1. By about 8:00 tonight, I finished the book, A Natural History of Empty Lots and its detailed and often meandering (which I enjoyed) exploration of history, philosophy, urban blight, wildness, economics, the business world, and, among much else, the fraught relationship between human beings and the natural world.
One aspect of the book is Christopher Brown's telling the story of his vision of having a half-buried house built that is as integrated as much as possible into the natural world of the empty urban lot he purchased. His dream becomes a reality and Brown helps us see the joys and challenges of living in this house.
I went online in search of images of his bunker house and it's a remarkable feat of architectural and ecological imagination.
2. The book took priority for me over tonight's Michigan/UConn NCAA Men's Basketball Championship game. More than being involved with this game, I wanted to have the book finished and thought about before the Tuesday, April 7th Book Club meeting at Auntie's Bookstore in Spokane.
Now I'm very curious what the members of this book club will have to say about this book. I have no idea where the discussion might go.
3. Not watching the basketball game this evening reminded me of how I didn't watch Game 6 of the 1975 World Series and so missed bearing witness to Carlton Fisk's eternally famous 12th inning home run to win that game -- nor did I see Bernie Carbo's dramatic pinch hit three run homer in the bottom of the eighth inning that tied up this epic game.
The night was October 21, 1975. I was a senior at Whitworth College and I spent that evening studying for a midterm exam coming up the next evening in the Renaissance and Reformation class I was taking from Dr. Fenton Duval. My studies took priority over, say, heading over to Rich Brock's dorm room and watching this game with him.
I loved that course and I wanted to be fully prepared for whatever questions Dr. Duval would pose on that exam. Because it was an evening course, I also missed Game 7 of that World Series.
I was sitting in a classroom writing my midterm exam.
I aced it.
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