I have to forget about a lot of online stuff these days. I always run out of allocated reading time.
I subscribe to two weekly magazines, I attempt to read two daily newspapers so I find myself about two weeks behind on newspapers and two months behind with magazines, so I pop into the Internet to do the catch up.
I have the ability to read quickly, if required, but I also hate doing it, especially when it comes to novels or biographies, or some tome where the author has put some thought and consideration into the word selection. Why skim quickly if you're going to miss the best? It's like skipping over an opera just to hear the best parts while totally missing the musical build-up.
I discovered I wasn't among the speed reading set while still in school. Our literature class was given the assignment one year to read novels outside of the assigned class stories. We were to read, record and post remarks about the book we had just read. Prizes were awarded to those who read the most and provided the best book reports. The assignment lasted for the entire academic year about nine months.
When the final tallies came in, I thought I would be among the leaders. I had absorbed 67 books and was feeling pretty good about my efforts only to discover that more than a handful of other readers had sifted their eyeballs through 100 books or more. I wasn't devastated, I was skeptical. Sure enough, I uncovered a few frauds. Someone had read a few Reader's Digest offerings or the Classic comic book version in a half-hour sitting and marked it down as mission accomplished. You know, Moby Dick? It's about a guy who goes fishing!
I didn't expose the fraudsters, heck they were my friends just trying to make their way in the world. They could read the comic version, or read a 90-page book. I was the dumb one for selecting the 300 pagers.
Others were legitimate full novel readers and they easily surpassed 100 books. I suggested that their lives were probably dull. I was leading a rather full social life besides my dedication to novels, so notably more well rounded and all that. Ya, that was it. I was just too busy to read THAT many books.
But what it amounted to, dear diary, was the fact that I just wasn't a fast reader. I would read, absorb, back up and read again to make sure. I would revisit a clever phrase or paragraph, or recheck a chapter to make certain I connected with the characters again. Altogether, I was just too slow.
I find I can slide through a daily newspaper in less than 40 minutes now, but feel badly when I have to leave any article three-quarters of the way through, even if it's poorly written. So I'm doomed to a world of piled up newspapers, magazines and books and I don't think any e-reader is going to help. So that's my fate in that category.
This week I'm recalling the few times I had the opportunity to sit down and have a face-to-face chat with former premier Allan Blakeney. There were four such occasions and all memorable insofar as he was so easy to talk with and spoke directly. We're fortunate in this province in having premiers who are still approachable for the most part. Naturally our own Grant Devine was the most accommodating of the lot that I ever encountered, for obvious reasons, but Allan Blakeney was one who carried no airs, spoke frankly and with a great deal of wit, interest and intelligence.
Not to get political here, but I think I'll have a lot of people agreeing with me when I say that we here in Saskatchewan are living a much more comfortable life thanks to some support systems that he put into place for us that we're now taking for granted.
