RRR

When we see those three letters together we think of readin, riten, and rithmetic. Why that is so does not make much sense since two of the three R's do not start with R at all but with W and A. However, that is a convenient way to remember what used to be the most important three subjects in early learning. Maybe they still are or should be.

However, my topic is not book learning but a book called The Royal Road to Romance. I have just finished reading it again after a hiatus of 62 years! My copy was sent to me by Jan who supplied copies to others in her family. She remembered that I had access to three books while in solitary confinement in Stalag XIIID in Nurnberg. They were the Bible, How Green Was My Valley and the Royal Road to Romance. I do not know how the cell block had access to those books but they probably were made available through the Red Cross. I read all of them more than once. RRR was a liberating tale of a 22 year old Princeton graduatec Richard Halliburton, who spent 600 days in the early 1920's working his way around the world visiting all of the exotic and romantic places he had only read about before. He wrote articles for magazines and collected money through the mail periodically as he traveled. Other times he worked for passage on freighters or rode the trains and dodged the conductors. As a prisoner it was like being free again and going with him to places I could only dream about.

Jan had it right when she said in a note she enclosed with each copy: "I have seen how this treasure of a book might not only have cheered up our 19 year old future Dad in such a dire situation but instilled in him a sense of adventure that shaped his whole life. I think we all agree that he generously shared his good humor and love of traveling the globe with us, his children, as well. It's a delightful old-world book full of surprisingly fresh, fun writing and wholesome youthful enthusiasm, overflowing with the appreciation for the exciting, interesting, and good people and places the world has to offer."

So, my thanks to Jan for her kind words and thoughtfulness in again making this book available to me. It's a great, wide, wonderful world we live in, and I am full of appreciation for its wonders and bounties.