Reading Challenges, Yucatan Photos and other stuff

I’m bone tired. I did get to the gym twice this week, but work (not working out) is killing me. I don't see much of a break till after the middle of June. And it doesn’t look like I’ll get out of town for more than a day or two till July, when I’ll head west for a couple of weeks. I've got a lot to do to catch up on folk's blogs—hopefully I can do some of that this weekend!

Maggie’s 3rd Annual Southern Reading Challenge is about to begin. I have decided on the three books by southerners that I plan to read this summer. The first is David Brinkley: A Memoir. Brinkley grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina and spent his summers on Wrightsville Beach—my old stomping grounds (a few decades later). A friend lent me this book back in the fall and I really need to get it back to him. My second book is by Texas naturalist John Graves, Goodbye to a River: A Narrative. I admit, it’s hard to include a Texan in the Southern Reading challenge, but the state was a part of the Confederacy, so I'll make this allowance. Thinking of confederacies, there's a classic I've not read. My third book will be John Kennedy Toole’s comic A Confederacy of Dunces. I’ve been told by many people that this book is funny and I hope so because I may need some laughter after the next month.

I should do a non-fiction challenge this summer. In the past few months, two of my former professors have published what will probably be their life's major works. One of my former professors is now retired and just writing, the other is still teaching although he's past retirement age. Both are biographies; one on Abraham Lincoln and the other on John Calvin. These guys, whose field is history, must have picked up a course or two in marketing along the way. This year is the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth and the 500th anniversary of Calvin’s birth. What great timing! Lately, when I’ve had a few minutes, I’ve been enjoying Edward Berkowitz’s, Something Happened, a history of the 70s.

Let me close with my last set of photos from the Yucatan.

Notice the Mayan dresses of these women on this village street.

A side street. Unlike other areas in this region of the world, I found the villages to be very neat and clean.

I love taking walks in the early morning hours...

A closing shot...