!!!deleted!!! (5085627) — 11 years ago(March 07, 2015 07:00 PM)

Recently I was having lunch with a friend on the deck of his beach cottage when right in the middle of a bite of my smoked salmon wrap, I noticed a young man, probably in his 20s, walking by on the beach below. Now before you ask what's so unusual about that, this particular young man was holding and reading AN ACTUAL BOOK! Yes, his hands held one of those things found in places called libraries! I was so shocked and taken aback by this rare sight that I literally did a double take and went so far as to ask my friend if he put something in my wrap that caused hallucinations. Imagine seeing a person in their twenties nowadays who isn't suffering from HDS (Head Down Syndrome thank you, Albert Brooks) because of a hand-held device, but because of A BOOK! How freaky is that?! Spotting someone with a book is such a seldom seen occurrence in today's world that I couldn't help but think of a "Far Side" comic strip my friend, Gary Larson once did where a man encounters Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis gathered together and his camera jams.
Channeling my best Blanche DuBois (it's impressive, believe me) I called down to this bookish curiosity in snug-fitting jeans, "excuse me, young man. Yes you, the cutie with the spurt of hair on the front of his neck. If you tell me what book you're reading, I'll share my salmon with you like a good bear." Giving me a sweetly shy smile, he told me it wasa biography of Mark Zuckerberg. Irony of ironies! I lost my appetite and told him that there are much better, more worthwhile subjects than Mr. Facebook and off he went leaving me with nothing more than the memory of rhythmatic buttocks getting smaller with each step. My host reminded me that ther2000e's still hope for the youth of America's literary health because regardless of the subject matter, at least the young, bulgy man not only knew what a book was, but was reading one too. I guess he had a point.