Briefly

I can’t say this often enough. Books are banned in Ray Bradbury’s novel, “Fahrenheit 451,” but government censorship isn’t the point of the book. (Bradbury himself said so himself.) Censorship is merely a plot device to talk about what newer media are doing to the desire to read and understand literature. It was television when he wrote the book, but Bradbury would say the same things about the Internet today. It’s about people not being wanting the burden of having to think — and of them turning to mindless junk instead of anything worthwhile. It’s about people’s individual choices, not about the dangers of banning books. Bradbury said clearly that the culprit is the people, not the government. Clarisse McClellan’s family were used in the book to contrast thinkers from the rest of society. They weren’t out there fighting censorship. No, they were merely iconoclasts who had the good sense to talk and think about things that mattered, as opposed to almost everybody else — those who were entranced by the White Clown and his television friends. This book is more relevant than ever before, especially as social media consumes us and changes society for the worse. Please read the book. You might need it just as badly as I needed it when I first read it years ago.

When Ginna Claire Mason was 13 years old, she saw the Broadway show “Wicked” for the first time and was enchanted. At intermission of that performance, the Nashville teen-ager told her parents, “I’m going to be Glinda someday.” Something like 15 years later, Mason is doing exactly that. She’s the actress currently playing Glinda in the Broadway production at the Gershwin Theatre in New York City. Most of us have crazy ideas about what we’re going to do with our lives when we’re 13. For many of us, those ideas evolve or even radically change over time, but a few people hold onto dreams about what they truly want to do. Most people give up on their dreams and that’s understandable. Some dreams aren’t possible. But it’s a mistake to believe that nobody can do the work he loves. Few of us are lucky enough to do that, but some who have the talent and the determination do that. It’s worth remembering that dreams can come true. At least sometimes.

When I saw the elderly man holding onto a walker, I thought he was just out for a walk. But then I noticed he was bent over with an electric leaf blower in one hand. He was frail and needed the walker to stand, but that wasn’t going to keep him from his work. I was in his neighborhood to show a house, so I stopped to talk. He turned out to be a bright and lively 96-year-old who’s lived in the house for decades. He’s blind in one eye, but his mind is sharp. He told me he can’t see the grass well enough anymore to cut his lawn, but he keeps his driveway cleared of leaves. “If I didn’t do it, my wife would have to,” he joked. “She’s only 74, so I’m married to a young ’un and I like to keep her happy.” This delightful gentleman was another reminder that acting the way other people think you ought to at your age is often a matter of choice.