October 2024 Reading List

I managed to read more books this month this month - a total of nine.

Harvest is one of Tess Gerritsen's older books (1996) - "the book that launched my thriller writing career."  When money is no object, you can buy anything, even a donor heart. 

The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason is a historical novel set in 1914 Vienna. Lucius, a 22-year-old medical student is sent to a field hospital following the outbreak of WWI. This is the second book by Mason that I've read. He is a talented writer and I would read more of his books if my library had them.

The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan was the July pick of Reese's Book Club. The library has been featuring Reese's picks and recently acquired their 100th book on her list. I've decided to try a few of them.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd  came out in 2014 which is when I first read it. It is based on the life of Sarah Grimké, a Charleston woman of the 1800's, the daughter of slave owners, who became an abolitionist.

The Mermaid's Chair is another of Sue Monk Kidd's novels. I believe I said last month that I planned on re-reading her books because a) they are so well written and b) it has been long enough that it is almost like reading them for the first time. This one is set on Egret Island off the coast of South Carolina. 

A Death in Cornwall is #23 in the Gabriel Allon series by Daniel Silva. Gabriel is aging which makes me wonder how much longer the series will go on. As long as Silva keeps writing them, I'll keep reading them. 

The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin is the first book I've read by this author. The protagonist is a poet: ("The greatest works of poetry are the stories we tell about ourselves.") and the book is about her and her siblings over their lifetimes. It was an okay read, but I really wanted the author to share that one great poem she kept alluding to - she never did.

The Unwedding by Ally Condie is another of the Reese's Book Club picks. It is a whodunit set at a resort in Big Sur, CA. 

The Baker's Daughter is by Sarah McCoy, a new author for me, recommended by a friend. It is 1945 in Germany and the baker and his family have been protected from the worst of the country's terror and desperation by a high-ranking Nazi who wishes to marry the baker's daughter. When she helps and hides a young Jewish boy, she puts them all in danger. 

Sixty years later, in El Paso, TX, a writer is trying to file a feel-good Christmas story for a local magazine. She wants to interview a baker about traditional German holiday foods. In an effort to find the heart of the story, she learns more about the baker and the last bleak year of WWII. The book alternates between 1945 Germany and 2005 El Paso.

The Baker's Daughter and The Winter Soldier were my favorite books this month - one set in WWII, the other in WWI. Both authors go on my 'wish to read more' list.

Happy Halloween 👻🎃

Softest of Mornings

 

Softest of Mornings

by Mary Oliver

Softest of mornings, hello.
And what will you do today, I wonder,
to my heart?
And how much honey can the heart stand, I wonder,
before it must break?

This is trivial, or nothing: a snail
climbing a trellis of leaves
and the blue trumpets of flowers.

No doubt clocks are ticking loudly
all over the world.
I don’t hear them. The snail’s pale horns
extend and wave this way and that
as her fingers-body shuffles forward, leaving behind
the silvery path of her slime.

A Poem For Douglas

 Midlife

       By: Julie Cadwallader-Staub

This is as far as the light

of my understanding

has carried me:

an October morning

a canoe built by hand

a quiet current

above me the trees arc

green and golden

against a cloudy sky

below me the river responds 

with perfect reflection

a hundred feet deep

a hundred feet high.

To take a cup of this river

to drink its purple and gray

its golden and green

to see

a bend in the river up ahead

and still

say

yes.

More Photos From Last Weekend

 

More pictures from last weekend at Pammel State Park. 

These were all taken by the professional photographer.

Great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 

 

It really was a perfect fall day and fun to be with family, but I have to admit, I was pretty tired at the end of the day. 

Family Fall Foto Fun

 

You never know when planning an outdoor photo session if the weather is going to cooperate.

Yesterday couldn't have been any more perfect to be at Pammel State Park, one of my favorite parks.

While the professional photographer was taking pictures, I was also snapping some.

These are just a few - mostly some fun ones with the younger ones.

Later, back at the house....

I'll post more of the family groups in the next few days. 😎

"Let Me Live By The Side Of The Road"

 

Almost fifty years ago this month this photo of Douglas, Kari, Preston and me was taken at The Little Brown Church in the Vale near Nashua, Iowa. 

I've used this picture a couple of times in my blog posts and at least once on Facebook as a 'Throwback Thursday' or 'Sentimental Saturday' along with that quote on the church steps. 

I would have sworn that with more than 2000 posts I had also used the poem from which those words were taken. A search of my blogs shows otherwise.

Sam Walter Foss (1858-1911) was a New England librarian and poet. Here is his poem The House By The Side Of The Road:

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
In the place of their self-content;
There are souls like stars, that dwell apart,
In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze the paths
Where highways never ran-
But let me live by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road
Where the race of men go by-
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner's seat
Nor hurl the cynic's ban-
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I see from my house by the side of the road
By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
The men who are faint with the strife,
But I turn not away from their smiles and tears,
Both parts of an infinite plan-
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead,
And mountains of wearisome height;
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
And stretches away to the night.
And still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice
And weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
Like a man who dwells alone.

Let me live in my house by the side of the road,
Where the race of men go by-
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
Wise, foolish - so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat,
Or hurl the cynic's ban?
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

Starstruck

 

Watching CBS Sunday Morning is a tradition for us. One of the segments this past Sunday was: Starstruck: The public's one-sided bond with celebrities. It explored the reasons we commoners feel so thrilled about meeting someone famous.

Bud's brush with a celebrity took place in the summer of 1968 in the enlisted mens' club at Camp Eagle near Hue.  

He was sitting at the bar drinking beer when Sebastian Cabot came in. The two greeted each other. Cabot sat down and ordered three beers. Bud said Cabot drank them all quickly in succession. Bud asked: "Are you thirsty?" Cabot replied something like: "No. You ought to see me when I am really thirsty."

I found this picture online of the star of "Family Affair" (1966-1971) when he was in Vietnam on a USO tour. 

My celebrity meeting happened just one year later, the summer of 1969, when Dick Van Dyke was in Iowa filming Cold Turkey in Greenfield. Like Mr. Cabot, Van Dyke was sitting at a bar in downtown Des Moines; but drinking liquor, not beer. Two work mates and I were there for lunch. My friend Marilyn got so excited when she saw Van Dyke. She wanted an autograph but was too anxious to approach him. I said I would ask for one for her. I went over to the star, apologized for bothering him and then asked if my friend could have an autograph. I pointed to our table, he smiled toward my friends and then graciously said "of course" and signed a napkin. (I found this autograph on line.)

In the Autumn of 1994, Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood were filming The Bridges of Madison County. Eastwood was reported as favoring a certain bar/restaurant in West Des Moines. I would much rather have met him and even thought about going to the place, but I decided not to. I figured he had enough starstruck people bothering him.

I did see the author of the book the movie was based on, Robert James Waller, at the Valley Junction Arts Festival (West Des Moines). He was sitting in his wife Georgia's booth. I thought about going home, getting my copy of his book and asking him to sign it. Again, I decided not to bother him.  Maybe I wasn't starstruck enough. 🎭🌠         

For Want of the Right Word

One of the things I dislike the most about getting older is that the synapses don't 'snap' as quickly as they used to. It happens most frequently when I try to say someone's name and can't think of it or when I am trying to think of a particular word. It's frustrating.

I have always loved words; learning new words and what they mean and using them correctly as well as discovering their etymologies. If I try to pinpoint the reason it most likely goes back to learning to read - the sense of achievement I felt with each new word I learned and understood. 

After reading came spelling and learning that words weren't always spelled the way they sounded. I remember when I was in fourth grade in our one room country school asking the teacher how to spell a word. She told me to "look it up in the dictionary". "How can I look it up if I don't know how to spell it?, I asked. She told me to "sound it out". I did. And I found the word. (Now I'm wondering what that word was.)

Being sent to the dictionary helped teach me self-reliance but it also opened up a whole new world of words. You've heard of people reading the dictionary? I was one of them. I might go to the dictionary for the spelling or definition of a word but then get lost in it discovering a whole slew of new words.

I had to consult younger brother about the dictionary in our home while growing up. (That memory thing again!)

We concur that it was a 1950's-60's Webster's.

Now when we want to know the meaning or spelling of a word, it is at our finger tips online. 

But I still keep a dictionary by my chair if I want to look up a word while reading or I jot down words on a of a piece of paper to look up later.

The impetus for this post was this pristine 200l, Tenth Edition Merriam-Webster's.  

The empty house next door is being cleared/cleaned out in preparation for listing for sale. A lot of things are just going into the dumpster which is where Bud found this - did I want it?

Yes. Do I need it? No. But it is hard for me to see books thrown away. Especially a book I have always valued greatly.

To paraphrase Tennyson's Tears, Idle tears - Words, idle words, I know not what they mean - thanks to the dictionary, I can find out. 😊

 

Anticipating Another Fine October

 

Hello October 🍂🍁🎃👻💛

The Ringgold Trailway in Poe Hollow County Park, Mount Ayr, Iowa.  

I took this photo October 10, 2020.

"I will cut adrift --

I will sit on pavements and drink coffee --

I will dream; I will take my mind out 

of its iron cage and let it swim --

in this fine October." (Virginia Woolf)