marichiko

Yeah, when I was in grad school, we were forced to read Watson's and Cricks' Molecular Biology of the Gene. NOT a page turner, I'm warning you right now! I mean, if you're into amino acids, it had its moments, but the peptide sequencing and the double helix thing really WERE just a bit over done. The plot sucked, too. I got a "B" in the class because I refused to read the final third of the book. Never did find how it all turned out.

I first read Frankl on one of my "snow days" in Durango at Fort Lewis College. I was in a bad mood that day, wondering why God had cursed me to be the only member of the library faculty with a pair of Swiss mountaineering ski's - originals used by the Swiss army to patrol mountain passes in WWII. The library director would always call me at 6:00am the morning after we'd had a 3 foot snowfall the night before, and say, "Come on Marichiko, you're the only one who can make it up to the top of the mesa." The fact that this also meant that no one but me would make it up to the library that day and there was no point in having it open seemed to elude him.

Anyhow, I was grouchly prowling around the empty stacks and feeling VERY ill used since everyone else had gotten the day off when the title of the book caught my eye. I pulled it off the shelf and went up to the third floor to the Southwest studies collection which had lots of cozy Navajo rugs on the wall and a great view of the La Plata Mountains and sat down to read. I didn't look up again until around 4:00 in the afternoon. It is a very powerful book, and Frankl's story is an incredible monument to the human spirit. I have re-read the book several times now, and each time, I find the words even more compelling than the last.