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David Mitchell

off topic -

Suppose for the sake of argument, we only spent 20 million on the North Korea style birthday parade last week. And they only spent 20 million on the wedding in Venice yesterday. And the combined 40 million+ saved could have been spent on low-income housing for the homeless. Who would have missed the difference?

just wondering ??????

Mark Schweickart

Tim -- You might not suspect this of someone who became an English Lit major in his undergraduate and graduate student days, but in high school I was a quite slow and unmotivated reader. I too struggled mightily with, as you so rightly pointed out, works like "Great Expectations," "Ivanhoe," and heaven help us, "Silas Marner." I think the only assigned reading I enjoyed back then was "Huckleberry Finn" during sophomore year, which you have to admit, was a satisfying read on so many levels -- adventure, humor, pathos, racial inequity. You can't complain about having to read that one.
Although not a book that would have been assigned reading, there was one I encountered and enjoyed immensely back in those days, and that was "The Catcher in the Rye." Its depiction teenage angst that was easy to identify with, and its laugh-out-loud humor set it apart from our school-required reading. My older brother brought it home one weekend on one of his visits back from college. We shared a bedroom and he left it on the nightstand. For some reason I picked it up while in the room alone and suddenly couldn't put it down. I had never been captured like that before. It certainly made me interested in making an effort to know more about the wide world of books waiting for me to discover. 

Oh, and Tim, you asked about books we would recommend, that we have read more recently. I am guessing this recommendation may be old news for you, but I would suggest books by one of your fellow Washingtonians, Tom Robbins (who unfortunately passed away recently). I especially liked "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas," and "Skinny Legs and All."

Michael McLeod

Mark: You are not alone. That's drudgery material you're talking about that right there, The titles alone are giving me flashbacks. Except for Catcher in the Rye. That's the book I remember so clearly that blew me away when I realized that great literature, which I always thought of as being about somebody else, somebody smarter, could come right down my alley, mirror the doubts and fears and mysteries I was working my way through.

I think catcher in the rye had that effect on a generation. multiple generations. 

'

Donna Kelley (Velazquez)

Mark, I think Huckleberry Finn was a book that most of us enjoyed back in school.   I would like to recommend the book James by Percival Everett which tells the story of Huck but from Jim´s perspective with many unexpected twists and insights.   I read it for book club a few months ago and it quickly became one or my favorites.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_(novel)

Jeanine, I thought I would jump in and give you a little more time to put your list together. 

Happy Summer, everyone.  Keep cool!

Timothy Lavelle

First I have to say Mea Culpa to Jeanine. I sit here in Mossyrock...they wanted to name it "Retired and Doing Nothing" but went with Mossyrock....and forget that there are people going to Tesla protests, travelling and actually being busy. I do love books so it was selfish of me to push for this path and then just pick Jeanine. I've just always admired Jeanine. So, Mea Culpa. 

Huckleberry Finn had to have been a treat for us Mark, and anything by Twain would have been welcome. I had totally forgotten we read that. Great choice to get young Americans reading. I am going to look into James as Donna mentions to get that "the other side of the story" perspective. But Mark, as an English major teach us something if you know...what was the goal in forceing us to read the selection we got or why were those books chosen? Looking back it feels like the methodology was "If they can get through this crap they'll be able to read anything"...like reading was a job to train for instead of an outright joy. Or maybe Watterson saying "See, we here are getting your kids ready for higher learning" in some version of a sales pitch?

You guys mentioning "Catcher" reminds me that there is a time and a place for some reading...at least to me there is.  I read Catcher and "Catch 22" while in VN and found them both a huge struggle to get through. My young mind was trying to understand VN and was trying hard to believe we were there for a righteous purpose (and failing badly) so those stories were like something that was too close to home to enjoy at that moment. 

Return to the ball...

David Mitchell

Mark,

I was also a slow reader. I really hated reading. I guess I hated anything that required me to sit still for more than a few moments. (later dignosed with a bit of ADD). I don't even recall reading "Catcher in the Rye". And I skipped Huckleberry Finn becasue my dad had read it to me in early childhood. He also read me Treasure Island and Last of the Mohicans. 

Sadly, I have developed a spotty memory and cannot even remember a lot of what I read earlier in life.

When I got into thriller mysteries later on, I remember one book that would not let me go to bed until I finished it on one weekend - Raise the Titanic. I would read for a while, then doze off on the couch, then read some more, and then doze off again. I think I finished it from a Friday night to Sunday afternoon.

Ironically, years later it became one of the biggest flops in movie history. How on earth could they take such a great plot and make such a dud movie?

Mark Schweickart

Tim - I have no idea how Silas/Wuthering/Expectations became the staple reading assignments for high school students. It was never something we addressed as prospective teachers in our English Ed classes that I can recall. I think it was just sort of a generational hand-me-down thing that was never seriously questioned. It's true that I went on to get an undergraduate degree in English education, but it is also true that I never taught a high school class, except for a couple of woe-begotten weeks as a student-teacher at South High in Columbus. Being barely out of high school myself, I am afraid I identified more with the put-upon students than with the teacher/slash/discipline-enforcers I was there to substitute for. The vibe at the school was sadly eerie in my view. This would have been around 1969, and as you may recall, ultra-racist George Wallace had just run for president in 1968, with running mate, General Bombs-Away Curtis LeMay, who happened to be the most famous South High alum, and whose scowling portrait greeted everyone entering the school's foyer each morning. Given that this was an inner city school with a majority of black students, you might imagine this portrait gave off, as I said, a less than positive vibe. I wasn't there long enough to teach any particular novel, Wuthering or otherwise. As I recall the main challenge was maintaining some sort of order in the classroom. These students were sharp enough to recognize an easy target like a student-teacher showing up, so behaving passively was not on the agenda. I recall trying to lead a discussion of a Joseph Conrad sea-faring short story one day, but when the phrase "poop deck" surfaced, I am afraid I lost all control of the class. I remember thinking, "Oh well, perhaps a different career choice would present itself one of these days."

Mark Schweickart

On a completely different topic. I suffer, as I suspect many of you might also these days, from memory loss. Usually it's short term memory that is the most likely to be a problem. However, today I have a long term memory bfailure that is bugging me. I was trying to tell my wife about a high school graduation trip several of us took to New York City, but I couldn't remember who I went with. I think there were at least four of us, maybe five. I am thinking that it may have included Mike Yarbrough, Dan Cody, and  Brian McNamara, but I am just guessing. Can one of you who made that trip help me out here? 

Joseph D. McCarthy

Okay professor Tim, you asked for it.

In grade school I read, and probably owned, most of the "Tom Swift" books.  That stirred an interest is science.

At Aquinas, about sophomore year, in English class the Father who taught us  introduced us to some magazine called Playboy.  Keep your mind on the fact that it was a Dominican Priest at a Catholic school.  Also the fact that he removed the articles that we read and talked about that were by famous authors.

After college, which I did graduate from, I started reading the "Lovejoy" series by Jonathan Gash.  Jim I want you to know that Gash's real name was Dr. John Grant.  Lovejoy was also made into a tv series.  Lovejoy was a Divvy in antiques.  Gash / Grant gave detailed hints at forgeries and fakes, etc..

A year ago I started reading a series of books, with the main charater named "Joe Pickett" by C. J. Box.

These are just a few of the books without pictures that I have read and enjoyed.

Michael McLeod

lol great topic you introduced tim - just now remembering a really corny series of books we had that my mom passed down to us - a series that she had read as a child about a family that had two sets of twins - it was called 

 The Bobbsey Twins.

Here's a description I found:

The Bobbsey Twins are the principal characters of what was, for 75 years, the Stratemeyer Syndicate's longest-running series of American children's novels, written under the pseudonym Laura Lee Hope. The first of 72 books was published in 1904, the last in 1979, with a separate series of 30 books published from 1987 through 1992. The books related the adventures of the children of the upper-middle-class Bobbsey family, which included two sets of fraternal twins: Bert and Nan, who were eight years old, and Flossie and Freddie, who were four when the first book was written. The two sets of twins aged as the series went on. As the series continued, the two sets of twins were perpetually aged at 12 and 6.

Timothy Lavelle

I wonder if there are times in our lives that certain genres...please excuse me, I have always wanted to be in some scene where I could use the word "genre" without feeling like I was overworking my vocabulary a bit...likely I have not reached that scene yet!

...Do certain genres appeal more at one stage of life more than other times? Tom Swift takes me back to loving...was it "Mechanics Illustrated"...not sure but it would have projects and in the back there were ads for WWII Jeeps "still in the crate" for sale. Tom Swift was awesome. I enjoyed Herman Hesse so much at one brief point in college but really wonder if I would enjoy that spiritual fantasy type writing now. I was deeply enthralled with Ayn Rand until Keith Groff made some killing remark either of her writing or her beliefs, can't remember which. I should have known that a guy who sewed patches on his newish jeans to look like a hippie couldn't really be trusted. Still, it would be far less emotional to read her stuff now unless it was "Anthem" which I always believed in Keith, no matter what you think!!!

Joe, my family had a really checkered past with Aquinas so I've always thought it was an institution of higher beatings rather than learning but any HS that would teach you to look beyond the superficial pulchritude (at 14 thru 18 that would be quite the task) and dig the articles...well, that's an institution to be proud of. As for Lovejoy, I really enjoyed the TV series way back...didn't even know there were books. 

Why do we say "checkered past"?...where does that come from? 

Joe again, my father if law just sent me a Joe Pickett novel and it reminded me of "your next Joe read". The author Crais...Robert Crais I think, wrote a series of maybe 20 books where the sidekick (also a Joe) is the true badass to his partner Elvis. In one scene Elvis (the main character) tells a woman his name was Philip Mathew Cole until he was six years old when his mother went to see the movie "Blue Hawaii". She took him to the courthouse and had his name changed to "Elvis" the following day. Strange humor like that hooks me. I think you'd really enjoy those. The Joe sidekick has two tattoos of arrows pointing forward on his shoulders supporting his "Always Forward" motto. 

Joe, you have finished your assignment, if you will, and it is your turn to pick any two classmates and see if they are willing to tell us something of their likes and dislikes. Go crazy!

Lastly, Abe's books and Alibris are two online used book sellers that are worth checking if you are looking for literature or just reading fun on the cheap.

Keep on dancin'

David Mitchell

I can't beleive I have been following this whole conversation and forgot about novel based in the very town I am living in - Bluffton, South Carolina. 

The book is Prince of Tides, by Pat Conroy, a fictional novel about a disfunctional family in this small "Low Country" (an expression for our coastal lowlands) town. The story is full of rough and violent family issues, but his writing style is excellent and at times compelling.

The book so affected my older daughter that she has become a writer herself. (mind you, on a somewhat different level - Romance novels with a sprinkling of sexually explicit wording)

The book was also a film with Barbara Streisand and Nick Nolte - thougth the movie leaves out a lot of the book.

Conroy wrote the book while living here in Bluffton but freinds threatened to kill him he he mentioned the name of the town. You may also recall the film "The Great Santini - staring Robert Duval. This is also one of Conroy's novels (about his marine pilot and abusive father) - a Colonel at our nearby Beaufort Marine Air Station..

He wrote several other novels about his own true life experieces growing up in nearby Beaufort, and Charlseton (while a cadet at the Citadel - see "My Losing Season"). He was a severe manic depressive and managed to offend just about eveybody he knew. He was banned from all activity at the Citadel for life. But after moving back to Beaufort from years in Europe, he was accepted as an honored citizen in Beaufort and at his funearal (a few years ago) the walkway from the parking lot to St. Peters Catholic church in Beaufort was lined with a Citadel cadet honor guard of several hundred cadets.

His last year in Beaufort, he had re-married - 3rd time, was taking his meds regularly, and  had embraced life in his small home town. Beaufort threw a month long celebration for him - "PAT CONROY IS 70 MONTH",(the signs were in every shop window on Bay Street) but he came down with cancer and died by that year end. 

You might also enjoy "The Water Is Wide" one of his early novels about his his ranting agianst racism when he taught the all-black "Gullah" children on segregated Daufuskie Island (near here off of Hilton Head Island).

-----------

p.s. Tim mentions Keith Groff.  My one great dissapointments on this Forum is that Keith, (one of my best friends in life)  has never joined us.

Joseph D. McCarthy

Professor Lavelle,  You missed Half Price Books (on-line), ADDaLL bOOKS, Antiquarian Books and BookFinder as some of the many sites for fining books.  I have limited my list to about tweny-two book sites.

Jonathan Gash authored the books that became a TV series starring Ian.

Being selfish, I would very much like to hear from Fred Clem, David Dunn, Fr. Stephen Hodges (excluding the Bible), Michael Boulware  and Larry Foster.

David Mitchell

ditto Joe,

whatever happened to those guys?

Speaking of book sellers, my son works for one of the country's largest book stores - Powell's Books - in downtown Portland Oregon. Tim may know this place.

It is a four (or six?) story old warehouse that is actually a tourist destination for bookworms. It meanders from foor to floor in half stories with nooks and crannys containing all kinds of subjects. It is packed with tourists and is a blast to wander though - with relaxing couches and chairs all over the place to crawl up and get compfy in. They also have a website. 

They also have a couple of smaller suburban branches and they rotate inventory a little but evey day. My son is one of three box truck drivers who hauls those transfers around the city each day.

If you are ever in Downtown Portland it's s kick. 

Joseph D. McCarthy

Dave, I forgot Powell's.  Not only do they have a main store thats almost the size of the old Lazurus store on high street, they also have a number of stores in the suburbs And most impotantly they maintain a great on-line store.

James Hamilton, M. D.

Things of the'60's

Just finished watching one of those TJ Lubinski PBS music programs featuring music from the '60's with some of the original artists. It was taped about 2013 so some of the originals are now deceased.

As dippy as it sounds, Janet and I love to watch such programs. Beats a lot of today's music. And the grey haired audiences are a real hoot. 

By the way, does anyone still have a Lava Lamp? Mine broke on our way moving to Colorado back in '76 😁.

And, NO, I don't want another one! 

Peace and Love ✌️,

Jim

Michael Boulware

Allan W. Eckert's The Frontiersman  really grabbed me.  The outdoor drama in Chillicothe is based on this novel . Sue encouraged me to read it, then we went to see Tecumseh and really enjoyed it. 

David Mitchell

A footnote on my Pat Conroy post:

Later in life, he was under a publishers contract with minimum output for his last few books and they are said ro be way below his standards - especially "South of Broad", "Beach Music", and a couple others. 

But I left out "The Lords of Discipline" (as a student at the Citadel in Charleston) which was also a pretty good book and very intense movie.

------

Yes Joe, those are the Powell suburan stores my son delivers to and from.

---------

Nice to see Donna back on the Forum. We still love you but we're still a little ticked off about not getting to hit golf balls off your Barcelona condo balcony four years ago. Takes time to gt over something like that.   

Joseph D. McCarthy

Mr. Michael Boulware,

I took my wife and daughter to see Tecumseh almost 50 years ago; we loved it then.  Do they still actually fire live cannons throughout the enactment?  It is a terrific presentation worthwhile for all classmates who lived in the area.  Somewhere, I still have the record album we purchased from the, I believe, first presentation.

David Mitchell

Forgive me for hogging Tim's topic, but another terrific book was given to me by my daughter. She heard this guy - David James Duncan - at a writer's seminar in Seattle or Portland years ago. He is the winner of several writing awards in the Northwest. He won awards for his first book - "The River Why" - and my daughter gave me his second - "The Brothers K".

It took me a while to get into it but it was a terrific book. It is about a family with 6 kids and is full of life experiences around two family obsessions - the mother'ss Fundamentalist Religion, and the father's obsession with Baseball. It involves one son going to India, one in Vietnam, and lots of other life themes. 

The title is named after Dostoyevsi's great novel but the K actually represents a baseball "strikeout" - meaning failure - which the disfuntional family experiences a lot of.

Sounds corny but it is really deep and emotional. The guy is quite a gifted writer and has a number of very positive reviews. 

Donna Kelley (Velazquez)

Dave, sorry for your disappointment but thanks for the love.  I must confess that I still notice a look of relief on the faces of my many neighbors across the street when I see them. :-)

As long as I am here I may as well add another of my favorite books to the list.  Pillars of the Earth (1989) by Ken Follett will always be high on the list.  I imagine many of you have read it over the years too, right?

David Mitchell

Donna,

Ken Follett is good. I read his "Wings of Eagles" many years ago.

David Mitchell

7 - First Night - First Week - final part.

After the excitement of Major Rowe's recovery, on New Years Eve, we welcomed the new year. 

That night at midnight, we got our own form of "fireworks" show. All of the guard towers along two sides of the flightline perimeter opened fire straight up in the air with their automatic weapons for just about a minute. So the sky was filled with orange tracer rounds.

Stricly forbidden - but they did it anyway. 

By New Year's day in the U.S., I was still having the runs added later (almost everyone did from the Malaria pills we were required to take every weak. And then we took a weekly anti-diarhea pill, which took about another week to take effect) and still sleeping in temporary quarters by myself to avoid disturbing other guys. I was repeatedly dashing back and forth to the (far too distant) latrine in near total darkness - while trying to listen to the Rose Bowl on a tiny portable radio in the middle of the night. On one trip (maybe 100 yards) to the latrine, a rat jumped out of the huge garbage pile and frightened the heck out of me, I stubbed my bare toe badly on the slightly raised concrete walkway and went down in pain. It scared my entire “payload” out of me before I made it to my destination. I guess that is what you call having the "stuff" scared out of you" - literally.             

                                                                        * * *

But to my relief, my Ohio State Buckeyes beat O.J. Simpson’s Southern Cal Trojans 27-16 for the National Championship. 

O.J. Simpson played great.     

But Ohio State played better.

Michael McLeod

Thanks for the book tip donna

And thanks, dave,  for the gi reminiscences..

Got some of my own.

If I could go back in time to when I was teaching part time at various colleges and universities, from osu to ucf (university of central florida, down here in orlando I would propose a class in military memoires and volunteer to teach it. And have you down as a guest lecturer!)

For as scary as it is to be a gi, a fella or gal  who goes into the service sure does come back with a xxxxload of stories to tell. I lucked out when I was drafted (after considering hiding out in canada, that's how scared I was). But as it turned out, instead of going to 'nam after basic training I was sent to a nato hq in germany as a clerk typist and hell, for as scared as I was, it turned out to be a blast. I lived in a basement apartment near the nato hq where I worked in heidelberg, wore the dress uniform to work instead of fatigues, got promoted to e5 and learned a bit of german, which runs in my family (my mother's maiden name is reutinger) and got my grad school paid off by the gi bill when I got back home, which paved the way for a great career in the newspaper biz, plus helped me get part time teaching jobs to make extra cash.

I can honestly say that being drafted was one of the best things that ever happened to me. 

but in all seriousness thanks for your service and thanks for the memories. you have a knack for yarn spinning. and plenty of yarn.

David Mitchell

Can't figure out why some pages appear to be so much wider here on the forum?