JOY ALONG THE WAY: GUINNESS BOOK OF RECORDS BECKONS

One of my treasured Christmas gifts is an updated edition of the "Guinness Book of Records." Treasured? Why?

Partly because the effect it has on the whole room, lying there on the coffee table. The hardbound cover is in no way demure. Rather, with its psychedelic blue and silver coloring, it seems to move with a life of its own, inviting the observer to run a hand over the cover to see if it is, indeed, three dimensional as it appears to be. The silver star and whoosh, imprimature of Guinness books, as well as all the other geometric configurations, seem to glow and fade when exposed to different lights. At one angle the silver lettering turns to gold and needle-thin rays of light reflected from a nearby lamp can make the imprinted circles (wheels) run counter clockwise or clockwise, as the book is turned. Although the book's appearance makes it a treasure to me, there is another quality that inspires that adjective. The Guinness records have always posed to me the question: Do you think you have ever broken a record and no notice was taken of it?

I turned a few pages of the highly illustrated events that have broken records to a page showing a picture of a woman's face that had 101 pierces in it and from each pierce hung a jewel of some sort. I thought, what a walking dowry, or invitation to a decapitation. A few pages further along showed a picture of a women who could keep 82 hula hoops spinning at one time between her neck and hips. I could never spin one!

More in my category was a woman, J.K. Rowling, who wrote the most best-selling children's' books in one year -- the Harry Potter books. I wrote one! Ah, well, perhaps I got a late start.

But, aha, I read something in the local daily paper that, if delved into, might make me a Guinness girl.

The article said that it was trespassing to walk on railroad tracks. I didn't check this out, the trespassing that is, but for six school years I walked (trespassed?) on a railroad track four miles a day, two to school and two back home. Then there was Sunday when we walked a little farther along the tracks to church. Furthermore, in summer, I crossed the right-of-way twice a day going after the mail. Then in summer there were the evening/night swimming parties at the YMCA camp a mile down the tracks and in the early spring/late autumn the secretive chicken soup parties, involving someone's raided chicken house, which were held at some designated spot along the railroad tracks.

When I can find the time, I am going to calculate the number of steps I have made, trespassing. I might be the oldest living woman to have committed so many dreadful crimes!

Hey, Guinness, are you listening?

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.