I have made the cyber leap, well, maybe. I have a smartphone (okay, it's an older iPhone). I have a Kindle Fire HD with books and magazines and weather radar and maps, all of which I can summon with a moment's notice. We have several computers from a big desktop, to a laptop, to an iPad. But there is still something I'm looking for: hardbound books!

Actually, books that are in better condition than those depicted in the photo above. During this past year we built a shelf unit that you may know about from previous communications, or possibly you have seen how it stretches across the room and is 12 feet tall. It takes up a lot of space and has lots of room for items. The top two shelves are mostly for the display of photos. But there are numerous shelves that can hold books and books. I've probably given away more books than I have kept with the vocational transitions during the last dozen years of my professional life. I still have a lot of books. And I'm looking for more.

On those shelves, there are books of favorite authors and familiar stories and collections of photographs and other books yet to be enjoyed. Books are a connection of my learning to read that very first word with ideas, and inspiration, and imagination, and remembrances.  I have learned a ton of things and mastered skills from books: sailing, photography, electrical wiring. I've been inspired by books and changed by books. My world is bigger because of books. And long before I could buy books, I rode my bicycle for miles to borrow them from the Carnegie Library in Kokomo, Indiana. So, I'm still looking for some books. I've got room.