Stimulating Thoughts

My family didn’t have a vast library of books when I was growing up. Of course there were Bibles. A Bible in every room. Everyone had a Bible. They would be dusted off on Sunday, and then put back on the shelf, never referenced. There were two or three around the house but nothing that caught my attention. No great novels or any pressure to read. The ‘Golden Books’ had big print, bright illustrations and simple stories.

I could be parked at the magazine rack when mom went to the grocery. I would look at the comic books but only saw them as a printed movie with little people in boxes. I never had any heroes or following of a style (until college and the ‘underground’ comics). I couldn’t figure out in a war which side would Superman fight on? Batman would drive wildly through the city streets with his boy muse wearing a black costume. Why wouldn’t he be pulled over by police? If his parents were worth $80 billion, why were they walking city streets at night to be shot by a mugger? 

There were a few magazines around. “Boy’s Life” (for scouting), “Life” (for the pictures) and “The Reader’s Digest”. Short stories were easy to read and put down.

In “The Reader’s Digest” was a section called ‘Stimulating Thoughts’. These were usually a short quote from a famous author or political leader. My mother would cut them out and put them on the refrigerator with magnets.

The one I remembered being repeated was “Silence if Golden, Speech is Silver”. I never heard any explanation of what that meant. I figured, to my kid brain, that children are to be seen and not heard. I didn’t get it silk-screened on a tee-shirt.

There were other quotations that everyone memorized.

 

Everyday in school, we all stood, placed our right hand over our hearts and pledged alliance to old glory.

 

Through the years, new ‘stimulating thoughts’ appeared on posters, plaques, license plates and even gravestones.

 

Some even show up on money.

 

After a year of diversity, global pandemic, climate change and probable destruction of humanity, I started thinning out those who only post snarky and vicious comments on social media.

Now logging on to the Internet presents me with photos of kittens and puppies and children and lots of ‘stimulating thoughts’.