Friday, June 15, 2012

Survial* (for Survival*)

I think I watched the hit TV show Survivor exactly once. Not my cup of tea. Nor am I a fan of those shows where the lead character barely makes it out alive, surviving on nothing but his wits and perhaps a little vial of cactus juice or vitamin water. I'm a bigger booster of safety precautions and taking it easy than I am of adrenalin rushes and breathtaking panoramas, such as (for the sake of today's word) Big Sur. But many folks get a vicarious thrill from these dubious displays of risk-taking, I know, and I suppose there is something to be admired in it, especially when the personal "hell" involved wasn't purposely sought out by the "daredevil." Other types of survivors, those who haven't deliberately chosen to put themselves in harm's way, include "Holocaust survivors," "incest survivors," and people who fortunately manage to survive various accidents, illnesses, natural disasters, and other life-threatening calamities. Five examples of today's typo still survive in OhioLINK, as do 175 in WorldCat. Gather your resources and remove any of these you can find from your own catalogs while you've still got the strength. And try and have a safe and relaxing weekend.

(Poster from the Cleveland Office of Civil Defense, 1950, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

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