Bob Hostetler > Writing

My Favorite Things by Bob Hostetler “Raindrops on roses” are okay, I guess. But “whiskers on kittens” never did anything for me. And, while I do like “bright copper kettles,” I much prefer nice-fitting gloves to “warm woolen mittens.” With all due respect to Oscar Hammerstein (the co-author and lyricist of the song, “My Favorite Things”), none of the things Julie Andrews sang about in The Sound of Music rank as my favorite things. To each his own, of course, but since the last article I wrote in this space listed my fifty favorite books, I thought I’d give a shot at listing my fifty favorite things (apart from those books). So, with at least seven or eight minutes of deliberation, these are a few of my favorite things (in utterly random order): E.L. Fudge Cookies horses laptop computers Shakespeare’s plays Kenneth Branagh film adaptations of Shakespeare dogs XM Radio The Abbey of Gethsemani fountain pens trees a morning cup of coffee snorkeling in the Caribbean log cabins sex magazines books Broadway plays iTunes digital cameras Big Sur “Into the Mystic,” by Van Morrison Authors Annie Dillard, Louis L’Amour, and Eugene Peterson handwritten notes in Bible margins movies based on history sweet tea hiking spending time with family libraries high-speed wireless internet Albert Bierstadt paintings Smoky Mountains the woods learning new things used book sales candy cherry balls journals, especially Moleskine notebooks sunsets “That Sunday, That Summer” by Nat King Cole writing poems by Emily Dickinson The MG sports car (MGB, specifically) mild summer days Diet Mountain Dew reading to my kids the smell of freshly cut grass in the Spring preaching James Taylor concerts bookstores, especially the independent ones with books crammed into every nook and cranny from floor to ceiling Andrew Wyeth paintings the smell of a pine forest More articles by Bob Hostetler... Copyright © 2007, Bob Hostetler