Barry and the Book Club

Sometime during the Summer of 2006, a group of girls at Melissa's work suggested forming a book club. As I knew almost all of them and they knew of my joy of reading, I was the only male extended an invitation to join.

Just a few months prior to this, their work's headquarters announced a merger of the Dallas and Albuquerque offices would take place during 2007. Essentially, nobody would lose their jobs but they would have to transfer or take the severance package. As this is where we will be for a long, long time (and the buyout allowed Melissa to stay home for the rest of the year), that's what she chose.

Nonetheless, the ladies of the book club and their token male continued to meet. A few of the girls did move to New Mexico and while we continued to see each other at weddings, showers, and other social events the book club disbanded. Until this week.

I got an e-mail from one of the girls telling about a good book she just read. She e-mailed one of the other book club members and said she was sad she had nobody to talk to about the book. So, she sent a message to everybody who attended previously, suggested the book, and organized a time next week to meet and talk about the book.

The book is 19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult. In light of recent anniversaries in Colorado and Virginia and one especially ignorant comment made by a certain presidential candidate, it is a timely book to read as it deals with a school massacre blamed on guns.

I've written before that many liberals ardently defend most of the Bill of Rights, conveniently forgetting the Second Amendment.

That being said, I did not grow up in a household with munitions. I think the first time I saw a firearm that was not loaded with a pellet or BB was at Boy Scout camp. Quite simply, guns intimidated me; I did not know how to use them and was scared of their misuse.

More specifically, I had, in my youth, as much recreational need of a rifle as I did a soccer ball. As such, I never learned how to master control of either.

All of that changed when I married into Melissa's family. Larry's father took him and his brothers hunting when they were children; in turn, Larry took his son hunting when he became old enough. Melissa and I have already discussed when and how I will introduce our child to this recreation.

Moreover, there is, for the first time, a rifle in my household. It's stored out of sight and is not maintained for defensive purposes; it is seasonally used for one thing, or its practice.

Be that as it may, back to the book. I don't intend on engaging a discussion about whether guns are good, bad, or indifferent. To each his own and I'm bitterly clinging to mine during this time of economic unrest.

Instead, I choose to focus attention on one conversation within the book. Of particular interest was this observation:

"A gun is a very, very dangerous thing, but what makes it so dangerous is that most people don't really understand how it works. And once you do, it's just a tool, like a hammer or a screwdriver, and it doesn't do anything unless you know how to pick it up and use it correctly."

I can't find anything there I disagree with. Having been on both sides of the coin, its accuracy makes sense to me. Looking back, I don't understand being scared of guns. But take out that word and insert "car", "chef's knife", or any just about any other object and the veracity remains the same; and I was never intimidated by any of those.

19 Minutes, with that backdrop, continually raises an interesting observation. There are quite a bit of people in our lives - family members, friends, or just casual acquaintances. Though we like to fool ourselves that we know quite a bit about the people we are closest to, rarely do we really know what they think, feel, or sense. In many ways, we are complete strangers to those we know and love the most. In this, it is very Norman Maclean.

In the end, I'm glad for this book club thing for one particular reason - it forces me to reach out and read fiction. I was in the middle of Ambrose's book about the transcontinental railroad and had to put it to the side for this. Not that I'm complaining.