In The End, The Only Thing The

Frank Sinatra Was The Voice Of The 20th-century American City.

What Libraries Give You Is All Three Tenses - The Past Tense - The Present Tense In Which We Live And The Future That We Can Only Imagine. These Places Have Teachers Who Are Living And Dead And We Are Lucky To Have Them. If I Sit Here And Read Aristotle, He Is Speaking To Me Across A Thousand Years - More Than A Thousand Years. That Sense That I Am In The Company Of The Great Greatest People Who Ever Lived Is A Humbling Experience But A Liberating Experience.

There Are 10,000 Books In My Library, And It Will Keep Growing Until I Die. This Has Exasperated My Daughters, Amused My Friends And Baffled My Accountant. If I Had Not Picked Up This Habit In The Library Long Ago, I Would Have More Money In The Bank Today; I Would Not Be Richer.

More Than Anything, It's A Game Of Innocence. Politicians May Come And Go, But They Always Get Booed At The Ballpark.

One Thing Is Certain: For Many Of Those Who Came Back From Wwii, The Music Of Frank Sinatra Was No Consolation For Their Losses. Some Had Lost Friends. Some Had Lost Wives And Lovers. All Had Lost Portions Of Their Youth. More Important To The Sinatra Career The Girls Started Marrying The Men Who Came Home. Bobby Socks Vanished From Many Closets. The Girls Who Wore Them Had No Need Anymore For Imaginary Lovers; They Had Husbands. Nothing Is More Embarrassing To Grownups Than The Passions Of Adolescence, And For Many, Frank Sinatra Was The Passion.