It Wasn't Always Easy, But I Sure Had Fun

You thought the title sounded familiar? It's because I've been reading Lewis Grizzard's book, a compilation of his best columns, which came out after his premature death at age 47 following heart surgery in 1994. My copy has a gold seal on the front which says "This is Lewis's last gift to all his fans...enjoy!" signed by his wife, Dedra, whom he married a few days before surgery. I guess he wanted to have someone in his corner. 

Grizzard, and others like him, are one of the reasons that nine years volunteering at a library used book sale isn't a bad idea.  No way would I have found or read him on my own. I'd have been sitting ladylike at home, in the Queen Anne chair, reading the Bronte sisters endlessly. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) I enjoyed the castles, the secret rooms, the moors. But these writers my customers were bringing in that I soon learned to love, well, I'd never have found them.  Grizzard, Rick Bragg, Larry Brown, Tim Gautreaux, rocked my world.

The other reason  a used book sale is a great experience is the people. After a while they carve out a little place in your heart. They will bring cards and nut rolls at Christmas, handmade slippers, vegetables from the garden, jewelry, and everything else under the sun, besides the books. I hope to see them all from time to time around town, friends I'd never have met if not for the sale. 

I think we did a lot of good. During the Gulf war, we sent boxes of paperbacks to soldiers, books about anything but war, to take their minds off that. After hurricane Katrina, we sent more books to New Orleans where people were setting up little roadside libraries to temporarily replace ones that had been ruined.  I'm proud of all we did and will do in the future. 

Like Lewis, "I sure had fun."

Oh yeah, also the book sale led to writing this blog, and meeting (if you can call it that), lots more new friends from all over the world. Wow! I wouldn't have missed that!

Do you hate it when your computer second-guesses you? You type in "Jane White", and it asks, in a smarmy way, "Do you mean Jane Black?"  Um, no! I don't like a machine that thinks it's smarter than I am. Even if it is.

Maybe I'm not that smart, though, because after having a stiff neck for eons, I realized the other day that I've been wearing my bifocals for the computer, which are clear on top for distance and prescription on the bottom for reading.  To see the computer, I always had to lift up my head. But with the $6.00 drugstore reading glasses, I see the screen clearly top and bottom without moving my head all around to do it, and the print is even sharper. No more stiff neck. Duh. A caution: never look in the bathroom mirror while wearing the powerful drugstore reading glasses. They show everything. I never knew my pores were so huge. I think I saw Jimmy Hoffa in there. When it comes to the adult complexion, ignorance is bliss.

May I say I am thankful to live in West (by God) Virginia, especially this week. 

Take care ... see you next week.

Smooth Sailing

     We got out of the cold and windy rut we were stuck in, and it's smooth sailing now, with temps in the 80's. I left the house wearing a jacket, which only lasted ten minutes before it was rolled up and stuck in the tote  bag with the umbrella I also didn't need. Ran a few errands in town and then headed to the not-so-big city and a library book sale.
     The sale was at the bottom of a steep, zig-zaggy staircase. The stairs must have been an afterthought at the library, because they take up hardly any floor space and remind  me of the Southeast lighthouse in Rhode Island a few summers ago. Holy cow! I wonder how many library patrons have fallen down those precarious planks. At least they were carpeted, thank goodness.
     The hardcover prices were only a dollar, lower than in the past, and I was excited to find one of my favorites, Mississippi's Larry Brown's The Rabbit Factory. Can't guess what this is about, but I know it will be good.
     Is this happening everywhere? There was some kind of incident at the courthouse a year or so ago, and now some of the doors are locked and chained and there are security guards inside. I felt secure, though, as one of them escorted me to the snack machine for a Bugle lunch, even shooing away a big guy who had made the little refreshment ell his temporary home. Thanks, buddy.

     Home to yard work and bird watching. I was lucky to see a gorgeous Scarlet Tanager enjoying the backyard birdbath.

But when I tried to take his picture, suddenly the camera batteries died. Anyway, he was even more beautiful than this image. And as if that wasn't enough, out front was a Baltimore Oriole. Wow! 

     I read that the Scarlet Tanager can eat over 2,000 gypsy moth caterpillars an hour. It just happens the tent caterpillars have exited their nests and are roaming the lawn, so go to it, birds. Do you know a group of tanagers is called a "season"?

     The high school students are taking the WestTest this week. We'll  find out if they're up to the national average, or maybe even above. Good luck, kids! While school's in progress, I'll be sneaking some books into the little gray bus stop for them to find when they come home, with a coupon for a free paperback at our book sale in each one.  And hopefully no one will set fire to them.

     My driver's license expires this fall, and I know there are new guidelines now for renewing. To prove we're not terrorists, we have to show a birth certificate and, for married women, a marriage certificate. I've had those in a metal box for years, but wasn't sure they'd do the job, so I took them to the courthouse and asked the lady in the records room. Uh uh. I'll have to send to my birth state and the one to which we eloped, and get new official ones. Good grief! And a tidy sum, too, to renew a license I rarely use. Thanks, Washington!

     Have a great week, everyone!

I'd Walk a Mile For a Camel . . .Or would I?

Remember this?

     Another blogger posted a poem about smoking the other day, and it got me to thinking. Okay, I definitely would not walk a mile for a Camel (sorry, Camel guys) because that was the cigarette I "borrowed" from my dad's pack when I wanted to find out what smoking was all about. And the one I hid under the bath towel when Mom came into the room, and thank goodness, the one she found before it caught anything on fire. 

     That strong nonfilter Camel was enough to keep me away from cigarettes for about twenty years, when I decided to try smoking again. Seeing Bette Davis in the closing scene of Now, Voyager made it all seem so romantic:

     When Paul Henreid lit the two cigarettes and handed Bette one, and she said "Don't let's ask for the moon . . . we have the stars", that was it. And by the way, Dad, remember this old picture of you with a cigarette in one hand and a glass in the other, with Mom, visiting friends? It's hard now to believe you wore a double-breasted suit and Mom put on those spiky heels to go visiting, when now we just, GO.

     I always liked the way a guy looked with a pack of smokes rolled up in his sleeve. Cool, right? But 20 years or so later he would give it up when the first grandchild was on the way.

Guys we knew were always puffing away on something. And who do you think started it all? Maybe this guy?

 What kind of role model was he?

     Now, of course, smoking is frowned upon, and in small towns all over the U.S., we are forbidden to smoke in public spaces like restaurants, parks, hospital parking lots, sometimes even in our own cars. In one  WV city, officials even want to ban the new electronic cigarettes. What's up with that?

     Bette, you wouldn't like the 21st century.

     As if keeping the yard mowed isn't enough, hubby has done some road work, filling three potholes in front of the house. He got tired of hearing the thump of passing cars hitting them.

     The local television station wants us to watch and listen for whippoorwills. They used to be plentiful here, but no one has seen or heard any lately. I hope some show up.

     I have a tiny clock in the bedroom I can't hear ticking if I try. You'd never know it was there. But when I drink too much coffee like I did yesterday, and lie awake for hours on end, suddenly the clock is louder than Poe's Telltale Heart.  It doesn't help that I seem to be allergic to something I'm taking, either a vitamin or the glucosamine/chondroitin combo that's supposed to free up my creaky joints but only makes the back of my neck itch. Tick tock. Tick tock.

     There are eggs or baby birds in several of the bushes, young rabbits on the lawn, and buttercups and violets all over. The hills are covered with Trilliums, if you can skitter up between the rocks and prickly bushes to pick them. There's a truckload of new mulch in the hosta bed behind the house and I swear this summer I will yank up any green sprout as soon as it breaks ground to keep it weed-free, so help me Martha Stewart. I hope your spring is as nice.

     This week I read Graham Greene's The Captain and the Enemy, about a boy named Victor, (or Jim, as the Captain renamed him), after winning him from his father in either a chess or backgammon game and taking him home to his lady friend, Liza, who has no child of her own. The Captain is gone most of the time, though, on mysterious assignments, dangerous ones, that Jim doesn't know about until he is grown and on his own. After reading Joseph Conrad and now Greene, I'm about ready for something light!

See you next week . . .

White Lightning and the Beer Summit

littlefreelibrary.org

(Article from Woman's Day magazine, April, 2013)

     Does your town or an adjoining town have a library?  In urban areas in the U.S., most do. But in rural or out-of-the way places, there might not be a library for miles. What to do? Build your own.

     According to Woman's Day magazine, residents of some small

 communities have constructed birdhouse-size enclosures filled with books that can be exchanged. No fee, no library card, just bring a book and take one. Some have gone as far as to put a bench nearby, plant flowers, and create a space for people to meet and chat as they look for a good read. All you need is some building material, plexiglass for the door, and a 4x4" post. 

     Building instructions can be found at their website. 

     Our internet was down from Saturday night to Monday night. I never realized how much we rely on it. Hubby wanted plans for a bluebird house, I was trying to figure out the names of two actors in a movie, there were relatives I wanted to contact, a doctor's appointment to make, etc.  The doctor's internet was down, too, unfortunately. I was dreading making one of those tech support phone calls, so I was glad to find out it wasn't just us, but the whole town. And it was fixed pretty quickly, thank goodness.

     Our favorite country singer, George Jones, well-known in West Virginia for his big hit, "White Lightning", passed away last week. We've liked him ever since we've been together, which is a long time, and have a cabinet full of old record albums to prove it. Attended one of his concerts once - had to wait quite a while for "No-show Jones" to arrive, but he was worth the wait. He was 81 years old this year, making a farewell tour that was sadly cut short. One of my favorite songs he sang is "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes?" Really. 

     I was sad this week because I'm giving up my volunteer job at the Friends of the Library book sale after nine years. It seems as if the books have gotten a lot heavier in the last year or so, and the "grownup" I am now (when did that happen?) has difficulty carrying those heavy boxes of encyclopedias, National Geographics, and everything else the job entails. I'm going to miss all the people I've met (well, except maybe the guy who knows how to make a bomb, and the one who wants to build a bunker, and the lady who said there was no rhyme or reason to the arrangement of the books (oh, yes, there is, if you'd only asked!), but anyway, I was sad. And then guess what? Daughter #1 decided she wants to take it over. So I can still have the fun of going in, without having to lift anything, and she can keep me up to date on all my old friends. There's a lot to show her. I hope she has a strong back . . .

     While planning my exit, this week I read Colored People: a Memoir, by Henry Louis Gates, who was born here in West Virginia and grew up in the town of Piedmont, during the segregation years. Gates is a teacher, writer and editor, and  a documentary film maker for PBS, among other things. His name sounded familiar, and when I read his Wikipedia bio, I knew why. In 2009, he returned home from a trip, found his front door stuck shut, and was pushing on it trying to get it open, when a neighbor mistook him for a burglar and called the police. There was a confrontation between Gates and the responding officer, and he was arrested, even though his I.D. clearly showed he was the homeowner. 

     People called it racial profiling, and even President Obama got into the act, before he thought better of it, and invited Gates and Sgt. James Crowley, the arresting officer, to the White House to kiss and make up. The newspapers called it the Beer summit. Later, Gates, who also is interested in ancestry, discovered that he and Crowley were distant relatives.

     See you next week . . .

Canary in a Coal Mine

A letter to A.J. Clemente:

     Dear A.J. I've been following with interest your story since you graduated from WVU Broadcasting school, landed a job in North Dakota, and lost that job your first day on the air. And I think I know what went wrong.
     Your first mistake was in leaving West Virginia. You should have stayed around a while, worked for the local stations, gained a following, and then struck out for greener pastures. Having the hometown crowd behind you is always a good thing.
     It goes without saying that you shouldn't have said those two words, the f- one and the s- one that we usually only use when the squirrel gun jams. You'd probably have gotten away with it here (have you seen "Buck Wild"?) but others aren't as tolerant.
     It's really no surprise, though, that the job didn't work out. This is West Virginia, and we expect things to go wrong. Our jobs are dangerous - we work in coal mines and cleaning towers and drill for things underground that we then ship to China so they can sell them back to us. There is no more canary in the coal mine; we are the canary. Roofs fall, whole sections flood, gases and dust explode and we're in the middle of it. We live in a constant state of nervousness. Our philosophy is kind of like that of a comic in the seventies (I can't remember which one - Seinfeld, Woody Allen, or Steven Wright maybe), who said "Life is a swirling, sucking, eddy of despair filled with occasional moments of false hope in an ever-blackening universe". So why shouldn't bad things happen?
     One of our hometown legends is Don Knotts, Barney, from the Andy Griffith show. There's even a street named after him in Morgantown.  Who is unluckier than Barney? Lovable, yes, but always shooting himself in the foot. Or he would have, if that gun had been loaded.
     I've seen you on all the talk shows the last day or two, A.J., and I think things might work out for you, even with the rough start, and then we can say we knew you when. Watch for the red light, though, and save that salty language for the deer woods, where it belongs, and maybe someday we'll name a street after you!
     I spent a couple of "wow" weather days reading Joseph Conrad's gloomy Heart of Darkness, days which would have been better spent working on a suntan. Didn't like it nearly as much as Lord Jim, but it's usually that way when you love the first book you read by an author. This one also had with it The Secret Sharer, which I did like, so I'll be keeping an eye out for more Conrad in the future.
     Hubby is clearing out the weeds in the mulch bed behind the back porch, with a little help from the robins, feeding the earthworms he uncovers to our bluegill, Bubba, who by now would make a nice fat filet o' fish sandwich. I'm kidding! We like Bubba, and enjoy watching him swim around the pond plants like a stealthy submarine, breaking the surface occasionally to pop a fat night crawler in his mouth. A frost killed the daffodils but everything else is flourishing. It's a beautiful spring; ready for new beginnings. Yes, even for A.J. Clemente.
     See you next week!

Do Not Disturb

You gotta love a book that comes with its own "do not disturb" door hanger. Modern romance is not my usual cup of tea, but a customer recommended this Debbie Macomber novel she'd just read.  Debbie is about the most popular author at my sale, but I wouldn't have read her if I hadn't been urged. Guess what? She is that good, at least in  The Inn at Rose Harbor. Okay, now back to Joseph Conrad and Henry James.

I discovered that I now have 54 books unread. That might be okay if I were on a deserted island, but Life intrudes. I'll have to wear blinders for a while to keep from bringing more home.

If you're ever bothered by a stiff neck, I highly recommend a foam cervical support pillow. My doctor/chiropractor told me about it months ago, while he was rearranging my bones for the Nth time, and I finally got smart and bought one. Less than $30 from Walmart or Amazon.com, and it is heavenly. I will never leave home without it. If he tells all his patients about it, though, he may well be out of business.

In a commercial for Sleep Number beds, the announcer said this: "You'll only find Sleep Number in one of our over 400 stores nationwide." My first thought was, which store? Is it a scavenger hunt?  I think there must be a better way of saying it. But then again, maybe it's just me.

Have you been following the adventures of Flo, the Progressive Insurance salesperson? They're making me a little edgy. When I see a couple riding double on a motorcycle, toasting marshmallows, and then standing in the road in a rainstorm, dripping wet, I think, is this any way to sell insurance? Remember the Taster's Choice couple in the late 90's? We waited for the next commercial the way the British waited for the new chapter of a Charles Dickens adventure. No one even remembers now how the Taster's Choice couple turned out. I'm just not ready to make that kind of commitment to a television commercial again, thank you very much.

The mockingbirds have a nest in the hedges beside the house, and Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal are in a curly Hinoki Cypress next to the laundry room dryer vent. I bet that made for some nice nest material.  And speaking of nesting, Dr. Rex Morgan's nurse/wife, June Gale, in the comics, is expecting again. Nothing strange about that, except that the strip began in October, 1949, and June and Rex are even younger now than they were then. How do they do it?

See you next week!

Setting a New Record

The weatherman says a new record was set today, April 11. The temperature rose to 84 in our neck of the woods, a degree higher than it's been since records were kept. So it was shorts, sandals and sunglasses. The trees are blooming like crazy, and I think there are nuthatch babies in the birdbox on the walnut tree. The parents have been flitting in and out with bits of food.

After all my talk about the Fates, I really haven't learned anything, I guess. Because last week I mentioned locusts, and now (who knew?) they say the 17-year cicadas are on the way. And they also say the sound of a flock of them can reach 90 decibels, equal to a rock concert. Just great. The only thing on our side is that starlings love the things. We have discontinued birdseed so the starlings will be v-e-r-y hungry.

The tree that grew from the middle of a hedge a year or so ago is now 15 or 20 feet tall. It should be cut down, I know; I can imagine its roots making a beeline for the nearby septic tank, but a wren has been singing in the very top first thing every morning, and I don't have the heart.

Have you noticed that argyle is everywhere? The fifties live . . .

One good thing about the cicadas --- now that I'm older, sometimes there is whistling in my ears. I think it's there all the time, but sometimes I tune it out. I bet the whistling will trump whatever racket the cicadas make.

Our supermarket can't get enough of cutesy signs. The produce counter now has a bowl full of  lone bananas with a note that says "Hi. I'm single. Take me home with an apple for a healthy good time."  What's next? Will the potatoes start making googly eyes at each other?

A blogger with a column in a national magazine recently wrote about sleeping in her clothes. And sometimes waking up and starting the new day in those same clothes. Even better than that, I think, is the growing acceptance of pajamas as outerware. Not long ago, I was in a convenience store where the cashier waited on me in her pajamas. And a customer came in wearing hers. And it wasn't shocking or weird. It seems like we've been looking for some kind of all-occasion garment. No matter how glam are the dresses on television, how high and skinny the heels, most of us just want, well, we want comfort. Andy Rooney used to say that no matter how interesting a day he was going to have, getting out of bed never felt as good as getting back in.

We have a file drawer clogged with owners' manuals, most of which we've never read. Maybe we glance at them once and check out the warranty, but then they go into the drawer and stay there unless we sell the thing or throw it away. Our neighbor wishes he'd read his truck manual more carefully. Here's why: 

He loaned the spare key to his daughter, who wanted to borrow the truck to visit her in-laws. The truck would not start. He looked it all over, tried it several times, called some friends for advice, and finally, after a long, frustrating day. he hit upon a person who knew the answer. The key he uses to drive his truck is a "smart key", with a computer chip inside. The key he loaned her was great for opening the doors, but when it was put in the ignition, the lack of a chip sent a message to the truck that it was being stolen. It locked up, and no amount of coaxing, even trying the smart key, could change its mind. Reading the manual (finally), he learned that if he inserted HIS key, turned it counter-clockwise and held it there for 20 seconds, then turned it to the right, it fired right up. I bet he reads his next manual from cover to cover.

You know you're in West Virginia when a grandma you meet in the aisle at the grocery store opens her big purse and shows you a glossy photo, not of her grandchildren, but of the Boone & Crockett buck she shot last hunting season.

See you next week!