A Washington State History Lesson

 Thank you Mary for hosting us with an extensive and delicious pot luck.  Lots of good conversation among friends.  And thanks also for our book selection this month - "Deep River" by Karl Marlantes.  I know you were concerned about the length of this book - 700+ pages - but we all enjoyed the journey.  Going back to the 1800's and early 1900's to the beginnings of logging along the Columbia.  

This book had many moments of poetic writing.  Judy B and I agreed that the Prologue is the most beautiful description of the Columbia River: "The majestic westward-flowing river went without a name for millions of years...ocean storms that move ever eastward until they collide with the mountains and transform into the steady rain that nurses the rivulets, causing them to grow like sprawling children, until they are born again in the great river that cycles, cycles...time, like the salmon that every year returned without fail, cycled, cycled...And the large ships came back for more and cycled, cycled..."

The Finnish immigrants had sisu; stoic determination, grit, resilience, courage in the face of adversity.  This backbone of their culture made it possible for them to persevere and prosper.  This book dealt with politics (not much has changed from 1800's to today: "...it was dangerous to let a group of fools make important decisions - and it got more dangerous the more fools there were.") and religion along with descriptions of life and the dangerous process of cutting the huge trees.  "Timber was wealth that grew every day."  Even local Brief was mentioned when log drivers left millions of board feet of log floating in the (Entiat) river during a work strike April 16, 1917.  "It's called work because we don't do it for fun."  Progress and technology changed rapidly reflecting the new syncopated beat of American rag music which "moved just like the country: forward."  

Newberry Award

All enjoyed a wonderful evening along the Columbia at Judy Bell's home.  Judy made a delicious kugel!  Everyone brought equally delicious goodies to share.  Mary's mother-in-law joined us this evening and shared her insights as well.

Our read this month was "The Hired Girl" by Laura Amy Schlitz, a recent Newberry Award winner.  An interesting historical fiction story about a young, hard working girl striking out on her own and making her way in the world.  "There's such a thing as real life, and sooner or later it's going to begin."  Most of the characters are enjoyable beneath their sometimes gruff surfaces.  Her father is mean and narrow while the head of the household she secures a position in is kind, caring and thoughtful.  The dialogue could have been edited just a bit more but was perfect for young readers.  A coming of age story which sets a good example of the steps one takes while growing up.  "When I behold the ocean, I know that the world isn't just the grind of small tasks and small thoughts.  The world is wide and wild and grand." 

A Two-fer

 A bit of spring rain and a pleasant evening a Judy Schmidt's home.  Lots of conversation among friends.

We had two books to choose from this month!  "Remarkably Bright Creatures" by Shelby Van Pelt.  A story of family and community, grief, loneliness, connection and hope.  The main character is an extremely intelligent Pacific octopus living/being held captive at the local aquarium.  Sprinkled with humor and a pleasure to read.  "One might make a third list here, which would consist of things humans clamor for, but most intelligent life would consider entirely unfit for consumption.  For example: every last offering in the vending machine in the lobby."  "The Huntress" by Kate Quinn was our second book.  This was a story of searching for a particular Nazi war criminal in the 50's.  By now, most countries wanted to put the war behind them.  Are the things people did during the war to survive black and white, or are there shades of grey?  "I only did what the others did.  What I was ordered to do.  It was legal."  

 Enjoyed a fun gathering at Denise's home.  So nice to see everyone who was able to make it.  Always pleasant and relaxing.

Our Book this month was "Last Bus to Wisdom", the last book Ivan Doig wrote before he passed away.  It is a tale about the summer adventures of a young boy, riding the Greyhound bus from Montana to Wisconsin and back.  Wonderful descriptions of the boys' travels; imagine what you might think, after growing up on a Montana ranch, seeing a large metropolis for the first time!  Young Donal also had a healthy imagination - "It's funny about imagination, how it can add to your peril even while it momentarily comes to your rescue."  This book was packed with great quotable sentences: "...wizen must have had something to do with wisdom", "On the road somewhere south of the moon and north of Hell" and "Still waters can bust dams."    A fun read inviting you in and taking you along on this big summer adventure.  Beautifully written descriptions which place you there amongst the characters: "What a haze of thoughts came over me like that as memory when back and forth, dipping and accelerating like a speedometer keeping up with a hilly road."  "You got some big miles to go...but that's the story of life, isn't it.  Keeping on across the unknowable distances..."  As written in Donal's autograph book:

    "When you take a look in your memory book

      Here you will find the lasting kind,

      Old rhymes and new, life in review,

      Roses in the snow of long ago."

 So glad to see all for our annual children's book wrap and final Christmas Jar donations.  We all gathered at Claudia's home to share good food and pleasant conversation.  Mary brought a homemade smoked salmon spread made by her son the everyone loved.  

Our book this month was "Frozen River" by Ariel Lawhon.  Lawhon writes historical fiction based on real events.  This book was a bit different for her because the story was inspired by real events by not based on it.  75% of the story closely follows historical records, although Lawhon took liberties with the dates to keep the book within a six month timeline.  

The book focuses on the life of Martha Ballard, a midwife in the late 1700's.  Martha kept a day book with factual entries each day as opposed to personal opinions.  Lawhon selected events that she found interesting  and constructed these into an intriguing story.  Interesting to note that Martha Ballard was the great aunt of Clara Barton (founder of the American Red Cross) and also the great great grandmother of Mary Hobart (first US female physician).  We all found this story to be filled with details of daily life in the eighteenth century, which inspired much comparison and conversation.  In Lawhon's own words, "Every story moves like a river from source to mouth, so let this one flow."

Deja Vu - Almost

 Another pleasant evening at Esther's home where we all enjoyed butternut soup and other treats as well as stimulating, shared friendships and conversations.  The book for this month was "A Fever In the Heartland" by Timothy Egan.  We have read other books by Timothy Egan and have found them to be well researched.  Many of us did not want to read this book as we didn't want to read details of lynchings in the South.  We found that the Ku Klux Klan was against more than blacks and had a reach far beyond just the South.  They closed the door on anyone they considered inferior - "not of strict Nordic stock".  This included Jews, Polish, Italian, Irish, Greeks, Asians, Catholics and the list goes on.  They wanted complete Americanism - the absolute superiority of one race and one religion, and the inferiority of all others.  They considered themselves the law itself and had police and politicians in their back pockets.  They had one prominent leader who thought he was "the embodiment of Napoleon".  We found it hard to imagine that so many would join and follow such an organization.  "These people needed to hate something smaller than themselves as much as they needed to have faith in something greater than themselves."  It is obvious that nothing that is going on in our nation politically today wasn't first done almost 100 years earlier.  "What if the leaders of the 1920's Klan didn't drive the public sentiment, but rode it."  We have to be strong and vigilant to not let these things happen again.

An Impromptu Evening

 We enjoyed a "special" gathering at Esther's home last Wednesday to spend some time with member and friend Chris Peek before she heads south again in October.  The meal shared was wonderful as was the conversation.  We discussed "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho, one of Esther's two book selections.  A tale of a young man in search of his personal legend.  We discussed moments in our lives when we followed our instincts and have been all the better because of it.  We also discussed thought-provoking philosophy on religion and the universe.  "...all people who are happy have God within them.  And that happiness could be found in a grain of sand...because a grain of sand is a moment of creation, and the universe has taken millions of years to create it."  "...The winds know everything.  They blow across the world without a birthplace, and with no place to die.  I have inside me the winds, the deserts, the oceans, the stars, and everything created in the universe.  We were all made by the same hand, and we have the same soul."