"I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences. Today is one of those experiences." -Sonia Sotomayor, Judge on the Supreme Court of the U.S.A.
Good morning and welcome to the last full week of June, 2015. Where has the time gone, and what is happening to my summer?? I've been on the road for the past nine days, traveling from Durham, NC to Lancaster, Ohio and on to Sandusky, Ohio (another 3 hours north), and then a day later departing for Georgetown, Kentucky to celebrate my mom's birthday. I calculated that we spent about 40 hours in the car during the nine days, but it was good to be able to see our extended family and our son, Benjamin, who lives in Sandusky near Lake Erie. We are so proud of Benjamin and the adult that he is becoming. After he graduated from Belmont University in Nashville, TN, he went to work at a church in Sandusky, The Chapel, and he serves as a Technical Arts Developer. His small band is also performing at some community events, and he sometimes works the sound or video-recording at weddings. So, while it was good to get away and to see family, I'm ready to get into a "summer routine" befitting an ESL teacher who doesn't teach students during the summer. It's time to tackle some of those household projects that I've been putting off and to relax a little bit.
While I was on the road I was able to finish reading the autobiography of Sonia Sotomayor, My Beloved World. I often choose to read a memoir because I am reminded that all of us, no matter how well-known, talented, or wealthy, share many of the same basic needs: food, shelter, and safety, and to live a life that will somehow make a difference in the world. Stories like this one remind us that we are all a part of humanity on an equal footing, even though some of us do have extraordinary opportunities in life. Sotomayor was such a person. Born into a low-income family in Puerto Rico, her father was an alcoholic and died when she was a child. Her mother was a hard-working woman who did the best she could raising her two children with the help of Abuelita who lived nearby. Sotomayor had a very special relationship with her Abuelita, and to this day she remembers the wisdom and encouragement that she received from this amazing woman. I think Sotomayor would say that Abuelita helped to mold her into the Supreme Court judge that she is today. Although Sotomayor spent a great deal of her childhood living in a Bronx housing project and her father was absent, these events seemed to make her a strong, independent person who wasn't easily shaken. When she developed juvenile diabetes she again learned these lessons as she had to administer daily injections to herself and track everything that she ate. These medical issues added to her resilience as she went to college and beyond, and as she worked in the New York County District Attorney's office, entered private law practice, and became a Supreme Court judge as nominated by President Obama.
Sotomayor was the valedictorian of her high school class, and she received high honors at Princeton and Yale Law School. She is an advocate for affirmative action and is thankful for the opportunities that it gave her. She made the most of every opportunity that she had, and it sometimes took its toll on her private life. Having gotten married right after college, her married ended five years later, largely due to the fact that she was rarely at home. She and her husband drifted apart. As I was reading this memoir, I was reminded that I have also read a memoir of another Supreme Court judge, Sandra Day O'Connor. I read her book, Lazy B: Growing up on a cattle ranch in the American Southwest, a few years ago. Although the upbringing and heritage of these women was different, they both demonstrate the qualities of grit and determination, and they always had very high standards for themselves. I think you might enjoy reading O'Connor's book as well.
So, what am I going to read next? I'd like to read another of David McCullough's books such as The Wright Brothers or The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge. I'm on a waiting list to get each of these from the public library. I always enjoy McCullough's books. He seems to be a very good storyteller, and since I am so interested in history, he is my "go to" historical writer. If you've read either of these books by McCullough, I'd be interested in knowing what you thought of them.
I'd like to digress just a little bit and mention three books that I've enjoyed in the past year. Three of the best novels that I've read during this time are The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, and Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline. While I do tend to read a lot of memoirs and historical books, I do enjoy great historical novels too. I recommend these three novels if this is a genre that you enjoy.
Here are the next ten books that I've read since 1984:
1. Gap Creek by Robert Morgan
2. The Truest Pleasure by Robert Morgan
3. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortesson and David Oliver Relin
4. The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley
5. Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Moss (makes you think before you eat!)
6. Biblical Ethics and Social Change by Stephen Charles Mott
7. Fooling With Words by Bill Moyers
8. Dewey: The Small-town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron
9. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
10. The Autoimmune Epidemic by Donna Jackson Nakazawa
Comments? Let me know your thoughts, and have a wonderful Monday.
-Melissa Hill
Book Blogger
I really liked David McCullough's Truman.
ReplyDelete