Jon Carroll wrote a weekday column in the San Francisco Chronicle for something like thirty-three years, from 1982 to 2015. I have always felt a kinship to Carroll. He and I were born about two months apart (way back when), and his sensibilities are a lot like my own.
Though Carroll no longer appears in the Chronicle, he now writes a blog, Jon Carroll Prose. You can click the link and subscribe, if you want to.
Carroll's wife, Tracy Johnston, is a photographer and a journalist, and Johnston took the picture above, which is included in the January 12, 2017 edition of Jon Carroll Prose. That blog posting was about kids and literature, and here's a quote:
I think parents are way too fretful about what their kids read. With some obvious exceptions (let ’em watch pornography in secret, as God intended), parents should just open the keys to the library and let ’em browse. And when the kids hit the Internet, it will be time to acquaint them with the real facts of life — people lie.
I agree with Carroll about giving kids the keys to the library and letting them loose. My wife Marilyn and I have both benefitted from our early (and persistent) book addictions, stimulated at the start by our free-range roaming through our respective neighborhood libraries.
Let me put in a good word for Carroll's final observation, as well. This comment - people lie - is not news to any of us, but we always seem to be shocked when it happens....once again.
Even presidents do it.
Let's not play Charlie Brown, forever, to the kind of political mendacity that we absolutely must recognize is simple "business as usual." It doesn't really have to set us flying!
Image Credits:
Tracy Johnston at https://joncarrollprose.com
https://sensitivematters.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/i-am-the-son-of-a-narcissistic-mother-part-1-through-the-looking-glass/
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