Unabashedly Uneducated

I've received more e-mail on this subject than any other since I started this back up again last month and so I've changed the title from "uneducated" to "self-educated". I take great pride in my humble, public school, inner city roots. I'm from the school of hard knocks and have accomplished many things without parental guidance or a real formal education. I've done these things by myself, with the help of a few very important mentors along the way to whom I am eternally grateful and many, many books. When I was a kid growing up in Washington Heights my mother had a ton of books, most of which were her brother's. Great adventure classics mostly, Twain, London, Hemingway, Salinger, Dante, Frost and on and on. I would escape into them. I may be the only kid you will ever meet who would cut class in high school to go to the research library on 41st and 5th open a catalog at random like a dart thrown at a map, pick a subject and spend the day reading. And so that's what I've done and what I still do today, I constantly educate myself. Depending on my work travel I read up to 4 books a week, most every week. I re-read my favorites constantly, always finding new nuances. I couldn't possibly tell you how many times I've read For Whom the Bell Tolls or The Hobbit or To Kill A Mockingbird. This week I'm reading Memnoch The Devil with Cassy, Inkspell with Nick and Tuesdays with Morrie and a Cooking for One cookbook for me. If I am ever curious about a subject or want to learn to do something I buy a book. I constantly tell The Three, and anyone else who will listen, any subject you ever want to learn about can be found in a book. Period.