I am a voracious reader. I think it’s genetic—both my parents were, too. The library was my source of learning—for books, periodicals—as was the dinner table, where there was always conversation about current events. I relished those times!
In school, especially high school (Colonel White, Dayton, Ohio), my Civics teacher, Stanley Blum, encouraged us to read and learn from all we could. I’ve always cherished books. And I also write in many of the books I own—ideas and thoughts to refer to later so that I know what the meaning was.
My Friday With Joan (subscribe here) blog this week, “6 Dots to Connect to the Industry’s Future,” really is about learning and reading. It’s about knowledge I’ve gathered.
But my knowledge or collection thereof will never match that of Chimen Abramsky, grandfather of Sasha Abramsky, who wrote “The House of 20,000 Books,” a biography of sorts of his grandfather and more; of the times in which his grandfather, great-grandfather and others lived.
I found reading it difficult. Perhaps it's my age and time of life; perhaps it was the death of my last surviving uncle who, at 85, loved books and reading and had a wide variety of friends, and thus reminded me of Chimen Abramsky and his house. Or perhaps it's my own struggle with some of the same issues addressed in the book—issues of idealistic beliefs and practices—that caused so much thought and so many tears as I read this book and marked passages to read later and to quote to others. Or maybe it was envy that I didn't grow up in this family or atmosphere. Or all of this and more.
It is a book of a different time and still contemporary. It is a book of family and holding on to culture and customs in large and small ways while changing. It is a history of a family and of ideas through time. In reading, it was sadness for the times my family had around that table where ideas were passionately exchanged about so much, and where, like Mimi Abramsky, wife of Chimen, grandmother of Sasha, my mother (also of blessed memory) found food to feed any and all who ever showed up.
I want you to read this book because it’s beautiful and it’s history and it’s an opportunity to peer into another time and a family that loved learning and books, and a family in which each generation found its own way yet was influenced by preceding generations. And I want you to read … more … so much so that you can live a life of learning and bring that learning to all you do … and especially back to the meetings industry.
It’s where we work. It’s what we do. And we need to make it more dynamic and yet build on our history (Hmm … maybe in an upcoming blog I’ll write my history. I’ve never done that!).
