DD 126-130.999 (Tony) All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum(128 FUL)

For this section of the Dewey Decimal System, again I read the smallest book availible. However, instead of taking the easy way out or the road less traveled, I actually took a road most traversed.
"All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten", is probably the most read book (historically) that I have ever undertaken in this Dewey project. In fact, when we went to clean out my mom's house after she died, I swear we found no less than 6 copies of this book. It was like my mother had turned into Mark David Chapman and every time she ran across this book, she just had to own it. Like it was calling to her or something.
Fulghum's book is nothing like I expected. I remember years ago having seen the author on "20/20" talking about his book, and running around with kindergarteners. I thought this was a business self-help book about approaching business as like a child. Or one of those Stuart Smiley's books about being your inner-child or some EST mumbo-jumbo. Needless to say, when I found this book in the epistemology section, I was quite surprised.
But, then I read this book and realized what epistemology meant (the study of writing about a bunch of stuff you think you are an expert at, but are not)- in short, I was way off!!!
Being the smallest book (196 pages -30 of which are blank or contain a little sideways version of this symbol "&"), I was all ready to devour this book in about 4 days flat when I read the most vile of all literary devices- the Preface.
Normally the preface is like a movie trailer and the formula to understanding how good a book is is directly proportional to the amount of plot given up in the Preface. ( It's interesting to note that Dave Barry happens to feel that the number of helicopters in a movie also determines how bad a movie is- I happen to agree with except to the first 2 Rambo movies). Anyway, I have learned to stop reading prefaces, especially if I see bullets, because essentially all of the major plot points you are paying $29.95 to own your own copy of said book are revealed in the first 4 pages, leaving you with 195 pages of fluff and stuff you already knew.
Plus, I like to be surprised.
However, as I preused the preface, I noticed an absence of bullets and decided to read. IN this preface, Fulghum reccommends not reading this book all the way through, but to savor it. For once, an author got it right.
And appearently, so did my mom.
This book is like literary crack. It gets quite addictive. I found myself reading a little, then going on binges, then going cold turkey and getting the book version of the "DT"s. So, I would soon find myself binging again. Needless to say, if John Belushi had been able to read this book, he probably wouldn't have OD'ed in Hollywood and should have been filming the "Animal House" 25th annual reunion about now.
Another Dewey project first about this book is that it's the first book to not be directly entered into the library shelves as a new book. How do I know this? On the first page there's a handwritten note to a guy named Jim.
It says:
"Dear Jim--
This guy has the right idea about life, I think.
enjoy,
Peggy
Christmas 1990"

To this entry I have the following 2 comments to make about the negative side to reading this book.
1) I have trouble reading a book by a man who says he's a minister and yet doesn't believe in God. Now, with his many stories about mermaids, love, peace, happiness, and General Motors, Robert Fulghum is obiviously a hippie. Not an ex-hippie! I mean a Ben & Jerry's eating, Snapple drinking card carrying member of the Abbie Hoffman "Bridgade of Book Stealers". However, Fulghum never says that he knows there's no God or that if any of his philosophies are the "TRUE" way of thinking. Like Peggy, the author thinks he is on to something- but he might be wrong. (Also, Fulghum states that he married couples off alot, so he could have been one of those mail-order internet ministers and thus explains why he doubts the existence of God- I just hope he never had to tend to a flock)
2) The second reason why I think this book has a negative side is that it's dedicated to Jim. Could that be Jim Belushi? If so, the fact that this book was published years after John's death, but managed to save Jim Belushi and his "Life with Jim" show for future generations is a vile inhumanity to the human-race, which should be punishable by flogging with a wet poster of Kylie Minogue and rolled in honey and stuck to a Milli Vanilli CD.....
-Well, at least, I think.