The Power of Words

I recently watched a version of Bravos "Inside The Actors Studio" and the guest was George Carlin. Well, that got my attention... I think he tops his field, and wanted to know more about him; what was his motivation, what was he really like, etc, etc, etc. I have to admit, I wasn't disappointed.

I have followed his career from the 60's, even though I was a kid at the time, and all the way to his evolved 70's humor. He kind of dropped off the radar, except for a few movie appearances here and there, and if he did public gigs, I wasn't able to keep up. My life kind of got in the way.

What amazed me was the accolades he had for his mother. She was the one that pointed out to him that there was power in words. "Just look at them", she would say to him, "There's power in those words". Bang! It hit me! How right she was.... and how I knew that all along, I just needed a bop to the head to voice it out for me.

I was always very conscious of words, be it there spelling, phonetics, or usage. At a very early age, I became a reader..... and a very big reader at that. There was nowhere I traveled that a book, magazine or pamphlet didn't come along. To this day, I rarely have my dictionary far from my desk as I type letters.... because the book is loaded with words!

My parents fed my frenzy with all the aplomb of proud breeding. I was the kid who always had the money to buy seven books from the scholastic list that our class ordered from. It was the only vice my parents allowed me with no questions asked, and getting money from them was something similar to seeing a loan officer at the bank. You had to have a good reason, or the money just wasn't available. Yes, we had a town library, and yes, I made many Saturday trips there on my bike. But that was never enough... I wanted to take out more then they would allow me to, so the Saturday trips were a part of my life, but only after chores were done. I finally figured out that I could stay in the library, read a few books (without even checking them out), then find some to take home. I can't recall ever getting them back late, because I'd have to pay the fine.... and at 50 cents a week allowance, my budget would be thrown off.

This compulsive order lasted well into my adulthood, and I found that I could not fall asleep at night until I had read a little first. Then, I hit my 40's. GLASSES! I could no longer read my beloved books without glasses. I had never worn them before, but now they were a necessity.
I had to give up reading at night, as the glasses got in the way of my just floating off to sleep.
Believe it or not, I could fall asleep with a book in my hands and hold onto the page I left off at, only to awake the next morning to pick up where I had left off. Now all that was gone to me.

Ok, so I've adjusted. The words still exist, and I still play mental games in my head with spelling. All is well with the world, and I have all the words at my fingertips with my cherished dictionary and thesaurus.... if only I can remember where I put my glasses down.......