We are in Chicago, having been here since Thursday night, staying with our son and his roommate. This was after having been in Oklahoma City for a day, attending the ordination of our son-in-law Richard.

The timing of this trip was to attend the Chicago Tribune Publishers Row Lit Fair, set up downtown on a couple of streets. We went to that on Saturday. It was a great mass of humanity, going between about 100 booths. It looked to me like people were buying. I passed up one used book on the way in, due to budgetary constraints, thought better of it and decided to buy it on the way out. It was gone. Someone else paid the $8.50 for it, I guess. The crowds thinned a little during several episodes of light rain, but still it was crowded.

On Friday we went to the Museum of Science and Industry in the Hyde Park neighborhood. It was a free day, so it was crammed with people. I got in free; Lynda and Charles paid extra to see the Harry Potter exhibit. I wasn’t interested in that, so I spent that time in the U-505 exhibit, which they saw on a previous visit. That was really something, a German U-boat captured intact June 4, 1944, towed to Bermuda thence to the East Coast and eventually to Chicago. It was moved indoors, quite an engineering feat, in 2003.

Today we went to the Hyde Park Art Fair. Six-hundred-eighty exhibitors from coast to coast were here, having attracted a sea of humanity. The artwork was lovely, but the prices so high we didn’t do any serious looking. Lunch cost $23, quite high by my standards, but they have a captive audience. As we walked back to Charles’ car, we went by the Rockefeller Chapel (misnamed, since it holds 1,500 people and thus is not a chapel by my definitions), popped in, and observed a handful of people in it attending a lecture/presentation about Albert Schweitzer, a weekend event commemorating the 60th anniversary of his visit to the University of Chicago. Next door, at the president’s house, was a shindig for some key alumni. Charles thought it might be an alumni weekend.

From where does all this energy come? And all this money? To look at Chicago you would never know we are in a depression, or even a recession. I suppose some of the book and art vendors could compare this year’s sales to last year’s and determine how they did and advise if we are in a recession or not.

The people, the sales, the activity. I have lived in the ex-urbs for so long I’ve forgotten how busy the big city can be.

I saw them for the first time yesterday: the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader. These two devices are the latest technology for displaying and reading electronic books. Sony was first on the market with a display that gives the reader the sensation of reading ink on paper even though it is pixels on screen. Amazon came next, and all the reports I’ve seen are that Kindle is better than Reader. I imagine both of them have old versions and new versions and that, as everything goes in technology, they are leap-frogging each other in quality of the product and reduction in price.

I saw the Kindle first on a flight from Phoenix to DFW. I had to make an urgent trip to the bathroom (well, I guess you all didn’t need to know that), but found it occupied and had to wait about a minute. The woman sitting in the aisle seat on the last row was reading a book on a Kindle, and so I had a few, impatient moments to talk to her about it. She loves it.

I saw the Reader also yesterday on the connecting flight from DFW to NW Arkansas. The man sitting across the aisle from me on the one hour flight had one, and I got to look at it for a while as he demonstrated its features and answered my questions. He loves it.

Both of these devices were a little smaller than I expected, maybe a little less than 5×7 inches, and very slim, very slim. Both have a flip-over cover to protect the screen. Both seemed to show a realistic display of black ink on white paper. The text size is changeable. Neither is back-lit (at least I’m sure the Reader isn’t; didn’t ask about the Kindle), so you must have light to read it. Nothing wrong with that.

I did not ask to hold either. Nor did I ask about battery capacity, or storage capacity–though I understand both of them have the capacity to download and hold more than 100 books at 500 pages per book. That’s a lot less to lug through airports than the equivalent paper. Yet, I won’t be rushing out to buy one of these gadgets. The feel of the book in the hand is something I’m not ready to give up, nor the smell of the paper, nor the physical bookmark that I lovingly come back to day after day. I like to slip my finger beneath the right page as soon as I begin turning the left page, even though I’ve got two full pages to go before I need to flip. On a non-fiction book, I often like to keep the book open at the page I’m reading, but have a thumb or finger in another place, and flip back there frequently to cross-check information. When I start a new chapter, I like to first look ahead to see how many pages are in it, maybe even stick a finger there, making a claim on those pages as I start reading that chapter.

No doubt these all have an equivalent in the Kindle and Reader. But I’m still not getting one. Possibly I’ll be the last hold-out among everyone I know. I’m about the last person without a portable MP3 player, so you know I’m not an embracer of technology.

On Tuesday, while waiting for the flight from DFW to Phoenix to board, I saw a man with a paperback version of Team of Rivals, the fairly recent history of President Lincoln and the team he chose for his cabinet sitting on top of his carry-on bag. I have it in my reading stack, picked off the remainders table at Barnes & Noble. I have two or three much smaller books in front of it, one of which I started yesterday on the flight. But, seeing the book, I struck up a conversation with the man and discussed it with him. For about three minutes, standing in line in the terminal and on the jet way, we talked about Lincoln and the specific books and history books and history. We parted inside the plane and I didn’t talk with him again.

But suppose he had been reading this on a Kindle or Reader? Would I have taken the audacious step of saying, “Oh, you have a Kindle. What are you reading on it?” No, I likely would not. But having seen the book on his luggage and being able to recognize the title, it was easy to say, “Oh, I’ve been waiting to get to my copy of that. How do you find it?” So it seems to me that the Kindle and Reader, for all of their benefits, will contribute to the growing digital isolation. And I can’t see that as a good thing.

November 17th marks three special days for me, which few people remember.

First (actually last in chronological order of occurrence), CEI Engineering Associates, Inc. moved into our new building on Nov 17, 2000. I remember the circumstances. It was a Friday. The recount battle was raging in Florida. The movers came in the morning to load up our already packed boxes. My stuff was loaded first in our department, and I think our department was the first loaded on that truck. While loading continued for the 5 mile trip across town, the department went to lunch, then to the new building to wait. I spent much time in the car, listening to radio reports of what was going on in Florida, coming into the building every hour or so to see if my stuff had arrived. It didn’t arrive until Saturday morning; yet I was all set up and ready to go by Monday morning. No one at CEI marked the day but me, I reckon. I mentioned it to the Chairman and co-founder, and he didn’t remember that was the date we moved in.

Second (actually first in chronological order of occurrence), it’s Sadie Hawkins Day! That magical day created by Li’l Abner comic strip writer Al Capp, where the girls ask the boys out. Now that Al Capp is dead and Li’l Abner forgotten, no one probably ever celebrates it anymore, save for the odd school that has a Sadie Hawkins Day dance where the girls ask the boys out, with no one knowing where the tradition came from. This actually was of no consequence in my life, for the schools I went to never had Sadie Hawkins Day dances, and even if they had no girl would have asked me out. I was a considerably late bloomer with the ladies.

Third (actually second in chronological order of, not occurrence necessarily, but personal recognition), it is National Boise Idaho Potato Day! I have no idea of the origin of this ‘holiday’, or if it ever really existed at one time, or if it did exist if it was celebrated on November 17th. But a friend of mine from college and I celebrated it, somewhat as a gag I suppose. I remember a day close to November 17, 1973, when Gary and I went for a ramshackle* in the recently harvested potato fields west of the University of Rhode Island campus in Kingston. We gleaned a few small potatoes from the field, then continued west into the country before turning north. We passed and inspected a small, ancient cemetery, overgrown with weeds and brush, the graves dating from the 1700s. We continued north and hiked up a hill that was visible from campus and which we always wanted to climb; part of the ‘coal seams’ oriented generally north to south (and slightly to the west) across that part of the state, Gary said, though you couldn’t prove it by me. The hill was completely wooded, and we had no vantage point to see anything. I think Gary climbed one of the trees to try to see better. We worked our way back to campus, I don’t remember by what route, or what time we got there, or if I had to work at the Burger Chef that night or not.

Just a bunch of college silliness, continued into our 50s. Gary and I exchanged e-mail felicitations this morning, remembering not really the day but the era, college days in the early 70s, for me on a planet long ago in a galaxy far, far away, though remembered as if it were yesterday. I post this mainly so that should anyone type “National Boise Idaho Potato Day” in a search engine, at least this post will pop up.

*Author’s note: The dictionaries available to me don’t show the definition, but I’m pretty sure we used the word “ramshackle” to refer to a long, country walk with a loose aim as to destination and route. Perhaps my ramshackle mind is mis-remembering.

This last Saturday the Lutheran church closest to us hosted a seminar featuring Professor Dr. Paul L. Maier. Dr. Maier is professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University. He is the author of a number of books, both fiction and non-fiction. The one of his I read was Flames Of Rome, a documentary historical fiction about the early church era following events in the book of Acts. Well, I think it covered more than just that time, but Maier’s purpose was to give some perspective to the years following Acts.

That was an excellent book, and I’ve always wanted to read more of his. Another of his that we had was A Skeleton In God’s Closet, a novel. Our son has it, and I don’t know if we’ll ever get it back. Maier has written some academic books as well, such as an abridgement/translation of the works of Josephus, and a modern translation of the church history written by Eusebius. We bought that one on Saturday, as well as Maier’s sequel novel More Than A Skeleton. These are pretty far down the reading pile right now, but I’ll eventually get to them.

Maier’s seminar topic was Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. Working only from an outline that he gave to the class, Maier gave us 4 1/2 hours of informed, animated, interesting lecture. My is he a good speaker! I realize he has probably given this lecture before, and knows it quite well, but still the presentation was just incredible.

Most of us have studied some of the Reformation in school, and our Protestant churches may say a little bit each year on Reformation Sunday. But detailed information is generally lacking in most of our education and experience. I read a biography about Luther, from our public library, about ten years ago, but it didn’t stick with me very well. Consequently, some of what Maier said was familiar, but most of it was like new material. I think I understand what Luther went through, just how much danger he was in, and how much he truly accomplished.

As a side note, the lecture included some thoughts of how the printing press helped to fuel the rapid dispersal of information. This kind of confirms thoughts behind a book I’ve been planning to write. Unfortunately, it’s way, way down the writing list, which is tossed aside right now while life gives no time for writing. Oh, well, retirement is now only 8 years, 1 month, and 26 days away, assuming our elected officials don’t screw it all up in the meantime.

If you have a chance to hear Dr. Maier lecture, don’t pass it up. Consider reading his books. I don’t think you will be disappointed.

Pamela Tudsbury, in Herman Wouk’s excellent novel The Winds of War, said, “Some moments weigh against a life time.”

I have found her (or rather his) words to be true in life in general and in my life in particular. Those moments probably are not recognizable at the time. Well, some are. Death and destruction, such as the 9/11 attacks on the USA or the death of a loved one, are obvious, but other moments aren’t. In the novel, Pamela and Victor Henry were talking about a moment that had happened some days or weeks before.

On Wednesday I may have had such a moment. I recognized it instantly, though I’m waiting to see if I’m right or not. Consequently, I may be silent here for a while.