Today’s prompt from Long and Short reviews is….odd hobbies! I think the best I can think of is my penchant for memorizing poetry and Anglo-American folk songs. Other hobbies like photography, hiking, PC modding, gaming, etc. are fairly pedestrian. I almost got into Civil War reenacting (camping out with history buffs who know how to use a Dutch oven? Sweet!), but then I remembered that I live in Alabama and I’m often miserable wearing cotton — nevermind wool uniforms and brogans that don’t breathe. It’s also an expensive hobby: imagine paying $1500 for a musket that you only shoot blanks in.
WWW Wednesday
WHAT have you finished reading recently? Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination. I’d begun reading it a few months back, but delayed finishing it so my post would go up on April 14 for historically salient reasons.
WHAT are you reading now? Halfway into Clouds of Glory a biography of Robert E. Lee, a few chapters into Rebecca.
WHAT are you reading next? I began looking at My Cousin Rachel by du Maurier and am now halfway through it, so….that. After that, Dan Jones’ book on the Magna Carta, since I already have it, but I’m also thinking of finishing Wayne Grant’s Richard the Lionheart-era Roland Inness series.
Reading Freely 
I envy your ability to memorise poetry, Stephen. As a poet, I often get asked to recite something on the spot, and even thought I’ve written lots, my ability to retain them is practically nonexistent no matter how much I try. Song lyrics, on the other hand, I can listen to once and they’re in there.😂
Wow, that is an expensive hobby! I had no idea.
Memorizing poetry is cool.
The commander of the group I hung out with said that the average turnaround in his ‘unit’ was about five years….that’s how long it took for the the wives to catch on! XD
LOVE the cartoon!
I don’t think that many of my hobbies have been particularly ‘odd’. Table top wargamming, model building, flying model aircraft, growing cacti, rock climbing (briefly)… usual stuff… (as well as computer gaming since the 70’s and, of course, reading).
Twonks is a new find for me, but they’ve been funny. Lots of wordplay/subverted expectations!
“memorizing poetry and Anglo-American folk songs” Sweet!
Did you ever memorize Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky? I had to memorize, and recite to the class, in either 5th or 6th grade. Everyone did. I can still remember it. 😍
I didn’t! It’s something that started in college, with “Invictus” and “If”. These days I’m trying Barefoot Boy with Cheek of Tan, but it’s rather long. Fun to recite, but long:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45484/the-barefoot-boy