If you can't get the above to work, go to Stage6 here.

"Time Enough at Last" became one of the most famous episodes of the original Twilight Zone, and has been frequently parodied since. It is "the story of a man who seeks salvation in the rubble of a ruined world" and tells of Henry Bemis, played by Burgess Meredith, who loves books, yet is surrounded by those who would prevent him from reading them. The episode follows Bemis through the end of the world, touching on such social issues as anti-intellectualism, the dangers of reliance upon technology, and the difference between aloneness and loneliness.

Besides getting my Percheron horse Toby registered with the American Vaulting Association and scraping up the money for a vaulting surcingle this year, maybe even getting my own club or an extension of the current club going here in the Pecos, I'd like to take more time for reading. Of the quality variety, that is. Not a few pages sneaked in here or there, or before I pass out sound asleep exhausted at the end of the day.

Maybe I'll even get my books organized. Currently, my er ... library ... is in stacks beneath my very tall (thankfully) and very large four-poster bed due to a lack of bookshelves and space. The biggest luxury in my life, I think, is having the books I want to read. I can't tell you how many horse books I have, but there are plenty. And my beekeeping library is growing too. Science fiction. Theology. Philosophy. Yep, just check out these topics in the four-poster library.

My mother talks sometimes about growing up in Maud, Oklahoma, where the library was so poor, and there was no money to buy books at home, so she read the same ones over and over again. I think she read the Sears catalog from cover to cover as well.

Our New Year's Eve was quiet as usual. We stoked the wood burning stove and ordered out from the Spanish lady who cooks up fabulous food in a kitchen behind the local gas station in Pecos (Panchos, it you're in the area)--chicharron burritos and green chile chicken enchiladas (green chile is good for a cold I'm convinced)--and watched the Twilight Zone marathon on the SciFi Channel.

I'd never seen this Twilight Zone episode before, and was really struck by it. I read somewhere recently that less and less people are reading books these days. Do you think that's true? The end of this one is a killer, but you kind of know it's going to happen.

My fifth grade teacher (who wore glasses nearly as thick as Mr. Bemis'), the one who read us sicence fiction stories on a regular basis in the public school I attended and who got me absolutely hopelessly hooked (the stories he read us were like water in the desert, food in the famine), would have wholeheartedly enjoyed this thoughtful story about a man and his books.