Had another God awfully (in the true sense of the term God-awe-full) good and profitable day. Plus it was an enormously fun day. This has become my consistent habit.
While I traveled today I finished up my lecture series on Ancient Religion in the Mediterranean World and then listened (or re-listened, haven’t heard it since I was in my twenties) to the First disc of Return of the Manticore, which was excellent indeed.
I really, really like progressive Rock groups, especially those that derive much of their work through adaptation of ancient, art, classical, and folk music, scores, and sources, as does ELP.
Plus I was able to score several truly useful treasures today including adding to my personal library two of the works formerly held in the library of Robert Jordan (really regret never meeting him, and a real shame too since he was a fellow South Carolinian and just judging from the works I purchased from his library we would have been completely sympatico). One was on Byzantium history (which will be truly useful for my historical novels), another on Mathematics (he was a nuclear engineer in the Navy – our math and scientific interests were very close indeed).
I’ll talk about these two treasures later in another post. As the number of books I’ve scored from his library is now impressive. He had a superb library indeed. One of the best personal libraries I’ve ever seen. I feel honored to have obtained so much of it.
I got home late, near nightfall but since it is summer and we are prone to slow sunsets this time of year I decided to cut grass. But it started to rain and therefore I couldn’t cut grass, but, just for fun I rode around on my tractor in the rain for the pure enjoyment and hell of it. Rode it all over my lands, up and down the country roads, and over to my nephew’s house. Got soaking wet and laughed a lot and had a ball.
Then came into the house and listened to ELP and Gustav Mahler (Das Lied Von Der Erde) with my oldest daughter while she read some of the poetry I wrote back in high school and college.
Truly I am becoming a teenager again and having a helluvah good time at it…
The Missal 