By Michelle Wyckoff

Books.  They’ve been described as “windows to the world.”  When I was a child, I had a library card.  I used it religiously to relive every adventure that Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys ever experienced.  I would imagine myself sitting beside Nancy in her roadster, on the way to solve the most intriguing, exciting mysteries ever, to a nine year old.  Sometimes she would let me drive.  Marion Wimp would stamp my card again and again and again during those long ago lazy days of summer.  Often times  I would see Marion in her little blue ‘roadster’, wondering where she was off to and if she read the same books I did.

My how things have changed!  I now listen to someone read out loud to me from CDs.  Perhaps you’ve also experienced ‘books on tape’?  I love them for long drives in the car, but I’ve come to realize I cannot be the driver.  They put me to sleep.  For several years now, I’ve had an insomnia problem.  Bazinga!  My curse has now become my cure.

First, I went to Bed Bath and Beyond and laid out twenty bucks for a white noise machine.  Every night I went to sleep to the peaceful sound of rain.  No wind, no thunder, just slow, steady rain.  Good, but not good enough by itself to put me into a sleep induced coma.  Next, one by one,  I smuggled all of Dustin’s Louis L'amour CDs into my room.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Now each night I fall asleep to stories of the life and times of Chic Bowdrie, Texas Ranger.  A young man (although his voice sounds older), lean and broad at the shoulders with intensely black eyes, tall black boots,California spurs and black, flat brimmed hat and scarf.  Rugged, handsome, Indian fighter, hero to widows and children of widows.  He’s the best thing to happen to my sleepless nights since the way back days of  K O M A.  Yes, Chic Bowdrie, Texas Ranger is my new righter of wrongs…..and he does it all in the rain.

May you be living the good life, Charlene Blakeley!