1000th Post: Millstone Or Milestone?

The Sword Is Mightier Than The Pen?

According to authorities, this is the 1,000th post, which is a milestone or a milliarium, a stone marking the 1,000th pace...a milestone. Perhaps "millstone"? Or it could be milliar+something for a Latin adjective for 1,000. "Millenial" does not work, since the "-en-" in "millenial" comes from the Latin word for "year", or "annus". Notice there are 2 letters "n" in "annus", not merely 1. This reminds me of a time when I had checked a book out from the library titled " The Mathematical Basics of Stochastical Analysis in Economics". As is usual, I was dilatory in reading and the book became overdue. When I brought it into the library to pay my fine, the librarian seemed to display a sense of unease and an unusual tongue-tied way of speaking. I was certain that I was not imagining it. It struck me odd that a librarian, a personage whom all consider to be at a certain level of erudition, as well as being used to bossing library patrons and children around the stacks, should never be at a loss for words, so to speak. Certainly never so befuddled as to allow a malaprop like myself to appear to be Cicero in comparison to themselves. After I had left the library, I checked my receipt and discovered the source of everything: the library print-out had truncated the title of the book in question to

The Mathematical Basis of Stochastic Anal...

and I laughed at the idea of the prim and proper librarian suddenly confronted by a patron with a book seemingly devoted to mathematical probability theory as well as R. Kelly.

I imagined her scurring about after my departure, starting inquiries into why such a book had been ordered in the first place, and what would have happened had a young child picked it up.

I have had other run-ins with librarians.

I recall distinctly wanting to read William Shirer's "Last Train from Berlin" and thereby drawing to myself the steely and icy stare, followed by the frosty inquiry as to whether I actually could want to read such a book.

In my perfect memory, where I am quick and witty, as well as good-looking, I answer somewhat like Stewie Griffin, "Do you recommend the Children's Garden Of Fascism, dear lady?"

However, I did not. I mumbled assent, more embarrassed by my desire to learn than had I stood there with my buttons undone......or my fly open, as you say nowadays.

In my day, too much reading or a reading too widely, was frequently looked upon as a bad sign for boys. I remember reading after dark by the night light in the bathroom, sitting on the tile floor and reading...well, I'll say Dante, but it was probably Howdy Doody or Tintin.

Regardless, too much reading was definitely a scaramouchian enterprise, a petty spiritual brigandage, and my entire childhood and puberty was a tale that could have been penned by Rafael Sabatini.

Thus, I entered into my immature roguishness by steps, willy-nilly, desirous to drink large, Falstaffian draughts of those pleasures which that quondam society measured out in niggardly drams.

In that same library, I came across Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men.

This created in me a desire to see God.

This book created my love for God, by freeing me from the infantile notions of religion I hitherto held.

For me, Stapledon brought me into line with Saint Paul, letting me put aside the things of a child. The process was not perfect, but if it had been perfect, it probably would have come to an end right then and there.

Rafael Sabatini