There's been a whole lotta torpor goin' on in these pages lately, or so it might seem to someone not familiar with latency. The two states can look a lot alike, after all, but beneath all this apparent inactivity I've been one industrious sumgun. As winters go, this hasn't been my worst. Bright skies, warm temperatures, more proteins, fewer carbohydrates, and hours and hours spent huddled insensate overnight under a mound of blankets�all have helped me pass this winter more happily than I have others of the recent past. And now, St. Patrick's Day is just over a month away.

When not working, I've kept busy by reading fiction written for teens. "Young adult fiction" is what libraries and booksellers call it still, as if children and adolescents were scaled down versions of adults, instead of members of a different species altogether. The rapt attention that Taylor gave to a few of these books over the Christmas break (and my decision to break up the Camus I'd been reading over the holiday) prompted my interest. I've now read a few of his choices and have thoroughly enjoyed them. The best of the writers go about the business of telling their tales without allowing their stories to become scaled down versions of adult fiction. I think perhaps there's little difference between the themes that the best of the writers of young adult fiction and a writer of mainstream fiction (okay, that designation is lame, too) might handle; instead, the writers pace and chunk their tales differently�that's my preliminary hunch, anyway. And I'm curious to see how that technique succeeds. I'm also thinking I might enjoy letting such a story bleed from my own fingertips. We'll see. First, I'll work my way through several more Newbery Award winners, as well as through some of Taylor's recommendations.

I've also spent time surfing the web for personal accounts (words and pix) of the local travels of folks from my region (or within a morning's easy drive). That armchair travel might eventually yield a short page of links of regional interest to me, a source of inspiration for day trips during the kids' upcoming spring break and summer vacation.

But enough about me. On to some kid bits.

Pathfinder Dave called this week to ask whether Josh might return to town for the summer. Dave runs the bike/camping shop that Josh worked at last summer, and he wants him to work there again. We think Josh will be returning, and the shop provides good summer work, so I gave Dave an e-mail address for Josh and invited him to communicate with Josh directly.

Taylor was the last fifth grader left standing in his school's spelling bee last week. He flamed out on "beige" ("never read it, never thought about it, no biggie"), permitting two sixth graders to finish ahead of him. The eventual winner was Hannah, the girl (then in fourth grade) whose tongue tripped her up on "elementary" two years ago. Along with all the other fifth graders in his school, Taylor also went on a class trip to Topeka last week, where the rascals and scamps visited the Topeka Symphony for a little Beethoven.

Owen. Well, Owen. Hmmm. Call me Don Juan's daddy. A friend (an adult) has labeled him a "babe magnet". I'm happy that he finds social acceptance so readily, but I'd like him to be labeled a "grade magnet" as well. Ah, well, his guitar playing improves marvelously with little instruction (and no lessons). If he were to pay as much attention to his algebra and other classes as he does to girls and guitar tabs, who knows where he might take this planet! As it is, we entrust his future success and happiness to...what? Rock and roll?

And yet I have blind faith that somehow Owen will succeed and prosper. Thinking about him this morning, I remembered a British short story from the early 20th century that I read when I was a kid Taylor's age. I don't remember the author and I've lost many of the details (the locale, for instance, which I'll guess is London, and the church name), but here's a plot summary with the punchline. It's a favorite and I'd attribute it if I could recall the author.

A man worked as a verger in a London church. Despite the scant wages and the modesty of his position, the verger loved his work. A young, ambitious priest arrived to replace the retiring priest. The new priest decided that the church should keep up with the times, so he required that every member of the churh staff be literate. The verger couldn't read, couldn't write, but he undertook to learn. When the verger failed to learn, the new priest relieved him of his position, despite his many years of service to the church.

Dejected, the verger trudged home along a familiar street. Reaching into his pocket for some pipe tobacco, he found none. Looking around at the streetside shops, he realized that the street he traveled held no tobacconist, and he calculated that he wasn't the only traveler on this street who had found himself without a pinch. He thought a small tobacco shop might prosper in this neighborhood, so within a few weeks, he opened a small shop.

Through his diligence and hard work, his first shop prospered, and with the profits from that shop, he set up another shop, and then another, until he had tobacco shops all over London and had become one of the city's most prosperous merchants.

One day, his banker had some contracts that needed the former verger's attention, and he asked that the verger read them over carefully. When so asked, the verger replied sheepishly that he couldn't read.

Flabbergasted, the banker blustered, "My god, man! You're one of the wealthiest men in all of London! Can you imagine what you might have been if you could read and write?!"

"Aye," replied the verger wistfully, "I'd be the verger of St. Paul's Church."

Enough for now, eh.

Reading: Margaret Peterson Haddix's Among the Hidden and The Phantom Tollbooth with Lois Lowry's The Giver up next � all kid lit.

Watching: Silence of the Lambs, Dead Man Walking, Finding Forrester, Proof of Life and, of course, the Winter Olympic Games. As usual, after fifteen minutes of Bob Costas' commentary, I'd had my fill.