One of the many sacrifices I made for the three years I most actively fought the Red Plan was to give up reading history. Oh, I read dribs and drabs but I didn’t wade into a single serious book for most of that time. Last Fall after easing myself out of the lawsuit I picked up a history by a Pulitzer winner about the exploration of the Colorado River and Grand Canyon while my wife and I traveled around the Colorado Plateau.
As regular readers know I’ve been reading a bio about Abe Lincoln the writer. I finished it a few days ago. Some day I’ll read just the last chapter again. It had, among other things, the most concise and blunt history of Minnesota’s Sioux Uprising. Its a subject I once wrote about for a Reader Column. I mentioned that I was ready to wade into Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals” but frankly I needed to find a little shorter book first. Resting next to it was 1776, another Pulitzer winner, written by David McCullough. I’m 96 pages into it. A great read so far.
I might have read the last of Ann Frank’s Diary yesterday to Claudia except that it was our 36th wedding anniversary and somehow the Frank Diary seemed like the wrong thing to finish on this particular day.
One thing both histories reminded me of was just how long a good cause can run. My three year fight although ultimately unsuccessful was never destined [sorry for the interruption I just got a automated phone call offering the Welty for Senate Campaign the use of automated calls] was never destined to be a short term project. For some the fight continues.
