to the smiling yet cynical faces of the rest of the family. I suppose we weren't all that good. It sounded great to me, though. This memory goes back to my early childhood and the late 1940's. We didn't have a TV in those days. Before all we Americans became addicted to the TV, people had pianos in their living rooms and music emanating from a tube filled contraption that sat in the parlor somewhere in the vicinity of that old piano. One way my dad's generation entertained themselves in the evenings in the tiny parlors of their tenement apartments was by harmonizing around that old floor model radio. I'm old enough to have experienced the tail end of that type entertainment. It obviously impressed me. I've never forgotten us doing it together Whenever I hear songs like "Down by the Old Mill Stream," "Sweet Adeline," "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling," and "A Little Bit of Heaven," pictures begin flashing on that big screen in the back of my head. My father knew all the words to those songs. I loved to listen to him recite the introduction to "A Little Bit of Heaven." "Have you ever heard the story Of how Ireland got its name? I'll tell you so you'll understand From whence old Ireland came." Every time he did it, I thought he was making it up on the spot and telling the story to me. I thought "Down By the Old Mill Stream," was the personal story of my mother and father's romance when they were courting in Lawrence, MA, their hometown. The old mill and the stream were down on Canal Street. The picture that always came to my mind whenever I heard those lyrics is on the cover of this book. I since learned that the old mill in the song was not a textile mill but an old fashioned grist mill and the stream was not one of our Lawrence canals like the one flowing behind Lawton's Hot Dog Stand on the corner of Canal and Broadway. My dad liked the slow, romantic version of the song. He would sing it all the way through like a romantic ballad before I'd burst in like one of the Ink Spots or the Mills Brothers. He sang it with such seriousness and sincerity how could I not believe it was my mom and dad's personal story? I remember the verse for the most part. "Down by the old Mill stream, where I first met you, With your eyes of blue, dressed in gingham too, It was there I knew that you loved me true, You were sixteen, my village queen, by the old mill stream." I thought gingham represented a white wedding dress not a checked tablecloth type of fabric. But in review, the checkered tablecloth design fits Lawrence better than the wedding dress anyway.

It wasn't the words that Struck me. It was the ideas. I didn't get hooked on books until my freshman year at a tiny, local junior college. It was an accident. The classes for my required subjects were spread out over the entire day. I had only one reason for attending this school. I wanted to get a better job. Consequently i would have to learn something. After a month or so, I had exhausted all wasting time avenues. As a last resort, I took a walk up the back steps to the small, one room library. Many of the shelves were still empty. The majority of the books were donated. This was the first year for this new, junior college program. It came as a part of the Kennedy administration. It was a good deal. I had absolutely no interest in books. But they were necessary if I wanted to earn more money one day. I browsed around. Then came my epiphany. There was one whole shelf in this half empty library that contained nothing but books written by one guy. His name was Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was born and raised in my home state of Massachusetts, in Boston. Boston was just up the road from Lawrence where I came from. He worked as a waiter to help get through college. He was a worker just like me. He had a stupid name, Ralph Waldo. Ralph wasn't all that bad. After all we had that famous bus driver, Ralph Kramden. There was also this guy from Lawrence named Ferdinand Waldo Demara. They had just made a movie about him called, The Great Impostor. I saw it. It was great. Ralph Waldo Emerson had a whole shelf full of books that he wrote. He must have been very smart, I thought. Maybe if I read some of his books, I could be smart too. And that was when it started. From that time forward, I was never without a book ... never. Today I have a collection of books that I will never finish reading. I don't have enough life left to accomplish this feat. But I'm trying. I started this book reviewing project at the age of fifty-eight. I'm now seventy. I have about four hundred reviews written today. I have found them to be of great value to me. I can re-read my reviews and bring back to mind much of a book's content or what I thought about it. It is my idea that maybe my reviews can help other folks who are also hooked on books. That's the reason I've put together this volume of "Hooked on Books." I hope this helps some of you with your addiction. Have fun and stay healthy.

About ten years back, I discovered the blogging network and I jumped on it. I was writing for a newspaper at the time and I felt that a blog might provide me with a sort of pretend audience. In any case, it was fun. My blog, the Hobo Philosopher, has a little of everything. I've serialized whole books. I've posted short stories, poems, book reviews, satire, humor, interviews and some of my newspaper articles. I've vented with some political blogs. I've innovated with some of my personal economic and philosophical theories. Blogging has been good for me. It has helped to keep me sane - if you call this sanity. I have fun and I get to say things that seem to have no viable place elsewhere. Who do I talk to about my theories on the Big Bang. Where else could I publish my "Noble Solution" for the National Debt or my "Economics of War"? Where else could I find a home for The Hobo Philosopher's understanding of world banking, the Federal Reserve or the mysteries of the Social Security Fund? What about toilet seats, the dwarf problem in America, excess cleavage, and the ridiculousness of sex? I even wrote about nothing in this book. Most people have very little to say about nothing. But to me nothing is important ... and I mean that. So in "Blogging Be My Life" there is a little something to suit everybody's tastes. It's a little esoteric, a little eclectic, a little erogenous, somewhat analytic, occasionally academic, often satirical, hopefully engaging, momentarily enlightening, but at bottom always entertaining. If you are considering purchasing this book, please do. I need the money.