A Birthday Gift to Myself.

Sunday, I ordered a birthday present for myself from Amazon.com. If you want to be technical about it, I actually purchased the book from a North Carolina company, Hedrick Sales which explains why the book arrived so quickly.

The book, My Grandfather's Son by Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas arrived yesterday. I found the book so interesting that I finished reading it before going to bed last night.

I have great admiration for Thomas, and reading his memoir only increased my admiration. He and I are of the same generation - he's four years older - both of us grew up in Georgia (he in Savannah and I in Atlanta) so even though he and I have different experiences, I can relate to much of what he went thru.

Fortunately for Thomas, he had a grandfather who would not allow him to do less than his best and I envy him for that. We may have had a bit more money but I wasn't pushed to live up to my potential as Thomas was.

Thomas made his share of mistakes; he married too early and spent too many years drinking too much, yet in spite of these mistakes, as well as the racial discrimination he faced, Thomas overcame.

Early in his life, Thomas attended seminary with the intention of becoming a Roman Catholic priest. He left the Church, however, because he felt that the Church was not doing enough during the sixties and seventies to combat racism. According to his wikipedia biography, he returned to the Church during the 1990s. Unfortunately, he doesn't go into detail in his memoir as to the how and why of this reconciliation. Part of that would have had to involve an annulment from his first marriage but there is not mention of one in the book.

All in all, this is one of those books that I wish my Liberal friends would read. I'd like to think that they'd be open minded enough to look at things differently after reading Clarance Thomas' memoir.