tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30975557.post522777605237228030..comments2024-03-28T15:20:19.629-07:00Comments on View from the Cottage: Judy Alterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05147106159914535549noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30975557.post-50196623545825140932016-08-03T06:54:45.346-07:002016-08-03T06:54:45.346-07:00Nice memories, Randy. You've had the best of b...Nice memories, Randy. You've had the best of both worlds, and you seem to be happy with where you are now. We are both blessed with happiness...and with family.judyalterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13767466505891813090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30975557.post-38714314468571142892016-08-03T05:02:28.261-07:002016-08-03T05:02:28.261-07:00In a way, Judy, I can relate to this. But, I have ...In a way, Judy, I can relate to this. But, I have lived (I think anyway) a rather adventurous life and consequently am now pretty content to just stay at home. Of course, I have the place made to suit me personally and a huge outdoors to play with which makes all the difference, I think. I have traveled the world (literally) but really, at times, think I would like to travel more---only to suddenly change my mind. A little fear, I think, sits in when it comes down to the nitty-gritty and I realize that although there are places I would like to see, I don't want to be with others. So much has happened to me in the past that the idea that I will be among people is a bit upsetting. This, I feel, is causing my children a bit of an alarm---my reluctance to go out and merge with he world---but I am, for the most part, content where I am. I have my easel, my piano, a rather large library, nice office, and, unfortunately, telephones. I do not like telephones. I have hunted, fished, played tennis, golf, boxed but now am cognate that when I was started onto that path, I really didn't want to go. I was quite content, as a young boy, to simply stay in a comfortable chair, reading. I was asthmatic and allergic to all sorts of pollen (the doctors once told my parents that they would have to move from Pierre, SD to Arizona because of my illnesses) but my parents still insisted that I "give it the old college try." I did although I most definitely was not gifted in the Norman Rockwell concept of a young boy as shown in his LIFE magazine covers. That was the boy my parents wanted; not a bookworm whose idea of a great time was going to the library on summer days. And, suddenly, I realize, that the way I am now is the way I wanted to be in the beginning. My mother did encourage reading but she wanted to exercise a firm control over what I would read. Comic books were okay (and believe me I had a large collection), the Hardy Boys and such books but when I tried to venture into James Fenimore Cooper, she drew the line as I wasn't old enough to understand them. I read them anyway due to a kind, elderly librarian who always wore flower prints and smelled of lilac and kept the book I wanted to read under her desk at the old Carnegie Library. Now, I can be the boy I wanted to be and, strangely enough, I'm now occasionally struck with the desire to read a Hardy Boys book once again and Cooper and watch the old television shows that I loved to watch when we finally got a television when I was 12. I have concluded that I am now in my second childhood and this time, living it the way I wanted to in the beginning. I wonder if the world is going to be ready for me when I grow up this time.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10302909967873564863noreply@blogger.com