Blog Post #64

Reading Books: The Great Advantage

Normally, when I write a blog post, I develop a topic in prose. This time, I present my topic in the form of poetry and asked Mr. Mark Twain if he would kindly endorse it.

                                                                                Evening Reading
                                                                                By Swen Nater

                                                You may call me old-fashioned, but from supper till bed,
                                                It is reading a book that will get you ahead.
                                                When I raised my three children, when supper was done,
                                                We all grabbed a good book and we all sat and read.

                                                Oh, they begged and they pleaded and got down on their knees,
                                                And they tried to convince me with logic and pleas,
                                                That their minds would be challenged with video games,
                                                And enriched with the culture in those DVDs.

                                                But I challenged their logic with some that I had,
                                                “When I was a child, long before I was Dad,
                                                When supper was finished, we drank from our books,
                                                And I really don’t think that I turned out that bad.”

                                                Did I do the right thing? Was I strict and too hard,
                                                To protect them from joysticks and rich DVDs? 
                                                Should I not have policed them; should I not have stood guard?
                                                Last June, all three signed my Father’s Day card,
                                                “Love, Amanda and Aaron and Abbey, PhDs.”

                    “The man who does not read books has no advantage over the man that can not read them.” Mark Twain

I am thankful for the coaches that taught me how to play basketball but I’m more thankful for the teachers that taught me how to read and love books, for, while sport exercises the body, reading exercises a far more important part of me—the mind.  This is the great advantage.   Swen