Biggest Gap

Where I live most businesses and facilities are closed. Grocery stores are open, liquor stores are now open again, but other services are shut. I can't complain that the local nail salon is closed because I can't even imagine getting a mani-pedi. Hell, I can't imagine even going to a hair salon and I have been cutting my husband's hair myself for way more than 50 years.  Part of my current view is that I have baby hair. I have always had very thin and fine hair. My late sister had very thick hair that even in the hospital where she spent her last few months the nurses and care givers commented on her luxuriant hair. Even her hospice workers who cared for her her last two weeks commented on her wonderful hair.

My hair has never been luxuriant. My mother was embarrassed by my hair to the point that she used to tape bows in my hair. Now that I am a senior citizen, my thin hair is even thinner with baldness encroaching on most of the front of my hairline. Do I care? I never had the crown of glory hair that my sister had so I cannot say I miss hair salons or beauty parlors. My husband was in the military and he was also an old school athlete so he doesn't need a barber to cut his hair. Neither of us has sat in a salon chair for more than 50 years.

What do we miss? Our local library has not been open for months. Sure, books are available online but only if one has the appropriate device. I have a Kindle that I use for reading when I travel and that I used when the library first shut down. But I read more than 1000 words per minute (that's an entire other story) so I was going through books on the Kindle very quickly and lining up other books to read. My husband reads more slowly than I so it took him some time to go through the two books he had from the library. When he finally finished them, I had to give him my Kindle because there wasn't anything else for him to read.

So what am I reading now? We inherited my husband's family library. We have old books of all sorts, most that I think my husband's grandparents thought their children should read. So I am currently reading "Lorna Doone" and I just finished reading three English plays--She Stoops to Conquer, The Rivals, and The School for Scandal. Of course I knew of these plays--my family even called me Mrs. Malaprop when I was younger than six because of my creative word use.

I don't knock the classics, but I will be glad when the library reopens. Free libraries, a Ben Franklin and American invention, are one of our best ideas.