Catching up is hard to do

I started this blog back in, what, March or so, with the intention of making regular entries. Regular meaning at least once or twice a week, maybe more. But ah, we know what can happen to good intentions…so here it is, the middle of summer (okay, more like early summer, but it sure seems to be the middle, what with the temps in the high 90’s and low 100’s, and the 4th of July come and gone, but I do digress…) Anyway, here I am, a teacher on vacation, with quite a bit of time on her hands, idle time, if you will, time to rant and rave and reflect on anything and everything around me. Where to begin?

I could begin with the libraries…you may remember, back in the spring, when I blogged about southern Oregon, Jackson County to be exact, suffering from a dire lack of money and facing the largest library closure in the country. I was sure there would be a last minute effort that would save our esteemed halls of literature, that the county voters would cast a resounding “yes” to a (poorly designed) ballot measure. Nope, didn’t happen. It was slapped down by either an illiterate bunch of fools, or a lot of property owners who were fed up with carrying the load that a state sales tax could easily relieve. Or both. Doesn’t really matter, ’cause here I am, on holiday, a time of year when I typically catch up on my reading, but, oh, wait, can’t read, no libraries. Oh, yeah, I could drop a bundle at B & N, or Bloomsbury, or even, heaven forbid, Costco…but that would require money, and I’m a teacher, and we know teachers aren’t exactly rolling in the dough. So, I buy a book now and then, or borrow one from a friend, or maybe hit one of the used bookstores around, but it’s just not the same. Just not the same as summers gone by, when I’d walk downtown with a friend, have a cold coffee drink at Bad Ass, wander across the street to our beautiful new library, and browse, read, maybe do a little surfing on my PowerBook…ah, those were the days. May we get to experience them again.