Month: July 2009

  • The Longest Day

    It was the longest, most miserable, horrible day
    that I or anyone else ever went through.
    ~ Pvt. Felix Branham

    The sixth of June, 1944, was an exhausting day,
    a frightening day, an exhilarating day,
    a sorrowful day, and a joyous day.
    ~ Lt. Charles Ryan, Company A

    It seems overkill to write 600 pages to describe one twenty-four hour day unless that day is as momentous as D-Day.  Stephen E. Ambrose begins with the Nazis defenders, wheels his way around the beaches of Normandy, expands his viewpoint to the world watching, and ultimately offers an encyclopedic scope of one of the key battles of WWII.  It takes an historian and writer as skilled as Ambrose to seamlessly weave a narrative from hundreds of individual oral histories. 

    In addition to the inspiration that comes from reading about courage and bravery, I gleaned several principles from this book:

    •  The tactical difference between planning (offensive) and preparing (defensive). 
    •  The power of exhortation; the more potent force of example.   
    •  Isolation will cause loss of momentum.
    •  The failure to advance while they had the advantage was a consistent weakness of the Allied forces. 

    I can easily apply these lessons to the trivial-by-comparison struggle of losing weight.  If my weekly weigh-in shows a loss, I reward myself and act like the soldiers who stopped to brew tea instead of moving forward.  

    This book is crammed with odd bits of information:

    •  The Tiger, the biggest and best German tank got 1/2 mile to the gallon!
    •  General Eisenhower did not give a single command on D-Day.
    •  The D stands for Day (also H-Hour).  There are several D-Days in history.
    •  "We are asking rather a lot if we expect Russians to fight in France for Germany against the Americans."
    •  The New York Daily News printed the Lord's Prayer in place of lead article.
    •  My favorite sentence: "To see tanks coming out of the water shook them rigid."

  • Names

    It's a funny thing: in my work, I repeatedly see names of people whom I have never met.  Some are hysterical (I'd love to give some examples but discretion is the better part of valor), some are mellifluous, some are common, some are abrupt, some are odd in other ways... 

    Do you ever think objectively about your name?

    Carol is becoming the Edna of my youth--a dated name that says old lady.  Oh well!

    When I was a bank teller in LA, a customer came to my window with a check made out to me.  I stammered and stuttered and protested that she should make the check payable to Cash or to Security Pacific but not to me!  She tilted her head, squinted her eyes, stared me down, and replied  "Whachuu talkin' bout?  That's mah nay-eem!"  

    My real question is this: do you hear a name and form an idea of the person who owns the name?   Isn't it weird how our preconception almost never matches reality?

     
    Free TBOI (tasty bit of information):  Ecuador is named after the Equator.  How could I have just learned that for the first time today?

  • The Pinpricks of Life

    I have a book review of Stephen Ambrose's D-Day June 6, 1944 dangling loosely in my brain, waiting for the time to cinch it into readable form.  I took ten pages of notes in my journal. 

    While I read this book I was thoroughly challenged (still am!) by the transition to a complex job.  It was helpful to read what was expected and executed by the soldiers on 6-6-44.  Let's say it put my issues into perspective. 

    Here are two quotes to launch my D-Day thoughts.

    We don't feel majestic at all at the moment.  There are too many little pinpricks in this life.  I have tried explaining to my own platoon that we're about to make history and that one day their children will read of our deeds in the history books, but all I get are faint smiles.    ~letter before battle, Capt. Alistair Bannerman  p.162

    All around him bombers were climbing, throttles wide open, using landing lights to avoid collisions.  There were some anyway; airmen said that night assembly created a high pucker factor on each seat.  p.243

  • A Firm Belief In the Value of Books

    This, from my friend in Zimbabwe:
     

    With my usual lack of wisdom and burst of energy, I have taken on yet another commitment. Senator [ ] the (not so new) Minister of Education, asked me to chair the National Libraries and Documentation Services Council, and I was persuaded to agree.

    So I am now a beggar for books of any and every kind, any and every age, new and old, well thumbed and annotated. The council was launched on 1 July. The council oversees the development of all Government, school and public libraries in the country. As of now, we do not even know what the state of our libraries is. We need to start with an audit of all libraries, and sort out the infrastructure. We have to develop both the book libraries and electronic libraries, and patch up and secure existing buildings to house the libraries.

    In a country where the school system is tottering, libraries will supplement what little there is
    (though it will never be possible for libraries to substitute schools!) As a child, I spent many wonderful hours in libraries, and I am sure all that reading gave me an edge over my agemates.

    Start saving up on your books and magazines, I will be begging for them soon!

    Meantime the council that has been set up is made up of committed men and women who will not just work with nothing, but will use their own resources at the start. There is not a penny in it. We will be fundraising just for the initial activities, for the process of the audit, for secretarial staff to be employed, and then for the material and programs for the libraries.

    We are basically starting from scratch, with nothing but Faith, Hope and Love (and in this instance, the greatest of these is Hope)!

    And what possessed me, on top of my extra ordinary load of work, to take on such a task? Other than David’s Coltart plea a firm belief in the value of books and reading to the development of the human character and human skill.

    And I believe God will provide the necessary resources through His children everywhere.

    I'll keep you informed about this.  I could see this becoming my pet project in the year to come. 

    Books for Zim! 

  • Nerds


    this morning's loaf - for a potluck lunch
    It has nothing to do with the post below.

    It strikes me that whenever you develop an expertise or advanced skill, you become fussy or nerdy about details that matter.   Perhaps "particular" is a nicer adjective. 

    My photographer friends care immensely about light.  That is what makes them good photographers.  Where amateurs will say "put your arm around your sister and smile" the nerdy one will swivel his/her head, scoping out all the options, whip out a light meter and set up a shot. 

    My decorator friends are nerds about color.  It is never green.  Oh no, my friend.  It is celery or asparagus; celadon or chartreuse; moss, myrtle or Persian.  And they walk into a room where the pictures are hung too high and suddenly develop facial tics. 

    I can hardly name them, but I am a nerd about chords.  Why play I, IV, V chords continuously when a relative minor, a sustained or augmented chord gives texture, warmth and richness to the music?  When James Taylor sings and plays the National Anthem I go gaga over his gorgeous chords.

    I'm a nerd about balancing to the penny.  But I'm a slob about stuffing receipts and change into my wallet.  You know people whose every bill faces the same direction in descending order?  Not me. But I admire them.

    Coffee nerds not only grind their own beans, ahem, but their coffee must come from a certain region of Colombia. 

    I am a minor nerd in the area of fonts.  Last week I saw a wedding program and immediately asked, "Which font is this?  It's stellar!"  And Katie, an extreme font nerd, rattled off every font used. Trust me, there were no Arial, Comic Sans or Times New Roman.

    I'm scanning The Incredible Shrinking Critic, yet another diet memoir, and laughed aloud at this sentence:

    I'm so good at ferreting out quackery I can tell when a book or website is not to be trusted simply by the typeface.  I'm not kidding!  Quacks seem to be drawn by unseen forces toward choosing ugly, fussy, confidence-killing typefaces! 

    You knew I'd ask, didn't you?  What are you a nerd about?

  • After We Said "I Do"

     
    This was the last photograph taken before we left on our honeymoon.

    A lovely lady from the chapel had taken me shopping for my "goin' away dress".
    It was at a high end store.
    I stayed in the changing room and a shopper brought me outfits.
    I loved that dress.
    I loved those shoes.

    I loved squeezing in next to my husband.
    (Can you see the luggage in the front seat?)

    I loved Curt's arms around me.

    31 years later, I still do.

  • 7 Reviews for the Bookies in my Audience

     Grandpa Blakeslee marries a younger woman three weeks (!) after his wife's death.  This charming story is told from his grandson Will Tweedy's perspective.  In the same tone as To Kill a Mockingbird, this modern day classic offers sweet warmth without a trace of saccharine, laugh out loud lines followed by poignant pauses, and glimpses of early twentieth century Georgia.  Burns writes with wit, honesty and compassion. I highly recommend Cold Sassy Tree.

     
     When you've turned the final page of Cold Sassy Tree, you will want more of this quaint and quirky family.  Leaving Cold Sassy, the unfinished sequel, draws Will's adult years with darker shades.  If Will Tweedy's story is your motivation, prepare for disappointment.  If Olive Anne Burns' personal story intrigues you--a late bloomer whose one published book was a sensation, a writer who worked in between cancer treatments-- the reminiscence of her life is reason enough to read this book.

     
    The Illumined Heart got on my nightstand because several friends have converted to Eastern Orthodoxy and Frederica Mathewes-Green is perhaps the most accessible writer on things Orthodox.  She uses  Anna and Theodore, fictional sixth century Christians, to contrast the ancient and modern mindsets in worship and faith.  Mathewes-Green sticks with the basics: repentance, the Jesus Prayer, fasting.  Many concepts are foreign to Western thought, but this book is a good beginning for understanding the Orthodox faith.

    I loved the DVD Sweet Land so much I had to read A Gravestone Made of Wheat , the short story behind the film. All the stories are midwestern stories highlighting small towns, agrarian life, cows, doctors and cars.  Will Weaver is part Garrison Keillor, part Wendell Berry and part Leif Enger.  But what's missing in most stories is redemption; there is the pain and agony of a farm auction, the ribald story of a bread-truck driver (a modern jolly tinker), the conflict between a trapper and an animal lover, the tug-of-war between a mom who takes her son to church camp and the unbelieving father who cautions his son to keep his feet on the ground.

    As we cast our minnows into the shortening light, the shrinking depth of field, with each swing of our arms we threw off some thin layer of our bodies until an hour later only our voices were left in the dark.  After that we fished by the faint, reflected starlight, by the habits of our hands.  p. 134   

    Susan Vreeland's novel based on a painting was a sensation in the blog world two summers back.  While I enjoyed parts of Luncheon of the Boating Party , overall I was disappointed.  The art history was engaging and obviously well-researched.  Those bits kept me slogging through the romantic drama between the women vying for Auguste's (Renoir) attention.  This book is among several I've read in the last year that bring the 1880s into clear view.  I'm willing to give Vreeland another go.

     
    Pat Conroy lands a teaching job on Yamacraw Island, across from South Carolina.  The Water Is Wide is a study of island culture, race relations during the Civil Rights movement, and the troubles and triumphs of a first-year teacher in a unique educational setting.  His year culminates with a field trip to Washington D.C. and the introduction of the wide world across the waters.

     Head Over Heels in the Dales, the third in a series of books by the James Herriot of education is easily my favorite.  The narrative begins and ends with unsettling questions by curious children: "Could you tell me how to spell "sex" please?" (she's trying to spell insects) and "Do you know how to mek babies, then?" (knock the 'y' off and add 'ies').   Phinn, a school inspector in Yorkshire, England, describes the worst and the best teachers. 

    I had heard the story of the crucifixion a thousand times but, on this occasion, when that awesome silence fell on the class, I felt my heart begin to thump in my chest and tears pricking my eyes.  I glanced across at Dean.  He sat, mouth open like a netted fish, with real tears above the tattooed tears, totally captivated and moved by the saddest story of all time.  ...  ~  'They took a crown of thorns-a crown of thorns-and they rammed it, yes, they rammed in on His head.'  In the deathly silence which greeted this, Dean turned to me and said with a curl of the top lip, 'The bastards!'