Retire In Style Blog Too

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves;   and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it. Abraham Lincoln Today I did what I had been thinking about doing for several weeks. I added a Rep. John Lewis quote to my sidebar. It should resonate with everyone "Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.” ( From his 2017 memoir, "Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America") It reminded me of that President John F. Kennedy quote from his first inauguration: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." They both were a call to action for the ordinary man. Remembering the inspiration of JFK leaves me wondering...will the American people, those peop...

The question is: Do you see the characters in the books that you read? Are they real  in your mind or do you struggle with that? In some cases it seems to me that the person the author is describing is someone I know. Do you suppose authors do that and we can read between the lines? I think they do. So it is not surprising that I have read several books that need to be made into a movie and I want to pick out the cast of actors that appear in said movie. Wouldn't that be so much fun to do? Many years ago I read a book called The Straight Man  by Richard Russo. I think that it may have made me laugh more than any book I have ever read. Here is the short blurb that Amazon posted about the book: William Henry Devereaux, Jr., is the reluctant chairman of the English department of a badly underfunded college in the Pennsylvania rust belt.  Devereaux's reluctance is partly rooted in his character--he is a born anarchist--and partly in the fact that his department is more s...