THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 14, 1994 TAG: 9412140459
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
On C-Span, biographer Elizabeth Drew disclosed that Bill Clinton used to read two serious books to one mystery story, but now that he is president the ratio is 1-to-1.
Interviewed by David Lamb, she remarked that the president has favorite books at hand in the Oval Office, a display she suggests may be pretense since he scarcely has time to read there amid the rush of many problems.
Oh, I don't know about that.
Drew is engaging, fair-minded, insightful. I'll read her book about President Clinton.
But she, of all people, ought to know that an inveterate reader is apt to open a book anywhere.
When I was 8, I fell into a well, up in the country, and while everybody else was dashing about looking for gear to get me out, Great Aunt Mary - shouting, ``Heads up, Guyboy! Here's something to pass the time!'' - flung a flashlight and ``Uncle Remus'' down the well.
It was good company while those above, after determining I was unhurt, got into tedious debate on the best way to haul me out, the neighbors from down the red road bringing ropes and advice.
``What possessed you to fall in a well, anyway,'' Mary shouted down, her head silhouetted against the leafy fretwork of the towering old oak shading the well.
``And if YOU felt obliged to throw him a book,'' my mother, arriving, said to her, ``why not `Miss Minerva'? Are you all right, Guyboy?''
``If anybody's pitching another book down here, make it `Two Little Confederates,' '' I yelled. ``It's under the bed.''
Ever I am elected president - and were that to happen the country, certainly after if not before the election, would be going to hell in a luge - I'd put all 10 of Thoreau's journals within reach. Not for show but because his passages are as restorative as a walk in Walden woods, soothing as wind in the pines or a creek brawling.
The Sunday morning after Clinton's nomination, he came out with a Bible in his mitt. I've been reading it lately, during collection and whatnot. Tales in the Old Testament beat anything in the Arabian Nights. In the Bible, the difference in Old and New is night and dawn.
With today's traffic jams, anybody would be a fool to drive without a book under the car seat. Or keep one in your pocket to turn back time while standing in line at the cash register or waiting for a bus or even getting on an elevator.
A book ought to be everywhere.
Somehow they are old friends from way back on whom you've leaned before, waiting while you're busy in a throng, but always there when you wish to reach out for them. There is something comforting, stabilizing even, in just the sight of books. Of all places they should be in the Oval Office.
Wonder what books he has there.
What would you have in the Oval Office?
Or in a well? by CNB