Tuesdays have always been special for me.For starters, I was born on a Tuesday.Ten-years later, I delivered the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times on Madison Avenue in my hometown, LaGrange, Illinois.
Tuesday newspapers were the best because they were so light.Unlike Thursdays, when I had to insert the Chicago Tribune’s Food Guide into each Chicago Tribune.This was no small task---The Food Guide added at least an extra pound to every paper that I delivered.That’s a challenge for a ten-year-old walking through Chicago snowstorms with 50 some houses on his route. Despite the sub-zero wind chills and the snow that piled up by the second, there were enough warm Tuesday mornings in the spring and summer to make me forget the winter hardships, but the Food Guides didn’t get any lighter.
Gentle listener, I kid you not.I got up every morning at 4 am to deliver my papers before the commuters had to catch the train for their work in Chicago.On Thursday mornings, some of those commuters would meet me at the door and if they were Chicago Sun Times subscribers, they would ask me for the Chicago Tribune Food Guide.My complicity in their little Food Guide scheme was rewarded with $10 or even $20 Christmas bonuses.So, yes, it was worth it. Still, the lack of inserts on Tuesdays made Tuesday mornings lighter and full of light.To this day, I remain convinced that my favorite sunrises were of the Tuesday variety.Thursday sunrises obviously happened, but I was too hunched over from the Food Guide to appreciate them.
For the last four or five years, the first Tuesday of every month is the night when the Men’s Book Club meets. The Men’s Book Club is a group of six or seven men that gather to discuss a mutually agreed upon book.Many (if not most) of our book choices are inspired by the literary advice of our wives (who have their own book clubs).
A cursory glance at the titles of the seventy or so books that the men’s book-club has read would reveal what some may see as an unsurprising tendency to choose books with the second world war as a backdrop.Armchair warriors, we are not! Collectively, the six of us are decidedly an unthreatening bunch of guys who have let words take us to Australia to meet spontaneously combusting children, to a basement in World War II Germany where a beautiful father hides a Jew, to a Dutch house in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania
I love the intimacy of reading, often casting the story in my mind, imagining a face and a voice for each character.That intimacy is enhanced by the communal aspect of the men’s book club, sharing favorite passages, laughing at the misdeeds of certain characters, weeping at the cruelty of humans.
These Tuesday discussions are an effective way to get to know someone.So much so that I can accurately predict how much each of us liked or disliked a given book while I’m reading the book.That’s actually more impressive than it sounds given that there are four men that I had never met before we read our first book together.My life is certainly richer not just because of the 70+ books we’ve read, but also because of the friendships that have taken root over the course of so many Tuesday nights together.
Such is the beauty of life:a ten-year old boy who revels in finding lightness on Tuesday mornings is now a 59-year old man who delights in finding depth and camaraderie on the first Tuesday of every month.
Music: "Tuesday Afternoon" by The Moody Blues
