I am giving the joint a thorough going over, which means I often find myself sitting on the floor looking through a crappy old book I haven’t look at in a while.

English Farming: Past and Present (1922) was a gift from Daughter C and Miss M years ago. It has a prominent place in the foyer with the other farm books. I was skimming the table of contents. Two things happened right off the bat in this book.

First, Chapter VII “Jethro Tull and Lord Townshend.” Some things can wait for a break from drudge work. Others demand I take a break. Jethro Tull was a real dude! And a band! Whoa man. There’s nothing at that infallible source to indicate from where the band got its name but I can see it. Tull the man lived in the 1700s and, at least in 1922, was considered “the greatest individual improver” of English agricultural practices. So maybe the boys in the band had heard of him in school?

Second, one of the appendices is a “Chronological List of Agricultural Writers Down to 1700.” How could I not?

This is Cato the Elder but still, the name “Cato” has figured prominently ’round these parts in recent weeks.

I then set about my work, as I know what can happen if I do not stay focused on the task at hand.

A Literary History of Rome in the Silver Age: From Tiberius to Hadrian (3rd ed., 1964) once belonged to Donald Zacharias, 15th President of Mississippi State. I know this because a couple of years after he died a tremendous number of his paperback books were donated to Palmer Home in Starkville and I scooped them up. For some unknown reason, this crappy old book and its Vol. I version were, along with a coffee table book on the Tower of London, on the shelf of the coffee table. I say unknown because I have no idea why I would have put them there. But obviously, I did.

You have to admit, that’s one serious coincidence right there.

It’s a pretty big, rewarding world out there if you let it be.