Faithful Lifelong Friends
Human friendships are fickle in nature. Someone who you may call a friend today, can be a “non-friend” tomorrow over some important or even trivial disagreement. Friends can move away. Friends can die. Friends can change in personality and slowly drift away. Friends can choose to abandon their friendship with you for “new and better” friends. Friends can make themselves scarce if you hit hard times. Friends can suddenly terminate your friendship if their spouse, signifigant other or other friends don’t like you. Friends come and go like the tides of the ocean. Human friendships are a tenuous affair affected by a wide array of variables and conditions.
On the other hand, a book is the quietist and most constant of friends. No matter what is transpiring in your life, no matter what you have done, no matter what you haven’t done, a book will never abandon you. A book does not judge while humans just can’t seem to get enough of judging one another. A book does not demand, overtly or covertly, that you be a certain way, or talk in a certain way or do something in a certain way or risk disapproval or loss of friendship. It is always there for you no matter what. A book will always generously provide you with learning, story-telling, adventure, mystery, laughter, pathos and ethos – whatever you choose. Certain books will prove to be less interesting to you than you thought they might be. Or perhaps you totally disagree with the premise of the book. The book will never “get mad at you” as a result. A book has no hidden agenda other than presenting the words, and ideas, and concepts that are on the pages of the books. The book allows you to receive and assimilate those words, ideas and concepts however you choose. A book is a faithful, lifelong friend.
If Henry Bemis Had Just Carried A Spare Pair
An absolute classic Twilight Zone episode, “Time Enough At Last” (aired November 1959), starred Burgess Meredith as the hounded bank teller and avid book lover, Henry Bemis. Wherever he turns, there is somebody preventing him from reading. One day, randomly entering the bank’s vault to read during his lunch break, a worldwide apocalyptic holocaust occurs. As Bemis exits the vault he finds the outside world in ruins and devoid of all humans. Bemis is subsequently overwhelmed at the reality of his isolation. As he about to commit suicide with a gun he has found, he sees a library that has mostly survived the blast. He spends the remainder of the day joyfully arranging the books in stacks for years of reading well into the future. Of course, this is Twilight Zone so you know there is going to be some kind of twist. Sure enough, on the library steps poor Henry stumbles. His thick glasses, without which everything is blurry to him, fall off and the lenses shatter. As he picks up his broken glasses, he is disconsolate, saying, “It’s not fair. I had time now. There was time enough at last.”
When I was a kid watching that episode, I felt sorry for Henry Bemis. I remember telling my Mom, “if he only had a spare pair of glasses with him, he wouldda been OK”. I never want to be caught in the predicament of Henry Bemis. I always carry a spare set of eyeglasses with me. If I am ever the lone survivor of a nuclear holocaust and am near an intact library, I’ll be all set (LOL). My son has a wonderful collection of over 2,000 books that he has collected over the past 20 years. It is my desire that at some point in what remains in my life, that I can spend an entire year, without any obligations or responsibilities, just reading…..reading as many of those books as I can each day. Just as it was with Henry Bemis, if I could not read, it would be a catastrophe of the highest order.
A Book Is A Portal To Another Dimension
In the 1955 movie, “Marty” starring Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair, there is a scene at the end of the movie where Borgnine’s character is hanging around a Bronx street corner early on a Sunday evening with three of his friends. This scene took place after Borgnine’s friends dissuaded him from going out on a second date with the character played by Betsy Blair. The intimation from his friends was that their friendship with Borgnine was in jeopardy if he continued to see Blair. As the four men are standing on the street corner, Marty is silent while the other three are trying to establish what they are going to do that evening. One says to the others, “Whadda you wanna do”? Another of the men says, “I dunno, whadda you wanna do?” A few suggestions are offered but there is no consensus. Finally, Borgnine’s character breaks his silence and says derisively to the other three, ” Whadda you wanna do? I dunno, whadda you wanna do? I must have been crazy to listen to you guys. I know what I wanna do. I’m going to call her up and hopefully she’ll want to go to the movies with me tonight.” Whereupon he departs for the nearest phone booth.
A book is a friend that allows you to do or go or experience or learn whatever you want. Your friend will always say, “OK, Let’s go”. Do you want to go back in time to a certain period in a certain locale? – “OK, Let’s go”. Do you want to introduce to your mind new concepts or ideas? – “OK, Let’s go”. Do you want to retrace your steps and review already introduced ideas and concepts? – “OK, Let’s go”. Do you want to be intrigued by a suspenseful mystery? – “OK, Let’s go”. Do you want to experience the sights and sounds and smells of a different land? – “OK, Let’s go”. Do you need a breather from everyday duties, obligations and responsibilities, to give your mind a rest and just escape for a bit from the world around you? – “OK, Let’s go”. Whatever it is that you want to do, your friend will never say, “Nah, I don’t want to do that”. Your friend will always say to you, “Sounds good, OK, Let’s go”. And unlike television, you will never get commercials.
When you read a book, you are traveling through a portal in your mind into another dimension. It is a lovely sensation. And last, but not least, you can find a book or books that will help you to travel to another dimension of reality and create a life you desire through the magic of manifestation. Scripture is as true as true ever gets when it states- Ask. Seek. Knock. Believe. Receive. Now if you will excuse me, I see an old friend beckoning me now from the bookcase.