North Four Corners News ♦ February 2023

The Del Real Deal

By Carlos del Real

[The following are messages sent through the neighborhood listserv.  They have been enjoyed so much there that I’ve asked permission of the author to include them in the newsletter.  — Editor.]

Some Advice Please

12 January 2023
Let’s say that I want to replace a 40-watt bulb.  How many lumens is that?  And what color temperature should I look for?  And while we’re talking, how about the sockets, they’re not all the same anymore?  Oh, and the volts, God, what about the volts?  But wait, do you recommend LED because I noticed that they sort of strobe real fast.  Going brrrip brrrip brrrip all the time, and that can’t be good, can it?  How about those twirly fluorescent ones, aren’t they full of toxic stuff, mercury and beryllium and such?  Then there are the halon and neon and xenon ones.  So so bright, like laser beams!  I don’t trust them, the names sound like terminator robots or something.  Plus, those cost twelve times as much and, no, they don’t last forever.  I bought some random ones and I looked all greenish and sickly, scared myself in the mirror.  So get back to me, okay?

Little Libraries

18 December 2022
It was a rare week when I didn’t stop in to wander the stacks of my old library for the joy of stumbling across a gem of a book.  Lately though, I have not had the same inclination.  I think it’s the size of these new libraries and the heavy emphasis on technology.  Oh, and the basketball courts and cafés leave me nonplussed.  So, I now rely on our neighborhood “Little Library.”

I must report that the books are not the cream of the crop, no Pulitzer or Booker Prize winners here.  These are books that have been evicted, after all.  They are the homeless, the wretched refuse yearning to be read free.  (Apologies to Emma Lazarus for mangling her fine poem.)  Yet, I am a returning customer, so they must be a decent substitute.

A goodhearted friend, just yesterday, repainted one that had been graffitied.  Thank you, Elizabeth!  It takes a dark heart to vandalize a “Little Library” and a warm heart to fix it.

No need to notify the “Little Police Station.”  Not quite yet.

[Carlos del Real lives on Margate Road.]   ■