The cicadas are droning.

The frogs are singing an ominous bass line.

In the distance a tree toad is trilling for attention to be paid.

The fountain in the (black) lagoon is gurgling.

I might as well be in the jungles of India.

And, I am.

I am avidly lost in Gordon Casserley’s 1921 adventure tale; THE ELEPHANT GOD. The protagonist has just been attacked by a strategically-placed cobra, his slippers have been deliberately baited with a krait, his breakfast has been poisoned, and he’s now trapped in a courtyard with a mad elephant. He has eluded every threat thus far, but what might be next?

I am a true “Jeffty” who will always be five years old (100 points if you know that reference). I’m goggle-eyed and slack-jawed, unaware as my wife Janie pads in silently and whispers like thunder; “Are you awake?”

I gasp…..

….oh no……

…I shriek and suck all the air out of this quiet Hollywood/Mt. Vernon neighborhood in Central Kentucky.

My head snaps up out of the book and out of India, whiplashing my life before my eyes (that’s gonna ache…where’s the Naproxen?)

Reading is dangerous!

Who’d a’thunk?

Reading is dangerous. I’ve lived in that perilous valley since Dick and Jane, since Doctor Dolittle, since Bartholomew Cubbins’ Oobleck. At least, that’s what the news cycle and the Kentucky State Legislature has been telling me.

Oobleck…sounds like something that might have escaped from a Chinese wet market. Hugh Lofting’s colonial depictions of non-white races are clearly offensive in the 21st century, though the kindness and respect he grants animals, and his objections to fox-hunting ameliorate my frown a mite. Dick and Jane’s relationship with Spot…grooming for bestiality? Cultivating a species prejudice against cats?

Dangerous stuff indeed.

I don’t know how I survived all this indoctrination.

I’ve read voraciously my whole life. Hell, I read at red lights.

I’ve read Jack Kerouac, Herbert Huncke, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Hunter Thompson, Paul Bowles, and Abby Hoffman. I’ve never done drugs, been drunk at the Derby, been arrested, or shot my wife. I have thought freely and fiercely, questioned authority, and sought the next right thing to do.

I’ve read Harper Lee and learned the value of standing on another man’s porch and looking out at the world as he sees it…and sought the next right thing to do.

I’ve read H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe and learned that behind some doors lie madness…which is clearly not the next right thing to do.

I’ve read Clair Bee and Wilfred McCormick and still cannot hit a curve ball…but I have a better idea of the next right thing to do.

I’ve read Edgar Lee Masters, Sherwood Anderson, Dylan Thomas, and Davis Grubb. I know that so many of us with widely varying competences are most often searching for the next right thing to do.

…the next right thing to do…

Surely that’s a worthy quest. Yes?

Even at the cost of a rude misstep or two, or an awkward or offensive moment, or a challenge to our beliefs…

…or even a hair-whitening scare from a stealthy-footed Janie.