Walking It Off, Doug Peacock

This is a personal journey by the man who had a father-son relationship with the recalcitrant grump named Ed Abbey, one of the most important environmental authors of the late 20^th century.  Doug was flawed by his service as a green beret medic in Vietnam and the travesty of death and destruction that our men were forced to participate in.  He was torn apart by the killing and the death that were daily rituals in nam and the frustration of not having a real reason or purpose for being there.

Doug returned with post war stress syndrome before they officially declared it a syndrome.  In Ed Abbey he found someone who he could listen to and argue with.  Their relationship was rocky and feisty, as befits these two wilderness warriors.  Ed came from the East and became a western person, but not a westerner.  He never resented the protected areas of the West, he understood that these were never taken from the westerner, rather the western pioneers and their descendants took what they had from others and from wildness.

Ed and Doug walked the wildness and Doug found the solace that comes to many who wander in the wilds.  He redefined death through the death of Abbey, the wild grizzly’s that he observed, and the risk he took in places remote and dangerous.  It gave meaning to death in a way that was opposite of the senseless killing in nam.

Doug buried Ed, his father figure, in a remote and illegal grave in the wilds of the SW.  It was a pilgrimage and his last gift to this crusty old ecowarrior who so deeply felt the wounds that we inflict on the planet.  This book chronicles the burial, the war memories, the near death experience in Nepal, time with the grizzly’s and hikes through the desert (even through active military bombing areas) and it allows us to see how Doug pieced together his own soul while suffering divorce, loss of friends, and loss of land. 

It is not great literature, but it is compelling reading. 

Luckiest Man Jonathan Eig

This is the ball player that has always represented the best in baseball for me, but he was quiet – especially in contrast to the Babe, he was handsome, but a recluse.  He parents were German immigrants – who sought their prosperity in the US.  The mother was strong and dominate, the father was more relaxed, less driven, and also less of an influence on Henry Louis (Louie as a child) Gehrig. 

In his first full major league year he was described as Babe Ruth without the bad habits. Myth busting – Gehrig’s streak began as a pinch hitter the day before he took over first base – it was his only pinch hit.  Pipp was only batting .244 and he was in a slump.  He was benched – he did not complain of a headache as the legend has it.  Pipp had been the first baseman for 10 years and helped Gehrig adjust.  But his career as a Yankee was all but over and he was sold to Cincinnati where he played for three more years.

Following the relationship of Gehrig and Ruth and the mighty Yankees is satisfying for a baseball fan and there is little in here that will change your feelings about Gehrig – he is so shy that the quotes and elements of personal life still remain limited.  But you do find out facts like Gehrig taking an early stand that there was “no room for segregation in baseball” after barnstorming and playing with many negro league players.

Perhaps the strangest idea that came out of the book was the thought of  Lou Gehrig  as Tarzan – the shyest man in Baseball and he posed to replace Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan.

Everyone should watch “Pride of the Yankees” – I love that movie.  At least you should listen to his Luckiest Man Alive speech – it is easy to find on the internet.  http://www.lougehrig.com/about/speech.htm   This always brings tears to my eyes. 

Lou Gehrig was the Iron Horse, baseball's strongest and most determined superstar, struck down in his prime by a disease that now bears his name. But who was Lou Gehrig, really? Lou Gehrig is regarded as the greatest first baseman in baseball history. A muscular but clumsy athlete who grew up in New York City, he idolized his hardworking mother and remained devoted to her all his life. Shy and socially awkward, Gehrig was a misfit on a Yankee team that included drinkers and hell-raisers, most notably Babe Ruth. Gehrig and Ruth formed the greatest slugging tandem in baseball history. They were the heart of the first great Yankee dynasty. After Ruth's retirement, Gehrig and a young Joe DiMaggio would begin a new era of Yankee dominance. But Luckiest Man reveals that Gehrig was afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) much sooner than anyone believes, as early as the spring of 1938. Despite the illness, he didn't miss a game that year, keeping intact his astonishing consecutive-games streak, which stood for more than half a century. In Luckiest Man, Jonathan Eig brings to life a figure whose shyness and insecurity obscured his greatness during his lifetime. Gehrig emerges as more human and more heroic than ever.

Marshalling Justice, Michael Long

           

This large book rescues one of the great voices of the civil rights movement – Thurgood Marshall – who fought for civil rights in the difficult decades before Martin Luther King and before he became the first African American on the Supreme Court.  The book, however, is not about the Supreme Court, but rather about the civil rights lawyer who worked tirelessly to pursue injustice.

“For twenty years before King assumed leadership of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, Thurgood Marshall, the young NAACP attorney known to everyday blacks as “Mr. Civil Rights,” struggling day and night against racial discrimination and segregation in schools, transportation, the military, businesses, voting booths, courtrooms, and neighborhoods.”

This book is a unique biography, a collection of letters rather than a narrative that tries to collect all aspects of his life.  In this way we learn about the complex and horrible aspects of segregation – bias and the many ways that this infection poisoned the country – from the KKK to Bull Connors, this was a black eye on the nation and Marshall was strong, outspoken, and effective.

“Marshall firmly believed that deep integration would never happen until blacks and whites could not only study and work together but also live together as neighbors.”

His battles were serious issues that set a precedent for our generation.  It is hard to believe that “Baltimore County maintains, according to its annual report, twelve high schools designated “white high.”  There were no high schools available to Negroes.

It was the time of lynching and Marshall in continually frustrating correspondence with his Maryland representative – “When the officers of the state either act on behalf of the mob or fail to use reasonable means to prevent them from acting, as was done in the lynching of Claude Neal in Florida; when daily newspapers told of the proposed outrage and invited all to attend; and when after the lynching was over, the lawless element with the sanction of the officials of the state continued to spew their venomous wrath upon the innocent, law-abiding tax-paying Negro citizens; and when after all this the state officials, despite numerous requests from individuals and organizations all over the country refused to act – how in the name of justice and decency can anyone talk of protecting the rights of such a state when it has forfeited all rights to be classed as a state because of open treason and rebellion?”

The book begins during WWII when thousands of African American men were serving and dying for a country that was tearing down their homes for urban renewal, but refusing to let them live in the “white neighborhoods”.  The injustices are amazing and even though it still there during my school years, I find that I am still overwhelmed and shocked by the base of racism that has still not been eliminated within our nation.

The fact that this book is a collection of Marshall’s correspondence gives us a rare glimpse into his tone, frustration and eloquence.  He is a man worth meeting and I really believe his statue deserves to stand beside Martin Luther King.

“WELL OLD BUZZARD TUREAUD.  YOU ARE AT IT AGAIN.  YOU KEPT QUIET FOR AWHILE AND THEN YOU CAME ALIVE.  BETTER GET BACK IN YOUR SHELL.  THERE IS A NICE ALLIGATOR IN A SWAMP THAT WOULD MAKE A GOOD MEAL OUT OF YOU.  I LOOKED RIGHT IN YOUR FACE THE OTHER DAY.  I CAN PUT MY HANDS ON YOUR SHOULDER ANY HOUR OF THE DAY OR NIGHT.  YOU WILL NOT BE HARD TO PICK UP, ALSO TELL YOUR FRIEND KANGAROO THURGOOD MARSHALL TO GO BACK HOME BEFORE OUR TEXAS BRANCH GETS ANGRY AND DUMPS HIM IN A SHARK HOLE.  BEWARD!!! LAST WARNING. STAY QUIET AND STAY OUT OF THE LIMELIGHT IF YOU BOTH WANT TO LIVE.  WE ARE WELL ORGANIZED IN NEW ORLEANS AND THE HOUR IS NOT FAR FOR US TO STRIKE.  SOME WHITE TRASH WILL BE PICKED UP WHO HAVE BEEN STURRING THINGS UP.   KKK

It was Brown Versus Topeka that is the best known of the many legal issues that Marshall was involved in, but that victory was prepared by all the work that preceded it and the final victory still had to be fought to implement the victory.  Marshall had to do this with the death of his wife coming shortly after the verdict.

It would also have been easier if Truman had still been president.  Through this book I learned that Truman had really been important to the Negro cause and Eisenhower went back to the old take your time approach that favored the southerners.  It would seem that John Adams, William Harrison, Abraham Lincoln and Truman were the best advocates for the Blacks that held the oval office.  TR brought in Booker T Washington to the white house and was castigated for doing what he thought was right, but the other four exceeded his act of defiance and indignation.

 There are giants in all races - I would put Thurgood Marshall with Dr. King and Frederick Douglas as leaders for all men of all races.

Escape from the Land of Snows

Escape from the Land of Snows Stephan Talty

This is more than an escape, it is also an expose’ of the selection of the Dalai Lama and the workings of the church itself.  Not all is as peaceful as we would like. 

Tibetans do not have a word for religion.  Religion is life not a belief. 

It is hard to not be caught up in the mystic tale of the selection and life of the Dalai Lama.  The current Dalai is one of my favorite leaders in the world.  Consider that he comes from a land where the average elevation is over three miles above sea level and that this is a very isolated land and yet he shows wisdom I see if very few people.

But he was not a studious person, he wanted to play instead of the study (sounds like a grandson) and he preferred to play with tanks and other war toys.  Yet as a child who was not allowed to play with other children he still showed great empathy for people without means.

You will also learn about a long and complicated relationship between China and Tibet that eventually led to the terrible destruction of true Tibet.  The action was centuries in the making.

In this book we learn that the Dalai Lama found his holiness and inspiration in response to the Tibetan need for a leader as Mao swept his awful cultural destruction in to the holy land.

The land of Tibet has always been isolated and little understood – much of this isolation coming by the choice of the Tibetans, but of course when they needed aid, this isolation worked against them.  This was a pacifist nation that was forced in to violence and the challenge of responding to the unjustified invasion of China. 

The Dalai Lama had never been out of his nation; he knew about the world only from his atlas.  He was not trained in response to war or uprising.  One day he is told he is the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama and a holy person then he is forced to flee for his life and the life of the religion he represents.  It is a tragic journey that ultimately makes both Tibet and his holiness part of the consciousness of millions of people throughout the world. 

The books scope includes the story of many Tibetans not in the Dalai Lama party.  This is a gut wrenching story of a very innocent population suffering terrible loss, trying to resist or to escape.  The sadness of their futility is even greater than the revulsion for the treatment they received from the Chinese. 

On the evening of March 17, 1959, as the people of Tibet braced for a violent power grab by Chinese occupiers - one that would forever wipe out any vestige of national sovereignty - the 24-year-old Dalai Lama, Tibet's political and spiritual leader, contemplated the impossible. The task before him was immense: to slip past a cordon of crack Chinese troops ringing his summer palace and, with an escort of 300, journey across the highest terrain in the world and over treacherous Himalayan passes to freedom - one step ahead of pursuing Chinese soldiers.Mao Zedung, China's ruthless Communist dictator, had pinned his hopes for total Tibetan submission on controlling the impressionable Dalai Lama. So beloved was the young ruler - so identified with his country's essence - that for him to escape might mean perpetual resistance from a population unwilling to tolerate an increasingly brutal occupation. The Dalai Lama's minders sent word to the Tibetan rebels and CIA-trained guerrillas who waited on the route: His Holiness must escape - at all costs.In many ways, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was unprepared for the epic journey awaiting him. Twenty-two years earlier, government search parties, guided by prophecies and omens, had arrived at the boy's humble peasant home and subjected the two-year-old to a series of tests. After being declared the reincarnation of Tibet's previous ruler, the boy was brought to Lhasa to learn the secrets of Buddhism and the ways of ultimate power. Forced in the ensuing two decades to cope with aching loneliness and often stifling ritual - and compelled to suppress his mischievous personality - Gyatso eventually proved himself a capable leader. But no previous Dalai Lama had ever taken on a million Communist Chinese soldiers bent on stamping out Tibetan freedom.

The Raven’s Gift, Jon Turk

Jon Turk is a fascinating person, a Ph.D chemist who writes text books for a living and an adventurer who lives for expeditions and the experiences of live in the wild and raw landscapes of Earth.  The book opens with his Kayak adventure across the Arctic and the Bering Strait that introduces him to the people of Russia in the furthest north and furthest east.  Those least affected by Russia itself and still part of a tundra life style and culture that dates back to the Glaciers.

“The people of Vyvenka live in poverty and hardship, ravaged by foreign armies and predatory businessmen, perched on  a sand spit that will someday wash away and carry the village into the sea.  Yet life goes on with laughter and love and few complaints.”

He falls in love with the people and with the land.  Unlike native Montana, this is a land of flat landscapes that seem to meld in to the horizon.  It is a place where each day is an adventure in survival.

“Arctic Tundra consists of a thin veneer of soil lying on top of a thin foundation of ice.  The ice is impermeable, so when the snow melts in June water is trapped on the surface, creating an immense circumpolar bog.  Zillions of mosquitoes breed in the standing water,  so summer travel across the tundra consists of slogging across an infinity of muck while the biting scourge drains your blood.  Early spring is the best time for travel because the temperatures remain mostly below freezing, but well above winter extremes, days are long, sun-drenched snow covers the ground, and there are no bugs. “

But this land that had held a tradition of thousands of years was overwhelmed by the greed and power of the Stalinists like the American Indians were overwhelmed by a European greed for land and wealth.

”’The Soviets forced our people to move into the villages and become moves eaters.  Moolynaut’s mother and father had no other way.  When my father died and my mother was left alone to raise four children, she had no other way.  People with small children did what the Soviets said so their children would live.  But the older people, if their children were already grown and could care for themselves…

Through the wisdom and care of a hundred year old woman shaman he finds a spirituality that has eluded him.  It is a primitive relationship with the earth that predates modern religion and through it he is cured of a severe injury and sent on expeditions in the Tundra to the sacred stone and to the source of wisdom itself.

“Lydia stopped for a moment, ‘Some of the older people…walked into the tundra to die.’”

Like so many of us who find the earth – Gaia – to be the true source of life, he connects with this wisdom of life and this reverence for the earth and the Tundra messenger  - the Raven.

“Simon had explained further that to receive energy from the earth, a person must be in tactile contact with it, by walking, skiing, living in a yuranga or herding reindeer.  A generation ago, when people moved to towns and started traveling by machine instead of by dog and reindeer sled, some of this primordial bond was severed – so they lost some of their ability to extract energy from the tundra – and the cycle was weakened.”

Because of my knee, hip, back, eye pains I relate to his chronic pain, his broken pelvis, his determination not to let pain be the end of his spirit of roaming.  It is a story of strength of commitment over strength of pain and a new source of strength that comes from the base beliefs of the last shaman still in Russia.

“I rolled over carefully so I wouldn’t disturb anyone, and felt a sharp pain radiate from my pelvis, ripple across my groin, and lodge n the top of my femur.  I breathed deeply, again trying to figure out what was hurt, how serious the injury was, and how I could compensate.  Somewhere in my subconscious, I realized that the feelings had been my bedfellow all night, steady, lingering, insistent, intensely worrisome, without actually becoming debilitating.”

He is cured by magic and magic becomes a force within the world that has always been here, but is beyond the quest of the intellect and the mind.  He finds the world changed and his own values altered.   He returns to the Tundra from the mountains three more times.

“Yes, you spent your formative years in a Soviet school, sitting on a chair, in front of a desk, lined up in a neat row inside a rectangular room, learning letters, which are just squiggles on a piece of paper – an abstract of the thing and not the thing itself…Your mind was molded so that Moynaut can never transfer her power to you…When the old grandmother dies, two million years of accumulated wisdom, insight, and intuition will pass into the ground with her.”

“It’s not how we seek self-awareness; it’s whether we take the time and energy to make the journey.”

The story is folded over through many adventures, many observations, personal sharing, fascinating people and complex emotions.  But it comes together in a surprise – YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO READ FURTHER IF YOU ARE GOING TO READ – when his wife dies in an avalanche in California.  He is with her and he experiences the avalanche much differently from the one that had created his physical injury.  This is a deeper hurt and causes his final steps in accepting who he is and what is truly valuable in life and the world. 

I relate to the bear because it was my totem from a Shamanistic sweat on the Rosebud reservation years ago and the Raven because of its impact upon me when I walked the woods after the death of my son Matthew. 

This book is well written, stretches your beliefs and understandings, and touches on the nerves that motivate the experience we call life.  Jon Turk is an interesting person, but also complex.

http://www.jonturk.net/The-Ravens-Gift

The Old Way North by David Pelly

This is a book I looked forward to reading, after all it was based on the famous early twentieth century canoe journey of one of my environmental heroes – Ernest Oberholzer and his good friend and native guide – Billy Magee. 

It was a journey that took all summer and challenged the ice forming days of autumn as they paddled where few non-Indians had journeyed.  Billy, while native, was not from these tribes, bands, or locations, so he was a guide without a reference and they were in the transition from Taiga to Tundra. 

They traveled where the Caribou herds traveled with Dene and Chippewyan and visited the outposts of Hudson Bay Company.  No airplane, no backup system and not very good maps – yet they made it because they had the desire and perseverance that is demanded in true wilderness expeditions.

Today their route has modern canoeist, float plane support, and GPS support, but in fact Ernest was not just doing an Arctic paddle, he was pioneering some sections and was only the second non-native in other portions of the journey.

While this story is the impetus for the book, the book itself diverges greatly from the classic trip and the few journal entries that are used for setting.  Instead it is a study in the history and the people of this area.  Many descendants of people Ernie encountered.  It is about villages and changing populations, the influences of the outside world, and the connection between the world we would discover today and the one that awaited the two intrepid paddlers.

I enjoyed the book, but I was disappointed because I started reading with the assumption that Ernie and Billy would be the central figures throughout.  If I remove that bias, I can recommend this as an excellent look at the place where the barren grounds meets the Tiaga forest.

James Buchanan, Jean Baker

Job opening: President of the United States

Qualifications:

1.      State legislator in his 20’s

2.      U.S. House of representatives

3.      U. S. Senator

4.      Secretary of State

5.      Ambassador to Great Britain

6.      Successful lawyer

7.      Rich land owner rising from log cabin poor childhood.

I think we have a match. 

And the result – without dispute one of the worst four presidents in history and by most accounts – the worst.  Having seen a number of dreadful individuals fill the post during my lifetime (including one of the four worst – Nixon) is seems impossible to be this bad.  But he was.  By the way the other two bad guys – Harding and Pierce.  With Millard Fillmore and Ulysses Grant right behind (and of course I would put W there too).

He was from Pennsylvania.  The only bachelor president – With some evidence that he might have been our only gay president which is an insult to the gay community. He had no sense of humor and having been single all his life, he never learned how to listen and compromise with other opinions.  He was dogmatic, insistent and a failure.

During his reign he had the Mormon uprising in Utah which required troops to come in after the Mormons intentionally attacked and massacred a wagon train (disguised rather poorly as Indians) but he would not intervene in Kansas where he was insisting on let the new state be a slave state despite popular vote and a state constitution that said no slavery.  He was insistent.

He worked behind the scenes on the horrible Dred Scott case influencing the Supreme Court case that essentially said a slave – even a former slave was an object, not a human and therefore had no rights.

He also plotted to acquire Cuba so that it could come in as the 16^th slave state.  And he owned no slaves never/ever.  However he did like the snobbery of the southern aristocrats and adopted it in the mansion home he lived in in PN.

He also wanted to send troops to Northern Mexico, but by that time it was obvious this was a one termer and congress refused to hear him.  Far in advance of Modern presidents overstepping their war power limits – Buchanan was looking for preemptive authorization from congress in the 1850’s.  He even sent a military expedition to Paraguay.

He essentially left office after four years of setting the US up for civil war.  His one positive was dismantling the Democratic Party (which certainly was not liberal in those days) for failure and setting the stage for Lincoln to be elected in the new Republican Party (which was liberal in those days).

And of course, his cabinet was corrupt too.  The Secretary of War John Floyd undersold Fort Snelling (MN) to a consortium of investors who happened to include some of his personal friends. 

His administration suffered the ignominy of a pre-impeachment investigation, but much to the surprise of the public who became shocked at the level of the graft – there was no impeachment resolution. In the final months of his presidency Buchanan did nothing to reign in S. Carolina when is seceded and in fact would have given up Fort Sumter and Moultrie is Northern cabinet members had not interceded.

He handed over information, gave full access and did nothing to restrain the confederate southerners.

Plainsong Kent Haruf

“They wore jeans and boots and canvas chore jackets and caps with flannel earflaps.  At the tip of Harold’s nose a watery drip quivered, then dropped off, while Raymond’s eyes were bleary and red from the cow dust and the cold.”

This is a plain novel – a novel of rural life, the intertwined lives of people who are caught in their own dramas that play out against one another, but do not affect the tilt of the world itself.  These are people who have a reference point in Holt, but Holt could be in any rural landscape, not just the western setting of the novel.

Like life the stories begin before the telling and continue after the conclusion.  People have their personal demons and trials, find wickedness in certain families who think that intimidation is power, and find kindness in people who fill the background of a community portrait.

The writing is excellent, although, I had a difficult time with the choice to not use quotation marks for speech.  Here are a couple examples of the roughhewn descriptions and philosophical musings that are parceled out sparingly, but effectively:

“Well, look at you.  You’re going to die some day without ever having had enough trouble in your life.  Not of the right kind anyway.”

“Out in the winter air it was colder now and the sun was already starting to lean toward the west, while across the street the granite-block courthouse loomed up gray and solid under its green tiled roof.”

“Beside the blacktop there were patches of snow in the fallow fields, drifts and scallops wind-hardened in the ditches.  Black baldy cattle were spread out in the corn stubble, all pointed out of the wind with their heads down, eating steadily.  When she turned off onto the gravel road small birds flew up from the roadside in gusts and blew away in the wind. Along the fence line the snow was brilliant under the sun.”

Perhaps the lesson is that we reflect the landscape of our lives.  We are the place we choose to be and we are surrounded with the plain and common.  This book revels in a mother who conceives to young and unmarried while still in high school, but at the same time contrasts with a mother who slips into her own darkness and abandons her sons and husband.

Two boys grow up in this confusion of losing their mother, seeing their father threatened because he will not pass the town bully and basketball star, find the woman who gives them support dead in her chair, and their lives weave in and out of the other characters of the novel as helpless participants in the broader novel of life itself.

Wikipedia lists the central characters as:

·        Tom Guthrie, a history teacher whose wife is growing more distant and disturbed.

·        Ike and Bobby, Tom's young sons.

·        Victoria Roubideaux, one of Tom's teenage pupils. When Victoria becomes pregnant, her alcoholic mother forces her to leave the house.

·        Raymond and Harold McPheron, bachelor farmers who give Victoria a home and care for her.

·        Maggie Jones, another schoolteacher at the local school who first takes in Victoria, but her dad forces her to kick Victoria out.

But this list misses Mrs Stearns who help give Ike and Bobby a sense of support while they are caught in a whirlwind of events that they cannot understand.  Births – human and animal, deaths – human and animal surround the story and give it the sense that live is just a merry-go-round that we jump off and on and it never stops.

The New York Times called it "a novel so foursquare, so delicate and lovely, that it has the power to exalt the reader."

Sidekicks Jack D. Ferraiolo

The following paragraph is the text from Audible.com and it does a good job of making a quick summary.  I grew up on comic books, which might be why I like graphic novels among my literature.  This book, however, is not a graphic novel, it is a true novel about a graphic (comic book) character and that works perfectly as the “Bright Boy” sidekick deals with his teen age angst, his hate of his costume and the fact that in saving a very good looking victim he got an erection that was caught on the news camera and has made him a laughing stock – something his anonymous alter ego has a difficulty dealing with.  And of course his one dimensional superhero partner cannot even use the word erection in his stilted vocabulary.

Author of The Big Splash and Emmy®-winning writer for PBS's WordGirl, Jack D. Ferraiolo delivers the uproarious adventure of a different kind of hero. Behind every superhero stands a trusty - though less glamorous - sidekick. For Phantom Justice there is (drumroll, please) Bright Boy! Superfast and superstrong! Of course, when not fighting crime, Bright Boy leads a humbler existence as ordinary kid Scott Hutchinson. The superhero job might make for a plum gig, but after a humiliating incident with his spandex costume, Scott finds his world isn't exactly the stuff of dreams.

Poor Scott, a high school boy, who cannot respond to the bullies and react to the things he hears.  It is so much for a teenager who has his own teen angst and now has a secret hero identity to protect.   

Then, what happens when you discover that a classmate is the sidekick of his ultimate enemy and that classmate knows who he is too.  What a conundrum – and the sidekick is really a girl.

Then to add to the enjoyment of this fun novel – we have to examine good versus bad, what is evil?  Some good topics to play with as you follow the novels characters and the choices that they make.

The book requires some familiarity with superheroes – which is not so hard now that movies have turned their spotlight on them.  If you accept their possible reality, than the reality of this book is yours and it is really fun.  I could not stop – the romance, the twists are really enjoyable.  Don’t start unless you have the time to keep reading – it is difficult to put down.

Assembling California - John McPhee

Assembling California John McPhee

This is another of the road trips that McPhee has taken to understand our geology and landscape.  In California he and his geologist friend come to an amazing exposure that completely overwhelms the geologist – You need another geologist for this land.  Wonderful honesty and a good metaphor for the complex nature of CA.  

The Sutter Mill and the gold fever are part of the story, but even with the stories such as Sutter trying to hide the gold fine so his mill and farm would not be affected, this is about where the gold came from and all the other amazing rocks.  There is often a lack of logic and it could not have been sorted out without plate tectonics which help explain these immigrant rock formations that have traveled from the Pacific to the continent.

This is the fourth of the geological books that I have read – Basin and Range will always be my favorite, but this one might rank second for me because the stories are compelling and the geology is difficult and explained well.

In the middle of the book McPhee and his geology buddy Moores are in Greece and we learn the assembling of this landscape which should serve as a model for some of the CA assembly.  However, it is more likely just a fun place for the wandering rock hounds to investigate and McPhee gets to write it off as book research – lucky guy.

The book diverges from CA to corollary stories around the world and it is filled with stories and experiences.  There is a lot of information on the following topics:

1.       The gold rush and gold mining
2.       Plate tectonics
3.       Terrains added to the continent to create the California we know today
4.       Earthquakes – the energy, events, predictions and reality

To understand and  recall all the information that is packed in this book will require multiple readings. 

Thirty years ago, the theory that continents are comprised of drifting plates - plate tectonics - evoked more scorn than serious research. Today, this revolutionary theory continues to dazzle and challenge geologists and laymen alike. Assembling California explores an area uniquely demonstrative of the plate tectonic theory: California, which according to "tectonicists," is breaking apart at its seams. (audible Inc).

Wellsprings: a natural history of bottled water Francis Chapelle

Wellsprings: a natural history of bottled water  Francis Chapelle

Warning – there is another book – Wellsprings a book of spiritual exercises – that is not the book I am reviewing.  This book is another of the books I have been reading to learn more about fresh water.

I have so much trouble with the amount of plastic that is being consumed for bottled water that I would not have thought I could enjoy a book devoted to exploring the industry of spring water and bottled water, but this book was excellent and in depth with some great stories.

Here are stories of Sartoga Springs in the NE and its near namesake Calistoga Springs in CA.  There are stories of the aquifers of the great plains, the abundance of springs in Florida, and the connections between erosion, weather patterns, mountains, plains, folded rocks, etc.

There is a connection between springs in Europe that were used for healing.  They did not know the reasons that these springs helped, but it was the chemicals that were dissolved in to the waters that made individual springs have different impacts on a variety of ailments.  And this in fact became the first true medicinal prescription – something accidental and not understood, but never-the-less effective.  For example, “In nineteenth-century Europe, chlorosis was a fairly common condition among young women beginning the rigors of puberty.” One of the symptoms was “a slight greenish tint of the skin.”  This is an anemia, iron deficiency that was cleared up by iron rich waters.

And that led to the spas and the baths and impacted not only health but society.  There are terrible stories of well waters polluted by the lack of septic systems and a slow learning process to understand the microorganisms that poisoned the waters and made people sick.  There were heroes who fought the ignorance and they often suffered the ridicule of the “learned” who, like today, felt threatened by new science and knowledge.  Dr. Snow began recording the locations of Cholera outbreaks and his records took the site to a pump that was used by the local inhabitants for their drinking water, but his findings were rejected until later when.  Robert Koch, microbiologist, figured out the cause of cholera, and we finally began to understand that microorganisms were a danger to our health. 

The problem is in finding the culprits – “…we human beings actually have more bacterial cells living in and on us then the eukaryotic cells we are actually made of.”    Cryptosporidium infected the city water of Milwaukee as a late as 1993 and 40,000 people came down with an intestinal ailment.  It is issues like this that have followed human civilization and often caused a distrust of water.

“Like all Europeans of the seventeenth century, the Pilgrims disliked, distrusted, and despised drinking water.  Only truly poor people who had absolutely no choice, drank water.”  The rest drank beer.

In 1903, the same year as the Wright brothers flight, Michael Owens developed an automated bottle making machine.  Of course that has led to many issues such as – who owns the water? 

Through the book you will learn that there had been a previous boom for bottled water that was shut off when water supplies began to use chlorine to disinfect urban supplies (1913).  Poland Springs Maine began in 1844 and Mountain Valley Spring waters from Hot Springs Arkansas (1871).

“By the time the Romans conquered Britain in 50 A.D., both the Roman and Briton cultures had a long history of revering water, wells and springs.  Springs and wells were considered to be inhabited by spirits…”

The only weakness is that the author repeats a few key ideas regularly as though the reader might not remember and make the connection.  This should not stop you from reading and learning.

Now the small springs keep getting purchased by the giants like Perrier and Danone and Suntory as the struggle to compete with Coca Cola and Pepsi – both of which sell you bottled municipal water – Dasoni and Aquafina.

Wine and War, Don and Petie Kladstrup

Wine and War, Don and Petie Kladstrup

Try to think of a countries icon – its most precious commodity and source of national pride.  For many countries this is a difficult decision, but for the French it is wine.  And the wine and the vineyards are France.  War tears a country apart in many ways.  The threat to the wine is one of the side stories that seems to pale compared to loss of home, life, and family.  But it ranks right behind them and the stories that are associated with the wine during WWII capture some of the drama and pathos of the war.

The introduction begins with the story of finding the massive wine cave of Hitler by the French forces at the end of the war.  All the great vineyards and vintages were there– “What was so hard to believe was that all this precious wine – sitting in a cave near the top of a mountain – belonged to a man who could not have cared less about it.  In fact, did not even like wine.”

The impact of war on the vineyards began in 1914 when the “French government mounted an extraordinary campaign to help.  Winegrowers were granted delays in being called to active duty, military labor detachments were sent to the vineyards and farm hosrese of small growers were not to be requisitioned until the harvest was completed.”

“WWI had rendered vineyards, especially those in Champagne, practically lifeless.  They had been sliced up by trenches and blown apart by artillery and mortar shells, which left enormous craters in the ground.  Worse were the chemical shells that leaked into the soil, poisoning the vineyards for years to come.”

I was really impressed by the story I have never heard before – how the  vineyards survived the occupation when they had to sell their wines to Germany and the Germans appointed buyers in each area who set quota and price.  Fortunately, many of these buyers were from the wine industry and had sympathy for the vintners.

The Vineyards and their caves were also a place for the resistance to hide both people and equipment and the locations of shipments of champagne were a source of information on German troop placement.

The French sabotaged trains that were loaded with wine for the Wehrmacht, siphoned wine from barrels leaving them empty or filling them with water.  They tried to send their worst wines, watered down wines and anything they could to protect the best.  One vineyard placed their bottles in a pond, but in the morning a German walked to the pond and found it had a surface floating with labels.  Another vintner hid their wine under their vegetable garden.  Another good story was when Germans took over a wine cave for a night.  To avoid suspicion there were still some wine bottles, but not the best.  However, there were bottles with a clear liquid that the troops thought was gin – it was in fact a laxative!

During the hunger imposed by the Germans who limited French to 1200 calories a day (the elderly 895) people tried to grow plants and even raise chickens and goats on their balconies.  The vineyards planted between rows of grapes and sometimes removed the grapevines.  “But the gravelly soil, which was perfect for vines because it provided good drainage and forced the roots to grow deep was inhospitable to vegetables.  Whereas vines grew best when they were made to suffer, vegetables needed to be pampered.”

I also learned about the Champagne Campaign that came after D-day.  A fascinating and well-coordinated campaign down the Rhine with the French making sure that their men were on the side of the river with the best vineyards.  And based on the way the Americans treated the gift of great wines at the end of the campaign, by “hopping them up” with medicinal alcohol, I think the French were right to keep them out of the truly great vineyards of the region.

The end of the war was the beginning of an overwhelming task of reviving the vineyards and the heroic task was done for the delight of France and the entire world.  This is a wonderful history with a very special focal point.

A GOOD REVIEW: http://baltimorechronicle.com/books1_nov01.html

MINN of the Mississippi Holling Clancy Holling

MINN of the Mississippi Holling Clancy Holling is by the author of Paddle to the Sea but published 12 years later in 1951.  It is about a snapping turtle that begins his life in Little Elk Lake - the highest drainage lake going in to Lake Itasca and through a variety of human induced experiences he washes all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico.  Since the Mississippi is our next expedition, it is a timely read and it really teaches a lot about both the rivers history and snappers natural history.

Because it was written in 1950, the language is stilted at times and African Americans are referred to as negroes, but there does not seem to be racial overtones as MINN meets people and places and we see through her eyes, but not through her mind.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the information packed in this "chapter book".

Light Action in the Caribbean Barry Lopez

This collection of short stories by Barry Lopez held some surprises.  I often have a hard time getting pleasure from shore stories.  They tend to be so single minded that they fall short and this book started out that way for me, but as I continued to read I saw a pattern within the stories that made it a book, rather than a collection.  Now I hated the title story for its gratuitous violence which added nothing to the collection, but overall the study of relationships was really good.  The lesson seemed to be that the focus on an external object can be a form of meditation that shines light on the internal self.  People found beauty and focus in writings, in gardens and in creativity and that was enlightening.

There was also a background of color and nature that seemed to illuminate each epiphany.  Good writing as always.  And I will probably not pursue short stories any more than I have in the past.

The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna

The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna and an introduction by Pico Iyer is a classic that was wretten in 1975 (translated to English in 1995 - I think) and it is the best book find of the year for me.  This small book is one that fits right in with The Alchemist (Coehlo) and even the Odyssey, but it is a cold weather journey in Finland all the way to the Arctic Sea by a very unlikely set of friends - a journalist and a hare.

The rabbit is not a cartoon character, it is just a brown hare, yet the friendship sets up the conditions for the strange odyssey and the truth seeking that follows.  The journalist does what Kate recommended when I retired - he just walks away with his friend.  The adventures are contrasts, juxtapositions, and comparisons as the wanderers bump against the conventions of time, place, and culture. 

To wander is to be different and that difference can be a mirror that startles or it can be enlightening to those who encounter it.  There is more humor here than in The Alchemist and the Odyssey (although those monsters are a little weird when you try to picture them).

At the end you might ask - What was that all about? - but then all three books require that question.  Somethings that inspired the writer are still buried within the authors brain.  But thats okay.  Laugh, think, react, and let some of it stay a puzzle because the puzzle is what will keep the book in your mind.

Here is a good link for a summary of The Alchemist http://www.wikisummaries.org/The_Alchemist, The Odyssey
http://www.wikisummaries.org/The_Odyssey and The Year of the Hare http://www.bookpage.com/books-10014011-The-Year-of-the-Hare

The Book of Genesis, R. Crumb illustrated

I have really looked forward to this book, but for all of you who think that the Bible is actually true and the word of god, you might want to stop reading here.  Crumb is a classic comic book illustrator from the underground world of comics, not superheroes and he chose to do Genesis because of its iconic status even though, like me, he does not see this as a true set of stories. 

The illustration is wonderful because this is the actual text, he just does pictures and because of that the illustrations cry out the inconsistencies.   It is a book that requires illustration to make us stop and ask – is this really the word of god?  In fact, in this book we find that there were other gods and perhaps they created other beings.  It is a book of incest, polygamy, slavery, deceit, selling wives and children, the destruction of all humans, the rescue of all the animal species, extramarital mating, slaughter of innocents for sacrifice… and those are by the holy – god favorites.  Of course there is nakedness and sex – which will turn off some, but that’s what the book has so take a deep breath and be ready to be surprised by some of the contents.

Two creations – one has humans come last, the second has them come first.  Having made man and woman in chapter 2, why does god do it over and differently in chapter 2? Why does god walk in the garden and not know that Adam and Eve ate of the fruit – I mean he is god.  Then Adam becomes the first snitch – who did this, she did! 

Then poor Cain – god likes Abel’s gifts more than his so jealousy arises and Cain kills Abel.  Now for strangeness – Cain is told the earth will not bear fruit for him anymore and he is cursed – he must wander and he might be killed by anyone he meets.  But how can he meet anyone – he is the only child of the only people.  Of course he then goes off to Nod and gets married.  Wait when did god make these Nod people? 

The next big myth in the book is the story of Noah and the ark.  This is a clever story and it would be good if people believed in the lesson – even when humans are F --- up the rest of creation deserves to be saved.  However, those who believe this is true are really amazing – the water rose 15 feet above the mountains – I know they did not know about the Himalayas at that time – water over 5 miles above see level!  And then there is the fact that all the animals of all the continents and all the seeds of all the plants on all the continents had to fit on this boat – yikes, they are going to need more than cubits to measure that boat.  If all the insects, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, birds of all the continents were not on the vessel it would require some awfully quick evolution for those religious believers to fill the earth as we know it.

Next comes the fable of Abram.  God keeps popping in and out of people’s lives, this god is obviously not ever present, but he does begin the debate between predestination and free will as he tells Abram that his progeny will be enslaved and oppressed for 400 years before they will be allowed to come back in the country.  So how does this god get surprised by human actions?

The wars between the tribes is a constant, but all the tribes came from Noah since he has now replaced Adam as the father of all the world.  This follows gods little tantrum with the tower of Babel which offends him because it reaches up to heaven.  So god gives everyone there different languages so that they cannot communicate and work together.  Nice trick god – what are you going to do to the astronauts?

Just as Adam was the first snitch – Abram is the first recorded pimp, telling his wife, Sarai to pretend to be his sister so no one will harm him to take her away.  He then allows her to be taken as the Pharaoh’s wife under this deception and in the end the pharaoh is the one that is punished by god!  Of course, Sarai turns the tables and gives Abram her hand maid who then conceives and the result it the child Ishmael which begins the story of the Arab nation which will be in conflict with Isaac and the Jewish world from then on.  What a story. What follows are the directions of god to circumcise the males – even the slaves (why doesn’t this god tell them that it is not right to have slaves?).

The hardest aspect for me to swallow is the willingness of Abram to sacrifice Isaac.  This may be duty to god for some, but my father instincts would cause me to find a different god and save my son.

Sodom and Gomorrah present another fable that raises lots of questions – not only is Lot’s wife turned to stone for the horrible act of curiosity, but god sends messengers to check out Sodom (doesn’t he know) and they are taken in to Lot’s home.  When the towns folk, surely not the people you want to hang out with, come to the door and want “to know” the messengers – Lot offers them his virgin daughters “do them however you please” and just let the messengers along.  Another passage that messes with this father’s mind.  But then when you think it cannot get worse, Lot’s wife is salt, he’s living in a cave and his two daughters decide he should not waste is seed – read sperm – so one night after another they get their father drunk, have sex with him and bear new off spring for this righteous man named Lot!

The stories of Isaac includes the deception of the wife to steal the birthright for her favorite son.  Then Jacob (Isreal) has his children turn on his youngest and throw him in a well and then sell him.  Of course this is Joseph who will rise in the Egyptian hierarchy and eventually the family will be united, but in doing so he helps the pharaoh get all the property of the common people and makes them slaves of the state.

The stories continue, but Genesis does not.  It is a book that causes you to pause and consider what is really written.