Swim Team season has begun

(I know, I know. I said a few days ago that I was busy getting the house ready to sell because we're moving and that I wouldn't have time to blog. Deal with it.)

Today was the kids' first Swim Team practice of the year. It's a little hectic, getting them fed and ready to be at the pool by six. But it affords me the opportunity of ninety minutes of reading time. Yes! You see, I can't be at the house doing stuff, someone has to be with the kids. So I'm forced (forced, I tell you) to lounge by the pool and read while the kids swim. I love Swim Team.

And so, I brought a book to read (one of the SIX left unpacked and available to read (no, I'm not an ounce bitter, really)). Here's the very first paragraph:

I was nine years old when I met my father. His name was M.C. Thomas, and my birth certificate describes him as a "laborer." My mother divorced him in 1950 and he moved north to Philadelphia, leaving his family behind in Pinpoint, the tiny Georgia community where I was born. I saw him only twice when I was young. The first time was when my mother called her parents, with whom my brother Myers and I then lived, and told them that someone at her place wanted to see us. They called a cab and sent us to her housing-project apartment where my father was waiting. "I am your daddy," he told us in a firm, shameless voice that carried no hint of remorse for his inexplicable absence from our lives. He said nothing about loving or missing us, and we didn't say much in return—it was as though we were meeting a total stranger—but he treated us politely enough, and even promised to send us a pair of Elgin watches with flexible bands, which were popular at the time. Though we watched the mail every day, the watches never came, and when a year or so had gone by, my grandparents bought them for us instead. My father had broken the only promise he ever made to us. After that we heard nothing more from him, not even a Christmas or birthday card. For years my brother and I would ask ourselves how a man could show no interest in his own children. I still wonder.

Thus begins the autobiography of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, My Grandfather's Son. I hope that by the end of Swim Team season, I'll be able to provide you a full review of this sure-to-be-inspiring book.