A Heroic Story for Day 31

General Petraeus graduated near the top of his class at West Point and earned a Ph.D. from Princeton. In 1991 he was accidentally shot in the chest during a training exercise. He endured a 60-mile helicopter flight to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where his life was saved by Dr. Bill Frist, later the Republican leader of the Senate. One thing left out of that story, for those who don’t know, is that Vanderbilt is in Nashville, Tennessee.

Now a Not Heroic Story

I know one guy who was watching a Vanderbilt game a few years ago, who had no idea where the university was! He also volunteered to help me with the crossword. But he learned better. I didn’t need or want help. Besides, he didn’t seem to know anything. He was a college graduate.

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How to Get Rich

Another story comes to mind, this one from a high school teacher of mine, Mr. Hood. He said once he went from house to house asking for contributions for his church’s building fund. He came to a grand house owned by a rich man and anticipated a sizable donation. Just before his finger would have pressed the doorbell button, he heard the man inside scolding another man, a servant perhaps, for lighting a match for absolutely no reason.

Mr. Hood did not ring, turned around, and started hurrying away. The rich man opened the door and called his would-be visitor back, and invited him into the house. Then he asked him why he tried running away.

Mr. Hood said something like, “I heard you fussing at someone for striking a match unnecessarily. Thought you might be . . .”

“Stingy?” the rich man said.

“Well, yes.”

“Young man, to have money, you have to save money. One way to do that is not to waste matches.”

The rich man wrote the church a generous check.

I don’t know why Mr. Hood told us this story. Perhaps we were wasting our time.

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A Wee Story

In case any of my readers haven’t noticed, more than one posting a day is my current method of blogging, in order to get in 31 for the month. So, you’d better check to see if you’ve missed one of my great works of prose. (I am the first to say they could use a great deal of work, but I am trying to write a book at the same time, you know. Can’t spend too much time on . . . trivia?)

I keep in the back of my mind a little story that amused me greatly at the time and I want to share it, knowing it may not be funny to any of you. But here goes.

A man told about the gathering of his family for Christmas one year. At some point, the elderly mother found a daughter of hers doing needlework and scolded her for working on Christmas Day. The daughter said, “Mother, it’s not the same as working on Sunday.” The mother replied, “It’s samer.”

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Coming Up Soon

You writers and readers out there, you might like to bear this in mind: once a month Book TV on C-SPAN 2 interviews in depth a famous writer. In December that was Salman Rushdie, and I believe it was early in the month that show aired, on a Saturday, I think it was. If not, it was Sunday. The January guest just might be your favorite modern author. So, be prepared. Remember, the program is apparently three hours long, with one or two short pit stops perhaps. You can even call in with a question during the latter part of the program. So, get a notepad ready (just in case) and gather all the snacks you’ll want before you start, turn off the phones, and enjoy!

And Emma darling, you might enjoy this.

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Oprah and I

If you missed a recent comment here, please go back to my “College Majors” and read a good one. Near the end of it, you’ll learn something about Oprah’s reading, rather lack of it. I was astounded. Oprah and I happened to have graduated from the same high school, though several years apart, of course, and with different teachers. The books she said she missed, I read in that school. How times have changed. She’s in for a treat as she reads these two famous novels by Charles Dickens.

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Tony Blair in Debate

Some of you might not have heard, but Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, became a Catholic after he left that office. A few nights ago, he debated on the telly a prominent atheist on a topic having to do with religion in one’s life, specifically Christianity. I could have predicted—no, I did predict—that Tony would lose. [Blair likes to be on a first-name basis.]

Tony was dressed in a gray suit, had gray hair, needed his teeth whitened, and was at a disadvantage with regard to camera angle some of the time. He looked to exist in a gray mist. His opponent, an older man with esophageal cancer, we were told, wore a black suit, didn’t show teeth, kept a stiff upper lip, spoke clearly, and in spite of coughs and sniffles, proved to be a great wit. He made Tony laugh, as well as me. But when Tony uttered a funny remark, his voice faded away as he turned to the people on his right to laugh. His voice sounded rather mushy, like Prince Charles’s voice, to boot. It didn’t seem as if Tony had had any coaching when he needed it. But the atheist was in his element and he won by a big majority. Won with the negative approach to religion in one’s life. Here’s one of his sick little jokes:

He said, in essence, George Bush says he found Christ and stopped drinking. I say, Christ came to him in the form of Laura Bush, who told him, if you don’t stop drinking, I’ll leave you and take the kids.

My real complaint to all this is that Protestantism was not represented in this debate. It was a great waste of time as debate, but it was entertaining.

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Did You Know Why?

I’m trying my best to end 2010 with 31 blog postings for December. Maybe I’ll have another thought before the day is too far gone. But, of course, I can’t stop here. Let me dig a minute.

I’m not the superstitious type, but there is one such thing I do believe and observe. On New Year’s Day I eat black-eyed peas, but only as a side dish. That’s supposed to make one prosperous during the next year.

However, the way it was originally intended was that if your New Year’s feast consisted of only black-eyed peas with hog jowl, you could eat frugally that way throughout the year, and therefore, not be poor. I know that’s what they meant, for I was in the next room and heard them plan the truth, not as superstition, way back in the 17th century, I think.

Don’t forget to buy your black-eyed peas for this Saturday. Dry, frozen, or canned. For the true flavor, don’t add anything to the pot except a pinch of salt. And hog jowl, of course.

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To Speak, or Not to Speak

Just as I detest silly statements, I love clever statements, sentences, titles, and even phrases. I just heard one and thought you might chuckle too. The lady said about two famous men in American history: “They conversed in pauses.” However, I caught the name of only one of them. The above statement can’t be a surprise to history buffs, for one of the pausing guys was once-president Calvin Coolidge, also known as “Silent Cal.” [You can learn such things as this by working good crosswords.]

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Yet to Do

Christmas cards and letters are still coming, but that’s not bad: I haven’t written my Christmas letter yet. I usually write a long detailed one early in December, but this year, I just didn’t want to write one. But I must send a New Year’s letter. So that all those people won’t think I’ve kicked the bucket. [I wonder how that expression got started.]

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College Majors

In America thousands of college graduates are not working in the fields they trained for. Sometimes the economy dictates such situations; job openings may not exist. But other factors also figure into the equation. Some are disappointed with the field chosen. Many students arrive at college without knowing what to study. Perhaps all they had in mind was to play football or be a yell queen. Sad to say, often those without a star to guide them end up majoring in education, and without such an original plan, they become teachers without a great love or talent for the art. Some of these promptly begin summer courses to get out of the classroom and into counseling (many a school counselor was a failure in the classroom), or to study an entirely different subject perhaps, such as flying a plane. Of course, some do study their major field further and become better trained.

Another group takes the cake, however, and I’ve run into a few of them. They major in a subject, graduate, and then think they’ve learned it all. They wouldn’t be caught dead studying further on their own, never reading another book of their own specialty. Sooner or later, they will likely run into a superior in the field who shows much more knowledge by having kept up with changes in his field. They themselves may be perfectly satisfied not to progress up the ladder. Changes come to every field and it’s most likely worth the effort to keep up.

Perhaps the most accessible changes appear in my chosen major: literature. In another word, English. “English” covers all literature written in English and all translated into English. New books are coming off the presses every day. What a vast universe of thought! And like most universes, we can’t take it all in, for today it seems almost everyone is writing or has written a book. If you watch the C-SPAN channels on the weekends, amazement awaits you with regard to the wide topics written about. Yesterday, a writer spoke about his new biography of the Atlantic Ocean. I didn’t hear much of that speech, but I did hear him say, one of his earlier books sold only 12 copies.

I heard another writer say the first printing of his first story sold out in no time, just outside the Oval Office, at fifteen cents a copy! That was David Eisenhower and his grandfather occupied the Oval Office. That’s taking advantage of a good opportunity.

I recommend David and Julie Eisenhower’s new book Going Home to Glory, about the retirement years of Dwight Eisenhower. I heard both of them speak about the book Saturday, twice. I can hardly wait to read it.

You see, literature never stops but just keeps growing. I am enjoying my college major every day of my life. And I use it, such as in blogging and other writings.

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About Christmas

Christmas is almost here. Piles of random snow get smaller each day, with the brilliant morning sun beaming down on them. That is, if you’re on the right side of the road. My house is. But I prefer that it snow on the ski slopes; down below I hope for clear and safe roads.

I’m glad for the Bose, for sending Christmas music throughout the house. And, unlike the victrolas of my youth, the Bose takes care of itself. What a great invention the compact disk was! The CD, hair spray, and the dripless laundry detergent bottle lid. They’re the greatest inventions of the last fifty years. I didn’t do the math for this estimate.

I’m thankful for my large family, though I’m not anticipating seeing any of them this Christmas. They are scattered about and busy with their own lives. But I shall enjoy the season. Several photos of great grandchildren in Kentucky have arrived, and I look at these over and over again. The last time I saw them may become the last time I see them. But that is true for all of us.

I am most thankful for the Reason for Christmas, the birth of the baby Jesus, who was born to be King and Lord of our lives. How miserable everything would be without Him. Everything is miserable where He is not welcome, of course. That’s why the misery abounds.

I’m glad I live in America where I can still observe this special season. May that right from God never be lost.

And I wish you a wonderful, happy Christmas and a great New Year.

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Cry, Laugh, and Cry Again

If you’re one to notice errors that occasionally turn up in otherwise well-published books, perhaps, like me, you have concluded they seem to pile up near the end of the book. It seems as if the printer (typesetter?) crowds words together in order not to need another page, or the proofreader, or even the author checking the galleys, wants not to spend another minute on this manuscript and hurries with such a speed, he misses some dillies.

This happened in Bloody Crimes. Near the end of book is a statement that includes a singular subject with the verb “lie” for the past tense form, such as, “Yesterday the book lie on this table,” when it should have been “lay,” whether singular or plural. That line is crowded well enough to lead me to think the printer might have chosen “lie” over “lay,” just to save space and get all the words on that line. For in modern print, “lay” takes up more room than does “lie.” Then just a few paragraphs later, we read the correct version of “while he lay in state.” I think the hideous error originated and ended with the publisher.

Remember, in an earlier blog I pointed out that a regular anchor at C-SPAN said twice that President Ford’s body lied in state. That was a shock.

Perhaps we need a stimulus bill to straighten out the country on the verbs to lie and to lay. I could teach that, with no assistants. I’d need a chalkboard, a piece of chalk, a few students in front of me, and then a camera filming it for the rest of the country. One fifty-minute session would do. Wouldn’t one billion dollars in the budget be about right for that job?

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Lincoln and Davis, A Study in Contrasts

Last night I finished reading Bloody Crimes, 407 pages, and am now so much better informed on America‘s Civil War, and on President Lincoln and President [of the American Confederacy] Davis. Of special interest is the indirect route the funeral train followed in transporting Lincoln’s corpse between Washington, D.C., and Springfield, Illinois, over 1,600 miles, covering major cities in New York State, with numerous stops in towns for the citizens to view the body. The beloved president was finally laid to rest fifteen days after his death. I feel Lincoln, the “common man,” would not have approved of any of these trappings and displays, had he known. His widow and children attended none of these doings, not even his funeral in the East Room at the White House.

By contrast, the funeral train of the 90-year-old Davis left New Orleans and traveled directly to Richmond, Virginia, for his interment in the family plot. His train also made stops in towns, but kept a closed casket. The surprising aspect is that a greater number of people turned out along roads and at railroad stations to see this train than the number who had waited for Lincoln’s. On the day of Davis’s burial, bells all over Washington, D. C., rang out in recognition of the occasion.

But it’s Lincoln the nation remembers today, not Davis. However, every American history buff owes it to himself to read this work. A previous book by James Swanson, Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer, tempts me now. But there is to be a detour.

About 24 years ago our daughter gave her father and me a well-bound two-volume boxed set of The President’s House by William Seale, published by the White House Historical Association with the cooperation of the National Geographic Society. Three chapters are devoted to the Lincoln years in the White House. Those are my next study, with the expectation of reading the entire guesstimate of 25 pounds of these two volumes before my train pulls out of the station.

They've been standing behind a shelf of videos and DVDs, in a darkish corner, and I just never got to them before now.

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Gone with the Wind and the Real Lincoln

It’s amazing how much history we don’t learn from classroom history texts through grade twelve. Adding to the problem, most school history books are dull reading. In my American History class in 11th grade, we either enjoyed or detested an additional reading list of books that probably enlightened us more than text or teacher. Shortly after the movie “Gone with the Wind” premiered in Atlanta and then spread to the rest of the country, that novel appeared on our reading list. I had read the book but had not seen the film, and wrote a report on a book called Red Caps and Lilies. I’m sure I felt writing a report on GWTW was too daunting an assignment for me at the moment. After all, the book was over 1,000 pages.

At last, doomsday arrived and the students in my class who had written a report on the book Gone with the Wind were singled out for a private chat with the teacher in the hall. Later we learned these students faced the question, “How many children did Scarlett have?” If the student answered “one,” she most likely got an F on the report turned in. I say “she,” for most high school boys I’ve taught would not willingly choose such a huge book unless it was science fiction.

And so it was with the history about President Lincoln. The textbook failed us. Let me tell you a tidbit from Bloody Crimes. With several doctors in the room, each seemingly with a special expertise, title, or office, one surgeon removed Lincoln’s brain to retrieve the bullet. But he especially wanted to know how large Lincoln’s brain was. With great surprise, he learned Lincoln’s brain was no larger than an ordinary man’s brain. If such information had been in our history textbook, that book and that class would have held our attention. The same analysis could surely fit many other periods of American history our students are required to read. They make dull reading.

I wouldn’t mind reading Red Caps and Lilies again now, for I’ve totally forgotten what it was about.

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Some Short Stories Worth Your While

Yesterday I was inside a big book store and didn’t buy a single book, and saw only one that interested me. But I’ll wait till it’s on sale and get on with the present reading. It was a biography of author Roald Dahl.

Some of my students got assigned to read a short story of his, a near-perfect story, according to the “rules” for writing short stories. That story is “Beware of the Dog,” a World War II tale. It also made a movie, but for American audiences, who generally don’t know French, the sign in a yard, warning about the dog, was omitted. Instead, the Angelus rang when the protagonist knew it shouldn’t ring. By that he knew he was not in England, but in the hands of the enemy. Well, by that, and by a few other indications.

This story by (Chocolate Factory) Dahl and Jack London’s great “To Build a Fire,” are my choices for the best short stories I’ve ever read. Two others I would like to point out with the same praise. The Englishman Somerset Maugham’s “Mr. Know-All” and the Frenchman Guy de Maupassant’s “A String of Pearls.” [I’m not dead sure about that last title. It might be “The Necklace.” I don’t seem to have any longer a book containing it. I give books away and sometimes regret it, but only momentarily.]

Why are these stories great? For one thing, they are lean, cut right to the bone, no wordy flesh, especially the first three mentioned. They have few characters, one of them only one character, plus a dog. They radiate suspense to the last sentence, though none is a murder story. They all work out in the plot analysis chart for short stories. Imaginative powers super-shine and excellent character study abounds, where suitable. Settings don’t get in the way, but what’s there seems necessary and accurate. And then the stories are short.

If you want to write short stories, you’d do well to study these four.

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Und So Weiter

How exciting it is to hear the doorbell ring, find no one there, but spy a package left, one in the shape of a book! Today’s delivery is not for me, but for someone else. However, I broke in the book, read the preface, and a page or two of the text, checked the index to see if any of my families’ names were there—you never know—and have decided to ask to borrow the book after the one I’m giving it to has read it. Its subject is way out of my field, but I like to learn everything [long way to go], except the game of bridge. Friends have told me I’d love bridge; that’s why I never wanted to learn how to play it. Those poor books going to waste on the shelf!

Now I’m back into a book started along with others. It wasn’t laid aside because of lack of attraction. It’s most fascinating. Bloody Crimes by James Swanson, about Lincoln and Davis, remember? Jefferson Davis, president of the American Confederacy. It’s so intriguing that I actually want to underline every sentence, and I want to talk about every sentence in this blog. But I won’t. It’s enough to recommend it. Well, maybe not enough; I really want to stress the recommendation.

When I typed the word “laid” above, it reminded me of a terrible error I recently read in a book, The Heart Mender, I think it was. The line contained “had lay” instead of the correct “had lain.” Where lies the problem exactly? With the publishers or with the schools, elementary schools specifically? I say with the schools, and I do mean elementary, the level for mastering grammar. But if the author didn’t learn this in school, an editor at the publishing house should have caught it. If there’s any area of rampant grammar-not-learned in this country, it is with the verbs, to lie and to lay.

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Where Are We Now?

Here’s a quotation from The Heart Mender that is worth some praise. A character says, “’You know, if all you have is a hammer . . . everything pretty much looks like a nail.’” Clever! I ♥ epigrams.

Then we read something many of you have read before. This time it is credited to Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, as early as 1787, so perhaps he is the originator of this discovery and summation: “’[A democracy has] an average existence of two hundred years . . . [progressing] through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; and finally from dependence back into bondage.’”

Where would you say the United States of America is today on this rise-and-fall mountain?

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Winter Reading

In one week and one day winter begins. I wonder what all that snow we’ve just lived through was called, autumn? Well, at least the daylight hours will begin to get longer. But while the nights are still dark early, it’s a great time for cuddling up with a book. If there are two of you, reading different books, try sitting back-to-back on a sofa with your feet up and an afghan across them. One lamp can illuminate both volumes. Could be called cuddling up with a book, right? If one of you starts to snore, the other just needs to wiggle his or her shoulders to stop it.

I’m half through another story which I recommend. It’s a small book, 239 short pages, called The Heart Mender by Andy Andrews. Interested in learning more about World War II? I always am, since it was my generation’s war. But I had no idea till now that Hitler’s submarines plowed the Gulf of Mexico, torpedoing our cargo ships carrying food to our troops overseas. The author says this is a true story, but this information was kept out of the news at the time. However, the Alabama locals knew. One of my great grandsons is especially interested in this historical time; so, he’ll get this book. It contains mystery, and perhaps some romance is yet to show. Has memorable characters, but I must not divulge too much here.

Tomorrow I should be in another book with something to say about it perhaps.

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Bobby Jindal

His real name is Piyush Amrit Jindal but he chose “Bobby” for he identified with Bobby on “The Brady Bunch” television show when he was a boy. When he becomes president, I imagine we’ll call him President Bobby, for most Americans will love this man. He is brilliant, with just the right experience needed for the Oval Office. He makes decisions fast, a characteristic of successful people. As I’ve already said, it seems his strongest trait is common sense, sometimes rare in evidence in Washington. For Congress he has ideas most of you will like, but he left out one thing in their regard. He forgot to say—or maybe it’ll be in another book—that members of Congress should pay into Social Security like the rest of us. But one great idea he offers is that Congress should not be a full-time job for anyone. Isn’t that a great idea? Of course, they won’t have so many bills or committees or breaks as they have now. He’s for the president’s having the line-item veto, and that would cut out earmarks. If anyone can straighten out the mess currently in Washington, I say he’s the one.

I could reveal much more here, but it’s better that you get this short book and read it yourself. It’s Leadership and Crisis.

A postscript here for the foregoing blog: I once read in a book that every couple who would like to stay happily married should read War and Peace once a year. Someone made a joke, naturally, that if they read that every year, they wouldn’t have time to fight.

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Getting the Most Out of Lit and Life

You writers out there must read Pat Conroy’s My Reading Life. I’ve mentioned this before, but it gets even better near the end. A memoir, I suppose it’s called, it has a chapter on Paris that is entirely different from the usual tourist description of a visit there. This one gets under the French skin, if I may coin a venue, not that he writes much about people as he does about unusual food, writing a book there, and his big heroic act in saving a burning man. He doesn’t call himself a hero; rather, he says he’s always been a coward.

You just might fall in love with Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel and you’ll get a copy of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, if you’ve never read it before now. Or maybe even if you have read it before.

War and Peace is a tall order. My unfulfilled dream is to have a small reading circle (no more than six persons) read it at the same time, then get together (without a single absenteeism) once a week for a two-hour discussion of it, with coffee and cakes, of course, until everyone in the club has finished it. They would likely continue discussing it the rest of their lives. It is considered the world’s greatest novel and Tolstoy the world’s greatest novelist mainly because of it.

In my collection of DVD’s and videos is a six-hour video of War and Peace in Russian. You don’t have to know Russian to enjoy this film. It is perhaps the most beautiful cinematic production I’ve ever seen. If I had my little reading circle, we could watch it together, ideally, all six hours of it during one day, with a Russian lunch included. But a reading circle like this demands devotion—devotion to the required reading time. Sad to say, most people are too busy for such today. They aren’t getting the most out of life.

But a long version of the film in English does survive. I saw only parts of it many years ago, on PBS, with Audrey Hepburn as one of its many stars. It went on for weeks; seems it might have run three months on Masterpiece Theatre. Conway says on page 280, “If I have one certainty in the world, it is that Adolph Hitler did not read War and Peace before he sent the armies of the Third Reich into the heart of Russia.” And he wonders if George W. Bush read the masterpiece before the invasion of Iraq.

My Reading Life contains much more than what I’ve touched upon here. I suggest you read the little volume of only 337 short pages. Gorgeous prose spurts up on about every page. I shall dip into this one again and again.

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This Old House

For several years it has been my custom to give our house a Christmas present, usually something pretty. This year, however, it’s getting more than one and they are not what anyone would call pretty. They are useful, even necessary: new fluorescent light tubes in the laundry room, a replaced part to the dead bolt on the front door, and new roof gutters with covers to keep out leaves from my neighbor’s huge weeping willow tree. The first snow came this year before the trees had shed all their leaves, and our yards and gutters were caught unprepared for it.

It wouldn’t surprise me if something else went awry at this time either. But I am so thankful to live in America where, so far, we are able to get these items without ordering and waiting for weeks or months for them. I love America, and I love this old house.

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Salman Rushdie, Part 2

Last night, after 10:00 o’clock, I did watch again most of the three-hour interview with Salman Rushdie, just to get correct the statement about Shakespeare, which came near the end. It was, “There’s Shakespeare, and then there’s the rest of us.” Love it.

This was, by far, the best interview with a writer I’ve experienced yet on C-SPAN2. I disagreed with several of the concepts he holds with regard to religion, and I dare say, politics. He stated, “I’m not a person of religious faith.” His developing belief is that physics will explain everything, especially the creation of the universe, and that is, without “a God in the sky.” He was raised in Islam, but he all but said, “There is no Allah.” He doesn’t complain, he said, if individuals embrace a personal religion for inspiration, or whatever, but he does speak out when he feels religious groups try to influence governments. Yes, he’s familiar with our Constitution. (He appears to have read everything.)

Now here are some gleanings about his life, his writing, and his reading from his answers to questions that poured in:

His Midnight’s Children sold in the multi-millions. He needs solitude to write in. Even a bird chirp would distract him, if he were writing outside. He is attracted to surrealism. His books are research-intensive. His major subject in college was history. Literature [for the writer] is paying attention. The past is made up of shifting sands, and each generation may have a different interpretation. The screen showed his current reading, three books at the same time! [Ever heard of such a thing before?] Some of his favorite books of all time are Joyce’s Ulysses; Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland; and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. His favorite among his own writings is the “next one.” His choice for the best novel to come out of the Nazi era, from the point of view of Nazism [but the author learned], is Gunter Grass’s The Tin Drum (1959). Grass won the Nobel Prize in 1999. Some think Rushdie is too controversial to win the Nobel(Internet). One idea is that it might offend the Muslims. In 2007 Rushdie was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his service to literature. He has resided longer in England than anywhere else, and that is where he lived when in exile, after his Satanic Verses, a novel, came out. And last, but the most interesting perhaps, he pronounced “err” as “ur,” just the way we learned it, growing up, as we heard, “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” “Ur” sounds so much better, regardless of Webster.

About 1:00 a. m., I went to bed after a wonderful evening. Sorry, in case you missed this.

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Salman Rushdie

Today I discovered C-SPAN2 features a monthly in-depth interview with an author. It must run three hours, for I tuned in late and it had two more hours to go. Two hours to sit there, watch, and listen was just fine, for the writer showcased was Salman Rushdie. I’d never seen him before, or heard his voice; in fact, I hardly knew anything about him other than his hiding out in England awhile because of the “curse” placed upon his life. But that was lifted a short time ago, and he travels the world.

He calls himself an urban writer, for cities are something he knows. He was born in Bombay, now called Mumbai, and has lived in London, and now New York City. A naturalized British citizen and an "overseas citizen of India," he’s back to Bombay soon, to continue working on the production of his novel Midnight’s Children as a movie. Progress is only at the casting stage. I think I want to read this book, but there’s no rush, with so many new books on hand to read.

What I enjoyed most was his saying, when he starts a novel, there are all these people he has to get to know. He means the characters. So he uses my method: the characters just show up and he records what they do and say (in much better prose than mine). He does a huge amount of research, of course, as really good writers must do when writing books such as his. Even though he is Indian by birth, and must have known Bombay well, he nevertheless researched it for the book.

I also enjoyed hearing something like, "Shakespeare is a great writer, and then there are the rest of us." That's not worded right. Perhaps I can get it on paper tonight. I think you can see this also online. Perhaps an hour at a time.

I can’t begin to describe how interesting this presentation was, for there would be too much to say, but if you are interested, it’s scheduled to be rerun tonight. The interviewer said, “At midnight.” That would be Eastern Standard Time. Adjust your time to fit. It’s worth staying up for. For three hours? You bet. Maybe I can catch the first hour then.

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The “In” Thing Down Under

People are funny. Just as some Americans pride themselves in being descended from early settlers seeking religious freedom in America, some Australians brag about being descended from the early prisoners England sent to the big island without recourse for their crimes. It’s the “in” thing down under today.

Many years ago I read a thick book about this early history of Australia and for a while, thought I’d never get through it. But I did. It was called The Penal Colony, but I’m not sure who the author was. Not Franz Kafka, and I can’t quite connect the writer Richard Herley (found on the Internet) with it. There is no copyright on titles, and others could have used the same title, of course. Whoever he was, that author didn’t predict then the Aussies would be bragging today about their history there.

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Waiting All Our Lives

Last night I read in two of the current books, two so different from each other, but both somewhat a memoir. One of the writers is full of energy, maintaining a distinguished career before he is 40, and seems to have the strength and determination for miles more; the other writer appears laid-back but is actually under great restraint about all the time. But at one point in his writing, he drives himself to over-concentrate to get a novel written—and this effort breaks up his marriage. He goes through two or three of those, I think he is going to reveal.

The parents of these two men have much to do with their sons’ present circumstances. One son is precocious, has loving parents, and lives a rather privileged childhood; the other writer, in a larger family, also with certain privileges, prays for war so that his fighter pilot father will be killed. Apparently it isn’t enough to fight the enemy of his country; the pilot brings his lust for power home, to shower his wife and several children with it. The writer’s mother leaves the pilot husband after 33 years of marriage, with no assistance from his retirement, but only $500 a month for child support. The pilot husband is shocked, and while he has lost his wife for good, he now begins to try to love his children. The author says, “We’d been waiting all our lives for our dad to love us.” I almost dread to turn the page in this one. Will finish both quickly now. They’ll see you later, no doubt.

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I goofed again (see below this blog). Pete took off before I was ready to post this one. I'm just human, after all, and it's Friday.

FYI—You Must Read This Book

He was born in Baton Rouge to immigrant parents from India. He was a convert from Hinduism to Christianity, and a Rhodes Scholar. By age 24 he presided over Louisiana’s healthcare system; by age 27 he headed the University of Louisiana system; at 33 he became a U. S. Congressman; and at age 36 was elected governor of Louisiana. He is there now three years later and is often mentioned as a presidential nominee possibility. At this point, Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana, is my choice for the next resident of the White House. His chief characteristic seems to be common sense, and with all that experience and splendid academic record. Perhaps he was ushered into our lives to help save our country. Read Leadership and Crisis, a 283-page-book (plus notes and index), and be enlightened. Easy to read, with great color photos. The shot of his beautiful wife and him, with their three children, will make your day. And an important addition—the governor has a sense of humor.

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Catching Up

Below this blog you will find three other new ones. You perhaps should read them in chronological order. My time has gone into other duties for a few days, leaving me with no suitable occasion for blogging. Nor have I read a great deal. I’m still reading George W. Bush’s Decision Points and am half through Pat Conroy’s My Reading Life. More about those later.

As I’ve mentioned before, I enjoy buying first editions, but am no collector of them. Conroy says that when the buyer signs his name in a first edition, it is anathema to the collector. The entire publication must be pristine to be valuable in the “priceless” category. In other words, the collectors don’t read these books. They don’t necessarily read anything, but just collect. Such volumes can, of course, decorate a room with their artistic appearance (temperature-controlled room, of course), just as collectible art does on walls, but really now, wouldn’t you rather read the books? I would.

My first edition of Conroy’s My Reading Life doesn’t sport the owner’s name yet, but it is heavily underlined. On occasion I shall reread the underlined parts and skip the rest. These flagged gems have mainly to do with writing, and certainly with unique thoughts about books and life.

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Three Darling Little Boys

The disappearance of three little brothers a few days ago doesn’t leave my mind. When I first read about this on my computer, I went into a grief mode, for the story from the father didn’t ring true to me. Now he has been arrested. But he gets a trial, you know, as is our custom in this country. I pray the children are somewhere safe from harm.

Their faces on the monitor were precious. They all looked sweet and highly intelligent. An eagerness, for fun perhaps, sparkled in their eyes. Later I saw a photo of the mother. They looked much like her. Could this be a clue? That’s the writer in me talking.

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Another Nice Guy

Yesterday my computer tech, James, came out to make an adjustment on Pete, my computer, and we had a refreshing visit, as always. When he came here a week before, he was dreading Thanksgiving, for his family made such a fizzle of getting together, he said. He spoke of several emergencies his business was handling at the moment and we agreed he’d go to them and work on Pete later, for my case was not an emergency.

Yesterday was an entirely different kind of day for him. The Thanksgiving gathering at his house turned out to be a great success. He, a single guy so far, cooked the meal himself, and everyone behaved well. When he finished with Pete, he wouldn’t take any pay. He said, because I’d let him off the week before to take care of some emergencies! However, he told me the money was rolling in, just “dropping from the sky.” While his staff was still on duty, he now headed for a workout with his personal trainer. James has always seemed like a grandson to me, and I get a hug when he leaves here.

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Good Neighbors

Around 4:30 this morning, I awoke to too much light in my room and got up to see if I’d left on too many outside bulbs. I had not, but the streetlights on the fresh snow could have posed for a Christmas card. I supposed it might still be snowing and apparently was, for it’s deep enough today to keep school buses from running. (I haven’t checked on that, but from experience as a teacher, my guess is “closed.”) On the horizontal board across my wooden fence around the backyard the snow looks at least eight inches deep from my kitchen window. It surely must be less than that.

I am most fortunate to have a neighbor who clears my driveway and front terrace along with the public sidewalk, but so far today, that hasn’t happened. I recall one year he did this job on his lunch hour. So, that may happen yet.

Another nice neighbor brings me my mail from the outside mailbox. He and his wife don’t want me falling out there. Guess what. I don’t want to fall either. It’s really wonderful to have such neighbors, and I remember them at Christmas with a token of my appreciation. May God bless everyone who helps a neighbor in such circumstances.

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