Tired of BREATHING LESSONS !

             I like to browse in bookstores. I prefer to browse in second

    hand books stores like Cellar Doors in downtown Providence or the one

    with the charming name  " Twice Told Tales " in historic Pawtuxet, the

    scene of the burning of the Gaspee, an American Revolution legend.

                 Being an average neurotic I never fail to notice all

    those psycho-babble self-help books. ( " How to  Stay Young Forever "

    by a long dead medical doctor ... )   An " inspirational " book by

    a daffy quack from - where else ? -  California . How depressing to

    reach middle age without having learned his great SECRET - something

    in the category of transcendental meditation . And if you feel like

    a failure, you have nobody to blame but yourself , so says a dusty

    old paperback on Scientology .

                Coming out of Borders in Garden City, Cranston, I told

    an old friend who teaches math at URI that one particular bit of

    psychobabble has annoyed me for YEARS now : numerous books have

    whole chapters instructing the clueless reader in HOW TO BREATHE !

               You learn in elementary school that the our brains begin

    to die in two minutes if deprived of oxygen. So we the living must be

    doing something right in this complicated business of  BREATHING.

                I do know this about the pedantic personality : He or

    she BREATHES boredom on everything - even breathing !

               And most teachers succeed in curing their pupils of pernicious

    CURIOSITY for a lifetime. The comfortable class can breathe a sigh of

    relief. I fell through the cracks - so my brain did not suffocate.