Kindergarten: The Glad Game

Half a mile down the street is a little elementary school, only a few years old. We drive past it often, and ever since it opened we occasionally have told Silas as we passed it, "Some day that's going to be your school!" That 'some day' always seemed so far away.

'Some day' finally arrived last Wednesday, the day that my little boy strode into kindergarten sporting an awesome pair of light-up Star Wars kicks and a Despicable Me backpack, and holding his mother's nervous heart. Apparently I need never have worried. The kid loves his school day, adores his teacher, and has easily made some friends in his class. The school seems to be quite tight-knit, and as luck would have it, I even know some of the faculty and staff. The lovely "Ms. G.," who has been a friend of mine since I was 17, is a full-time teaching assistant who has eyes on my boy from the moment I drop him off until he comes running into my arms with a grin at 11:48AM, which is the end of his day (we're doing half-day kindergarten). At the open house last week, I even recognized the school secretary as the mother of one of my childhood friends, and I was happy to receive her bear-hug upon our recognition of one another. The school is new and lovely, his classroom is exciting yet cozy, and his teacher is creative and personable. Silas is clearly in great hands.

As kindergarten approached, I (mostly) persuaded myself to play Pollyanna's "Glad Game" in place of wallowing in sadness. After all, I reasoned, it's not like I'm losing Silas. He's actually introducing us to this new, awesome thing! Besides, he's only gone in the morning. I reminded myself of Malala Yousafzai, the widely-recognized young activist and Nobel Prize laureate who survived a Taliban gunshot to the head and has fought bravely for the rights of girls and women to receive an education in all corners of the world. We're lucky, I told myself, that Silas has the privilege not only to attend school, but to attend a great school. Sending him to a place where he can learn how to reach his potential is not a sad occasion. There are mothers in many places who long for this opportunity for their children and don't receive it. We have our lives, our health, strong social support, and exciting opportunities. No wonder Pollyanna played this game! I felt a million times better about sending Silas to kindergarten when my perspective changed from negative to positive. As Pollyanna herself said, "When you're hunting for the glad things, you sort of forget the other kind."

Malala Yousafzai, whose book I Am Malala is fabulous, by the way

Still, despite my best efforts, it was a bit of a sucker punch during the first morning's walk home without him. I held back tears until we were off school grounds, and even then I only shed a few as I pushed my other two along in the stroller. The waves of grief that day were brief and only brought on by my recollections of Silas as a newborn. I remember so well my maternity leave with him, those bright summer days spent falling in love with a new little baby so fast and so hard. I remember the kisses on his tiny face, smelling his hair, and falling into naps with him in my arms while Ellen DeGeneres and episodes of "Say Yes to the Dress" played in the background. Those were sweet, sweet days, and I'm lucky to have those memories. I've even been lucky enough to have them three different times with three different boys, two of which are still home with me full-time for years to come. Boy, am I excited when I think about that!

A new mom

 We're a little over one week into school now, and I'm very excited about the part in our lives that this little elementary school is already playing. Silas is currently enjoying School Spirit Week, which has included such antics as "Minion Day" and "Duct Tape Day," much to BJ's chagrin (I put BJ in charge of making duct tape accessories and he excelled---a new-found talent!). At occasional points throughout my life I have felt a sense of crisp clarity that I knew I was in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing. In the millions of directions I could have gone, somehow I had gotten it right and was following the correct path. Yesterday as I was chauffeuring my younger two around, another of those rare clarity moments hit me. Our family is in exactly the right home, in exactly the right school, in exactly the right class; the five of us belong here, and we are where we're supposed to be. I take great comfort in that intuition.

Nowadays, we still frequently drive by that little elementary school a half-mile down the road, but our words as we pass have changed a bit. Now we say, "Silas, there's your school! And George, that's going to be your school too some day!"

Some day.

Visitors From the Kids' Rooms

For the safety of everyone in the house, every family should have at least one light sleeper. That's what I tell myself anyway, to console myself about the fact that every slight thing causes me to wake up at night. There's no getting anything by me in the middle of the night. I'm aware when any of my children coughs, when the dishwasher completes its cycle, when the owl hoots in the woods out back, and when BJ's CPAP machine goes awry. I hear the padding of little feet on the carpet coming down the hallway long before I see the tiny-stature silhouette round the foot of the bed in the middle of the night. The nighttime hours see far more activity in our house than I would like for them to. I find myself amazed that none of these four beings with which I live--the baby, the toddler, the preschooler, and the adult man--ever seem to hear one another in the middle of the night though, as they each wake me with their individual little problems.

For instance, let's consider the sitch a few nights ago. It all began some time around 2AM when BJ, who admittedly assumes an entirely different personality in the middle of the night, ripped off his CPAP mask for no apparent reason. Guess he'd had enough air for one night. Pulling his mask off woke me up, so I woke him up and made him put his mask back on. BJ replaced the mask and within a second and a half was asleep again. Five minutes later as I was drifting back to sleep, I heard the wooden ladder of the boys' bunk bed creaking. In came Silas. A leg ache was on the menu, sadly. So, I created a pallet on the floor for Silas while I rubbed his feet and put socks on him, then tucked him tightly into covers to keep warm. Around this time I marveled about how I'd just spent the last 20 minutes being a caretaker to two people, neither of whom was ever aware of the other's awakening.

Silas drifted back to sleep and I was nearly back to the Land of Nod myself when I heard the pad-pad-pad of a two-year-old's gait. George came crawling into bed crying and explaining what sounded to me like nonsense. I gathered he had had a nightmare. He was inconsolable as the others slept, so I put him to bed between BJ and me while holding his hand. He stopped crying and then asked for "fresh water," so I got out of bed to get that for him. Minutes passed and it became quiet again before George announced he needed to pee-pee. Into the bathroom we both went. Then finally, finally, we all fell back to sleep.

Silas woke me about two hours later, crying because his leg pain woke him up again. This time I got him a graham cracker and told him to eat it while I rubbed his feet. Once he had finished, we got some Tylenol into his belly while I rubbed his foot some more. Then he needed water too, of course. We all fell asleep after this wish was fulfilled, and then an hour later he woke me to direct questions about a dream he apparently had as well ("Why was that tower walking?" What?). All in all, I was out of bed seven times that night and woke up several others just to correct things or console people from my place in bed. Ugh.

The following night's sleep was hijacked by Van, who is usually the one child I have that I can count on to not bother me at night. He woke suddenly at 1AM screaming, and after nursing him and then three attempts to put him back into his own crib, I finally gave up and collapsed into my own bed with him in arms. I woke an hour to find him sleeping soundly on my chest, so I tiptoed him into his nursery and ever-so-gently laid him into his crib. His eyes flew open immediately, and with an accusatory and panicked face he began wailing again. Thus, Van spent another two hours sleeping on my chest before I finally laid him down for good at 4AM. This was, of course, a Monday night before I had to work.

The child-between-us situation brings me to discuss this problem: When am I supposed to be rested enough to diligently return all children to their own rightful beds when they come padding into my room at night? I'll admit that part of me likes the snuggles; the majority of me wants more room to myself though, and could definitely do without the toddler sleep-time gymnastics illustrated here.

Credit Christoph Niemann in his hilarious compilation of visual blog posts entitled Abstract City. Perhaps my favorite read of 2014, this visual book had me rolling with laughter and musing the artist's creativity time and again. His caption for this piece: "Next up: a visitor from the kids' room. They start all sweet and cuddly, but their little bodies become more brazen by the minute."

They start each night in their own beds and sometimes they all stay there, but many nights George comes to our room between 4AM and 5AM, and I'm just too doggone tired to march him back to his room again and again. Occasionally, but not often, Silas will come in and ask me to set him up a pallet on the floor. They never go around to BJ's side, and I never feel awake enough to just say, "Buddy, let's trek it back to your bed" and then get the boy re-situated....if he doesn't throw a fit. Which leads to another problem: if a middle-of-the-night fit is thrown, how in the world is that fair to the other sleeping brother in the room? What do parents of room-sharing siblings do? Feedback welcome!

Two peas in a pod

In the words of Kathleen Kelly from You've Got Mail: "I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So goodnight, dear void." Dreaming of a king-sized bed in the meantime...

Cardinals and Big Bird

Faith is a funny thing. One minute you can be feeling sturdy in the cruise-ship of life, and then an unforeseen trial in the form of an iceberg creates an upheaval in your life that you never wanted to anticipate, but here it is. You're left treading water, and the question becomes, 'Who can you call for help?' Sometimes it's the opposite scenario: you're barely keeping your head above water and are about to surrender, when suddenly a hand seems to come from nowhere and you suddenly find yourself dripping wet, but plucked aboard a vessel of safety. Through the years, I think I have found myself in both of these scenarios. All I can really conclude is that, as we develop and grow, our lives will take turns that we never anticipated, and our faith has no choice but to do the same. I can wrestle with it, discipline it, and let it wander, but ultimately my faith only belongs to me and it remains my accomplice each day.

Two years ago I went through what I would consider a mildly-sizable crisis of faith. Though I never questioned the existence of God (I've been there in my college years, done that, and come out the other side) or his goodness, I found myself unable to come to terms with the injustice and sadness that life dishes out to many people. Read back, if you want, on my anger and despair over baby Aiden Smith's condition and his eventual passing, and you can easily spell out a girl flooded with grief and doubt about God's capability to change the world's circumstances. I began to believe at that point that prayer can be quite useful in changing us, but it cannot change our circumstances. I reasoned that God, who created love and is love, certainly loved this little boy more than I ever could, for how could he create me to be so without firstly having been so himself? And yet, if he loved Aiden at least as much as I did, why didn't he save him? I can't even pretend to know the answer to this question. I began thinking, I would rather believe in a God who created a world that he disallowed himself to intervene in, than to believe in a God who could save this baby and wouldn't. I wrestled with this new (to me) stance on faith, alternately finding comfort and despair in it. I sought the counsel of people wiser than myself, hoping for easy answers. The most spiritually-mature friend I have told me that I was only arguing with myself over semantics. "Jenny," she said, "This is not a hill to die on." She was right, because arguments about the nature of God are less important than what we do about our lives here on Earth. No easy answers came, and in the meantime, life got tougher.

Last October we lost Owen, and everyone who reads this blog knows that I don't even have to go deep into this pool to convey what his short, but big, life did to those of us who loved him. In my darkest moments I have found myself briefly questioning the idea of heaven and an afterlife. Seeing Owen pass into that place in the matter of a moment left me frantically wondering, 'What is he doing now? Where did he go?' Nearly always I imagine Owen in the autumn leaves, playing and tumbling with an exuberant smile on his face, totally at peace with his creator. Sometimes though, and I don't know why, I begin to wonder: what if the afterlife is something that we have made up to comfort ourselves? We as humans seem hard-wired to believe in something greater than ourselves, which one could argue is an evolutionary advantage that propels us forward as a species and provides us hope, except that it isn't true. I, on the other hand, believe that we're cross-culturally hard-wired to believe in something greater than ourselves because we were created by something greater than ourselves, and thus this sense of yearning was created within us. I will admit that acknowledging the idea of no afterlife--of nothingness--after this life, is a concept that is devastatingly empty and frightening to me. I scramble quickly from these thoughts because I find that no good can come from them.

Since two years ago, I have been praying about my questions, though not consistently. I may only now be finding answers, but perhaps what I am really finding is another curve in the road of progress. The wisdom comes from Mindy Sauer, Ben's mom, who is finding herself struggling with the kind of grief that many moms identify with and that all other moms cry to imagine--the grief that comes when a mother outlives her child. Mindy continues to write posts on her blog about how the family is doing without Ben, and she wrote a post earlier this month that challenged me deeply. Entitled "When God Winks," the post spells out a heartbreaking journey that the Sauer family made, perhaps prematurely, to their favorite vacation spot, but this time without Ben. She records that they could see and feel Ben in all things on their vacation, which brought a grief beyond what she and her husband thought they could endure. They would have gone back home if not for their kids, who were excited to be at the beach. But, Mindy writes, there was this cardinal that just wouldn't leave the family alone. Never in her many, many times at this vacation spot had Mindy ever seen a cardinal, but now, just when their grief was beyond enduring, came this beautiful red bird that accompanied them every day. The bird, which the family saw as a token from God, brought them great comfort and happy thoughts about Ben. Ben's identical twin Jack even called out, "Hello Ben!" and the family took delight in this 'coincidence' from God.

Mindy's quiet time on the beach, with a welcome interruption from daughter Megan, who contributed a neat shell in the heart over Ben's name

Mindy said that she did not think that the cardinal was a coincidence, but was rather a 'wink' from God, placed intentionally to provide comfort and small moments of happiness in her otherwise very sad life right now. Mindy cited a book called "When God Winks: How the Power of Coincidence Guides Your Life" by SQuire Rushnell, which she read at the recommendation of a friend right after Ben's passing. The book's push is that God works through 'winks' in your life to let you know that you're on the right path and provide comfort, and all you have to do is look for these winks.

I find this idea to be so charming and comforting. I so wanted to believe it, but I wasn't sure that I did. Like any true investigator, though, my purpose should be to challenge myself and not only read materials that align with my beliefs. So, I quickly reserved the book from the library and had it read within a few days. The book is divided into sections like "Coincidences in History," "Coincidences in the Arts," and "Coincidence's at Life's End." It is filled with stories of what seem to be amazing flukes or coincidences, both from everyday people as well as celebrities. Much as I detest the idea of testing God, I think I sort of walked into this book with the prayer of, "If this is true, then God please let me see it in this book, because I'm about to give up on this idea."

For the first half of the book, I wasn't terribly impressed. He seemed to be making lots of generalizations and wanted all kinds of participation exercises like journaling about one's past. No, thanks. But then I read a couple of sections that floored me and changed my gears--'coincidentally,' one of them was the section called "Coincidence's at Life's End." Without boring you with too many details, I will say that the book suddenly kept handing me stories and details that were simply uncanny in their relationship to my own life. For instance, SQuire (yes, the Q is also capitalized) Rushnell writes about the lifelong friendship between Jim Henson and Joe Raposo, who was the songwriter for Sesame Street. The author specifically mentions two songs only in that entire section of the book, one of them being the song "Sing;" incidentally, this is the exact song that emotionally brings me to my knees about Owen. See? I'm crying even as I type it. I cannot hear that song or even think about it without feeling literal pain and despair in my heart and welling up with tears. That song was played on loop during my first-ever visit with Owen, which was truly such a sad visit because we already knew his diagnosis and knew his life was to be cut short. Ellie was obsessed with that song at the time, and we must have heard it a hundred times. To read about that song right then and there seemed a powerful 'wink' to me. Within that text was the one song that hurts me the most about the one person I miss the most--and in the "Coincidence's at Life's End" section, no less. And he talked about the airing of the Sing! special and how it all incidentally occurred on the day of Jim Henson's death, which was May 16th, and I'm a little weird about death on the 16th's as it is (Owen, Aiden, and my grandmother all died on 16th's). Huh.


There were also two other coincidences that struck me as really odd. One was that he told this really long story about Jessica Savitch, who I know was famous but I didn't know anything about until a week before I read the book. I read an article that had mentioned Jessica Savitch and, since I wasn't sure who she was, I looked her up. The story of her career and her freak-accident death was interesting, and so I read about Jessica Savitch for like half an hour. Then, a week later I'm reading this "God Wink" book and there she is again! It's not like you read her name every day. Huh.

At present day, I can say that this post has been percolating in my mind for some time. I sat out back on the deck this morning working on reports, and was accompanied the entire time by a cardinal cheeping incessantly, and dare I say, wonderfully. After all, Van and I stepped out on the deck in the quiet morning at 6:15, and I asked God aloud, "One more time, please give me a sign by sending me a cardinal. I really need some help with this." And I began crying, because I was sad and I often feel sad when I'm short on sleep. And I was thinking of Aiden and Owen and Ben, and then I heard the cardinals before I saw them--the male and the female, both of them there, just as I asked God.

Enough is enough. I'm tired of asking God for signs and I'm tired of asking other people what they think about this. Like Heidi said, it isn't a hill to die on anyway. But right now I need the comfort, and for the first time in two years I don't feel like I'm deluding myself. I don't have to read too much into simple things, but I can let myself smile at the idea that God is occasionally intervening just to make me smile or let me know that he is taking care of the people that I need him to. What really seems to hit home is the idea that I need approval from no one in order to believe this, and so I can stop seeking it. Appropriately, Rushnell wrote, "Don't be afraid to be alone. You also need time to listen to your inner self instead of someone else suggesting how you should think."

One more ebb in the faith river. We'll see what's around the next bend.

Owen, March 2012 during the Sing visit

Relay on My Mind

Here we go again. Spring is rolling around and it's time to sign up for the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon Relay. As I pointed out in my post Hammer Time last year, in case the italics isn't adequate enough to bring attention to the word 'relay,' I'll just go ahead and iterate it here with its own special statement: we are merely running the relay. I say this because each of the last two years some friend who reads this and obviously believes the best in me says in deep reverence, "Wow! You're running a marathon!" No, friends, no. I run marathons in my dreams; I run marathon relays in real life. I very much love this event and feel that little else brings the city together as much as this annual run seems to do. In remembrance of the 168, we gather together to run our hearts out and we are supported by miles of sideline spectators who do their best to amuse and love us. The high-fivers and sign-holders, both motivational ("You can do it!") and hilarious ("Don't look now, but there's a zombie behind you!", "Shut up, legs!", and "Smile if you're not wearing underwear!") are my favorites. BJ's all-time favorite supporter was an older gentleman reclining in a lawn chair in his yard in an historic neighborhood, clad in a suit and fancy hat while smoking a cigar and sipping a martini. Apart from the amazing support, there is so much motivation to meet one's goals in light of the reason for the race in the first place--the tragedy that took beloved members of our city from us. Last year I chose an angel from the 168 as well as one of my family members to dedicate my race to, and this year I have done the same. I like to keep those kinds of things just between myself and my angel until the race is over though. Here is a photo of my last year's angel, Anthony Cooper, age 2. I also dedicated the race to Silas, who was Anthony's age at the time.

This training season I once again find myself in a postpartum situation, which I seem to be in frequently these days; consequently, my training is stop-and-go depending on how I'm feeling and how much sleep I'm getting. I can hardly seem to make myself get going when I've only had five hours of sleep, and yet two years ago I had no choice because George went on a growth spurt and requested my presence frequently for nighttime feedings during the week leading up the run. Maybe this year will be my last year to run tired. I have committed to running a 10K leg of the relay, which consists of five legs totaling 26.2 miles. The fifth leg of the team remains undecided, but so far I have finagled BJ (always a member), my sister Christa, and my brother-in-law Dave into participating. It should be pretty great. As is the case with every year, I'm getting very little help with deciding a team name and so I threatened my teammates with an obscure Saved By the Bell reference if they didn't help me choose something better. I did the same by threatening "Hammer Time" last year, but was bitten in the ass by that when two of my teammates loved my threatened name and the other two were mortified but not enough to help me choose an alternative, so Hammer Time it was. Now, of course, two of my teammates love the threatened name "The Zack Attack," and voted for it instead of my other ideas (Pumped Up Kicks, Scrantonicity, Sisters & Brothers, The Alternates...). Feel free to weigh in.

Aside from naming the team, I remind myself that I need to get my butt in gear and actually go running. Has anyone else mentioned how hard it is to run when you have three small children and no time? Seriously, the ONLY time I have to run is in the dark, either early in the morning or late at night. I no longer have my 90-pound lab Tex to run with since he lives with my parents, and Chanda moved seven miles away (oh, how I miss her!), so I'm left with the choices of 1. running at a nearby park with a can of mace to deter possible psychos and 2. running around my cul-de-sac over and over and over again. I choose the latter. Hence, my training runs are circling the same six houses at this point until the sun comes out for longer or time somehow becomes available during the day. Could be worse. I'm also in the process of reading The Runner's Handbook, which I am hoping will educate and motivate me. It seems to be doing its job so far! At this point I'm fairly comfortable running about a mile and a half, but I have a lot of work to accomplish in ten weeks. I'll keep you updated!

Thankfulness

Over the summer I was reading a book that contained a single line from a poem, and I found the line so compelling that I researched the poem and found it in its entirety. During the week of Thanksgiving, the poem resonates particularly beautifully. You know, this world isn't easy, and it seems altogether frightening that we can look around and see others not faring as well as we would like. It is a reminder to me, as it should be, that the life I have been given is precious and beautiful; it deserves my thankfulness each day, which I often forget to offer. Invariably I will look back upon the days of my life in wistfulness and know how good I have had it: that I have had the love of two parents, a brother, and a sister who have always cared so deeply about me; that I have met a man who is my partner in all things, and makes me feel happy and secure every day; that I have been given the precious opportunity to give life to little boys, who have blessed me with a purpose that I could have never comprehended before their arrivals; that I have in-laws who have embraced me as an extension of my husband and treated me as one of their own; that I have the support, love, and laughter of many great friends; that I have a body that functions as it is supposed to; and that my family and I have the means to obtain not only what we need, but also so much of what we desire. May I always remember to be thankful along the way, and not wait until the end to look back at how beautiful life really is.

The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

from New and Selected Poems, 1992
Beacon Press, Boston, MA

Copyright 1992 by Mary Oliver

Lewis & Clark

My friend Rachel is the smartest person I know, and she's humble enough that she would likely be surprised to hear me say that. Homeschooled in what sounds to be a close-knit, fun-loving family, Rachel went on to get degrees from Harvard and Stanford, including a doctorate. BJ knew her husband Ed in high school, and we have both discussed that Ed is ridiculously smart...but Rachel seems to be even smarter. Have you ever had a friend who is so lovely and yet teaches you (unknowingly) every time the two of you converse? As down-to-earth as she is, keeping up with her everyday dialogue requires a dictionary! BJ and I always loved spending time with Ed and Rachel, and we miss them as they have returned to their west coast stomping grounds.

A few years ago Rachel told us all about a book that she had just read and loved entitled Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. The book is written by Stephen Ambrose, who also wrote Band of Brothers, and is the riveting account of the Lewis and Clark expedition of the early 1800's through the previously-uncharted Louisiana Purchase. I'm smart enough to sometimes listen to smart people, so I put the book on my Goodreads “To-Read” list and considered the idea of tackling the hefty volume when the inspiration struck.

Well, the inspiration began striking last August when my parents, BJ, the boys, and I drove to Estes Park, Colorado, for a week of hiking the mountains and breathing in the fresh air. Even though I've seen the Rocky Mountains several times, their majesty is indescribable, as most people would agree. The beautiful Appalachians, the other large mountain chain that runs through our country and which I have also seen several times, do not even begin to come close to the American, and especially the Canadian, Rockies. As we drove into Denver from the east and the mountains first came into view, BJ, Silas, and I all began exclaiming our joy at the sight of those magnificent formations. During the week of exploring and vacationing that ensued, my mind went many times to Lewis and Clark as I wondered what in the world they must have been thinking when they first glimpsed those mountains and knew that they had to cross them on a wilderness expedition. I wondered, did they even know those mountains were coming? Did members of their expedition die? What were their relations with Native Americans like? What route did they actually take? I thought of Rachel's suggestion many times and finally checked Undaunted Courage­ out of the library to begin seeking the answers to these questions.

(The answers, in case you're interested, is: 1. Yes, they knew the mountains were coming but had no idea of the scope and grandeur until they laid eyes upon them, which is the case for all of us. Along the way, Native Americans could pass on information about what could be expected in the next hundred or so miles, but no single explorer had been known to tackle it all at once and provide a description and map of it. 2. One member of the expedition did die in Iowa from what is now believed to be a ruptured appendix; he could not have been saved at the time even if he lived in Washington among a strong medical community because they had no idea what a ruptured appendix was or how to remove it. Otherwise, Lewis and Clark retained the lives of all of their men and Sacagawea to the Pacific and back. 3. Relations with the Native Americans ranged wildly from extremely friendly to violent; bloodshed occurred on one occasion with the deaths of two Blackfeet Natives. Sadly, even when relations with the Native Americans were friendly and mutually beneficial, Lewis always considered them to be secondary in status to himself and other white people, and he always viewed them as people to be “coerced.” In all of his writings, Lewis never once acknowledged that he was always at the mercy of Native Americans and he never gave them the credit that they deserved for the knowledge that they imparted to him and the generosity and honesty that they showed his crew, which many of the tribes could have easily overtaken if they had had a mind to. 4. The actual Lewis and Clark expedition went north through Wyoming and Montana, never venturing close to Colorado. I am of the mind that they sure did make it hard on themselves by wintering in North Dakota and Washington state, but of course I love my Southern heat.)

I read as much as I could of the book before it was due back to the library in three weeks; sadly, it could not be renewed because there was a hold placed on it by someone else. A couple of weeks ago BJ purchased the book on his Kindle and I quickly finished the remainder of the hefty volume in the evenings after we had the kids in bed. I simply didn't want a night to go by without immersing myself in the adventure of the journey, the interactions of the people, and the descriptions of what was seen in my country in years long ago. The devaluation of Native Americans, African Americans (who were still owned as slaves at the time), and women was of course disheartening to read, but obviously the more we know the more we can learn from our ancestors' mistakes. My apprehension was through the roof when the crew hit plunging waterfalls, wary tribes, and grizzly bears that refused to die, as was my sense of accomplishment at times when something went really well, as though I had anything to do with it at all. The last 50 or so pages cover the life of Lewis after the expedition, which was a total bummer for which I was unprepared; again, though, it is an account of history as it happened, so I finished the book as Lewis physically and emotionally fell apart in the years immediately after the voyage was complete.

I'm here to say that Rachel was right: the book is very much worth a read and is told from an unflinchingly honest perspective by Ambrose. The author clearly cherishes the accomplishments of Lewis and Clark (while questioning their judgment at times), and this is evidenced by his introduction in which he shares that his family navigates and camps along some portion of the expedition each year, and I'm talking kids and grandkids too. I smile as I think of how his passion about the subject has ignited not only his family's interest but also mine as well. I know that BJ and I have talked with excitement for years about taking our kids on backpacking trips and Boundary Waters canoe adventures! More on this to come...

Dolores

In June 2009, I purchased a used copy of Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone for 25 cents at a local library sale and began reading it. I typically never read popular fiction (think: Grisham, Dan Brown, and The Hunger Games) so I can't tell you how unusual it was for me to pick up a depressing-sounding book that I'd seen countless times on the shelves of Barnes and Noble under a sign screaming "Oprah's Book Club," much less actually read it. I will always be glad that I did, and this book will forever hold significance in my heart because it changed me in that meaningful kind of way that a few certain works of art in your life ever will--you know, the works that impact you so deeply to your core that you can only count them on one hand. The primary character in the novel, Dolores Price, changed my life.

On the outside, I have very little in common with Dolores. My father did not abandon my mother and me. I was not ostracized in school. I have never been sexually assaulted. I have never struggled with food addictions or weighed 250 pounds. My mother has not died in a tragic accident, and I have never attempted suicide or received inpatient mental health treatment. My husband has never coerced me into an abortion, and I have never had trouble conceiving a child when I wanted to. By all accounts, my life has been privileged and rosy, and I know that I am lucky. Dolores suffered all of these things, and my heart truly broke for her when she looked a beached whale closely in the eye and thought herself to be one and the same as the doomed animal. The desperate kinship that she felt to this whale in the novel was inexplicable, deep, and everlasting for Dolores; in that moment, the kinship that I felt to Dolores was the same. I couldn't stop crying for hours because of her pain.

I wasn't ever sure that I wanted children. The call for motherhood never hit me, at least very hard, as I was growing up and finding my way in the world. Some of my friends knew they were born to be mothers, and I could only inwardly wonder "Why? Why would somebody want that?" When BJ and I got married at the age of 22, we were on the eight-year plan for having children. Each year that passed, however, I started that eight-year count all over again in my head. As we got older and had been married for several years, we began more frequently hearing the question from family members and friends, "When are you going to have kids?" The truth for me was, I really wasn't sure that we would. Even though I thought I would eventually swing around on this point and want kids, it just wasn't happening. I won't lie: I was kind of worried about this. There are a minority of people in this world that are resolute about not having children, but even though I believed myself to cast no judgment upon these people (some of whom are amazing, close friends), I was scared to be among them. Was there something wrong with me? People sure did sometimes make me feel that way---or rather, I allowed myself to feel that way after talking with certain people. That idea of independence from children, though, was winning out over those years, and BJ and I seemed fine with that even though I knew he ultimately wanted to have children. I thought, "Why mess with a good thing?" BJ and I had spare time, spare money, hobbies, and an interest in travel. It seemed to me that kids would completely mess all of that up.

Then I came to know Dolores. Everything about Dolores was so complicated, and I found her internal experience difficult to put into words. Honestly, it befuddles me to this day that Wally Lamb was able to create a believable character and voice for Dolores, a girl-becoming-woman who he could only identify with to a certain extent because he is a man. The brushstrokes that he used to paint Dolores' emotional responses seem genius to me, particularly for someone who has never directly experienced what his heroine has endured. I suppose this is the mark of any great writer, actually, but it still doesn't cease to amaze me. Dolores ached for a child through many pages of the book, particularly after her abortion, and as I became increasingly engrossed in her journey with her, I suddenly realized the ache for children within myself. It truly came out of nowhere it seemed, and yet it felt as though it had been there for a lifetime. I remember the specific evening that I finished the final pages of the book, sobbing. It was a summer evening and I went to our backyard overlooking the creek, and I watched the clouds for probably an hour and a half as the sun sets as it only can in an Oklahoma sky. I stayed out there for hours, tormented by her pain and suddenly by my own longing for something greater than myself but also part of myself---my child. I was shocked to feel this way, not to mention confused, excited, terrified, and relieved. BJ joined me intermittently and made sure I was okay, and eventually he came out with his own book and sat down beside me and read. I remember that evening, filled with the noise of locusts on the outside and the symphony of chaos on the inside.

The rest for us is history. Afraid, for what reasons I have no idea, I talked with BJ in our dining room the next afternoon about the possibility of having kids. I was ready, I said. BJ still refers to June 2009 as "the month that Lucy turned on a dime" (that's right, he calls me Lucy and always has). We agreed to begin trying in August right after a Florida vacation with my family, because I told him that I wanted to eat sushi and drink alcohol on that trip (ah, the priorities!). On September 3rd I got a positive pregnancy test, much to our amazing fortune. I laugh about how extremely lucky it was that we got pregnant on the first month that we tried because inside I was already beginning to wig out a little and may have changed my mind if it had taken any reasonable amount of time at all. As a mother, I have begun loving each of my children from the moment that I first learned I was carrying them, but that love was translated into something beyond my human understanding when each of them was born and physically in my arms. I have a plan to post some of my most favorite pictures of mothers with their babies, which incidentally are always the ones in which the mother is concentrated on her child and not even remotely aware of the camera. In the meantime as I collect these photos, here are my favorite pictures of me as a mother--the top with Silas and the bottom with George.

I am thankful to Dolores from the bottom of my heart. She's Come Undone isn't for everyone, but it was exactly what I needed. Dolores created within me a stirring that helped to create these little beings, and they have been my awakening.

Atticus Finch

"As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash."
~ Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 1960

It surprises me how many people have asked us where we dreamed up Atticus for George's middle name.  In my life I have only ever heard of one Atticus, and he was unmistakable as one of the greatest fictional characters ever written. I wonder, didn't these people have to read To Kill a Mockingbird in school? Granted some of them are our parents' ages and this novel probably wasn't part of the educational curriculum during their school days, but it never ceases to amaze me when one of my own contemporaries asks me quizzically, "Atticus? Never heard of that." What I want to say is that TKAM is a classic novel by a one-time author who captured a coming-of-age story alongside a moving drama about racism, classism, and the people who have worked to overcome these problems.  Atticus was the protagonist of the plot and his character embodied a number of admirable qualities. He was an unorthodox father, a champion of human rights, and a fountain of dry humor. What I instead say to these people is, "It's from To Kill a Mockingbird." You should read it."


After finishing my most recent re-reading of the book late last night, I found this article about the true manliness of Atticus on-line and thought I would share. I hope that my boys grow up embodying many, many of the qualities of Atticus Finch; and for George, I hope that his middle name is a reminder to him that he can make a difference in this world, even if he must do it in the face of a blind majority.


(I know I said my next post was going to be about the state of women, but I just had to sneak this one in.)

Catching Up

Wow, it has been quite some time since I've posted. This is sad for me since I have told BJ that I plan to continue blogging in spite of the busy-ness of our lives. I said that I want my blog to chronicle our journey, however hectic, and yet the past few weeks I've barely responded to emails, let alone blog! So let this post be a blend of random information, as my next few posts will follow a theme quite dear to me, which is gender equality. Here comes the random information:

1. I have an amazing husband (pic below of said husband). Yesterday morning he got up with the boys and let me sleep in until 11:40. I haven't felt this well-rested since before George was born. There is something to be said for sleep, no doubt.

2. In honor of George's arrival, I am re-reading (again) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. In this re-reading I have once again been reminded of the amazing performance by Ms. Lee; it seems to me that truly wonderful writers have the ability to put their thoughts into the perfect combination of words, not too few and not too many, so that the result is a flow of sentences that feel incredibly like a beautiful work of art. Of the many writers who have published, only a small number fall into this category, per my opinion. I have also been reminded of the greatness that is Atticus Finch, which reassures me that George received the perfect middle name. In case you have never read To Kill a Mockingbird and are perhaps on the fence about doing so, consider this hilarious passage:

"The second grade was grim, but Jem assured me that the older I got the better school would be, that he started off the same way, and it was not until one reached the sixth grade that one learned anything of value. The sixth grade seemed to please him from the beginning: he went through a brief Egyptian Period that baffled me--he tried to walk flat a great deal, sticking one arm in front of him and one in back of him, putting one foot behind the other. He declared Egyptians walked that way; I said if they did I didn't see how they got anything done, but Jem said they accomplished more than the Americans ever did, they invented toilet paper and perpetual embalming, and asked where would we be today if they hadn't? Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts."

After I finish this re-reading then I plan to move on to the old classic Silas Marner (a book for each boy!) and then re-read Cheaper By the Dozen, which in fact is absolutely nothing like the Steve Martin movie so don't judge it by that.

3. Silas is astonishing us with all that he has learned in the past few months. He seems to love learning and he thinks that flashcards and letter memorization are actually games (I swear, we are not slave drivers with this kid). As a result, he can now count to 13, he knows all of his letters and can identify them through sight as well as reciting them out loud, and he knows a good deal of colors and shapes. He definitely seems to have favorites in each category too, as it seems that nothing can beat the letter "W," the color yellow, the shape of an octagon, or the number 7.  BJ and I are gradually becoming aware of everything that we say and do because he pays a whole lot more attention than we ever gave him credit for.

4. Mother Nature seems to have forgotten winter this year. This is fine by me! In a couple of hours I am dropping off George with a friend for 20 minutes while I take a jog around the park with Silas in the stroller, all in gorgeous 70 degree weather!

5. Last but not least, I feel the need to briefly extol the virtues of my birthday present this year, which was a kickin' purse/diaper bag. I simply hated the diaper bag that I used after Silas was born and quickly found features that it was lacking. It also had zero features that I would require in a purse (such as easy access pockets), so when I ran quick errands I would often just load my purse up with baby needs and then have an overflowing purse. With George on the way, I decided in December that enough was enough. After spending hours researching the kind of bag I was wanting, I ended up with the Skip Hop Studio Tote Bag, and I love, love, love it! Now my purse and diaper bag are all in one, and I don't have a single gripe about this bag after two months' of use (don't you hate when you are reading Amazon user reviews and someone gives something five stars but then states "Just got it in the mail, haven't used it but it looks great!" Seriously people, use it for awhile before you write a review!). Initially I thought the only thing about my bag that was a dead giveaway that it was actually a diaper bag and not a purse was the prominent "Skip Hop" label on it, which I cleverly solved (see below). But then I thought, "Who am I kidding?" The bag has a nursing cover tucked into the outside of it and sippy cups sticking out the sides. Oh well, I look like a mom because I am a mom.

Here is my awesome bag:

And here is my clever solution to hiding the Skip Hop label:

Yes, friends, I'm a "Parks and Rec" junkie, and Leslie Knope is my vote for Pawnee, Indiana's City Council! Stay tuned for my next few posts, which will be full of my opinions about how great women are and how they deserve equal placement in this world.

Paris 2023

I've never been to Paris, but I think I love it. If I could visit anywhere in the world, Paris would be the place. I've had the City of Light on the brain ever since the summer before my freshman year of college when my friend Brooke visited Paris and returned with an album full of beautiful photos, a huge smile on her face, and a print of Van Gogh's "Starry Night" that she purchased for me from a vendor along the Seine.

Lately I've been on a bit of a Paris kick, which was begun by a book called Paris Was Ours, a Christmas present from BJ's parents. The book is a compilation of the reflections of 32 writers who lived as foreigners in Paris for a period of time. In some ways the book is kind of depressing but that's probably because it is an accurate portrayal of a city that is often wildly romanticized. While each of these writers loved Paris for their own unique reasons, the ubiquitous indication from them all is that Paris is wonderful but a tough place to live because the people are so hard and unforgiving. Fortunately for this conversational Oklahoma gal, I never plan to live in Paris!

To continue the Paris theme, a few days before George was born BJ and I rented "Midnight in Paris." I was won over by the theme of the movie and BJ was won over by the critical acclaim and 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, and neither of us was disappointed. If you haven't seen the film we both highly recommend it, but I'm not giving any insight into the plot because I don't want to give anything away. I will say that the movie was light-hearted while also having philosophical and cultural undertones, and it also had a talented cast.

The title of this post is Paris 2023 because that is the year that I will get to finally see Paris with my own eyes. BJ has promised me that our 20th wedding anniversary, which will be in 2023, will be celebrated in Paris with our boys. It's important to me to include our kids on a trip to a place like Paris because they ought to be able to experience such a place too. We've made quite the habit of taking Silas with us wherever we've gone, and you've seen the state map that he has visited in his 21 months of life.

George won't be far behind since tickets have already been bought to Massachusetts for next month, and we also plan to hit Destin, Florida and Los Angeles again this year (Disneyland, here we come!). I remember that during my college years, one of my closest friends Diana would tell me the tales about the times that her family visited (insert country here...Scotland, England, Italy, etc.), and I was amazed at the places she had seen before she even graduated from high school. I would LOVE for my children to have these same kinds of experiences, which is one reason why I plan to keep working part-time throughout the years, so that we can have the money to do these kinds of things. So, on February 9th we celebrated eight and a half years of marriage...I guess that means we only have 11-1/2 to go before we see the City of Light with our very own eyes.

Bossypants

There is a lot of ridiculousness going on in the world these days. Sometimes I pay attention to it and get really upset, and sometimes I would really rather just bury my attention in things that make me laugh. This week has been a mixture of acknowledging crazy politicians with rants to my husband and my poor friend Sara, who happened to walk into my house at the wrong time, and also performing the latter feat of happily ignoring insanity and instead reading Tina Fey's Bossypants during Silas' nap-times and in the evening after he goes to sleep. I've had some extra time on my hands this week since BJ was traveling for work. I've got to say, I do recommend this book! I laughed out loud so many times, and it was a quick and easy read for these hot summer days. My personal taste for humor has always relished the likes of comedians like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Molly Shannon (can you tell I love a great female comedian?), so I absolutely wasn't surprised that I took delight in this read. Fey's humor is honest and self-deprecating, as always, but Bossypants has the serious undertone of the celebration of women despite her joking. Perfect recipe for Jenny-happiness.
I've included one of my favorite quotes below. The book itself kind of jumps back and forth, chronicling everything from early childhood to SNL days to 30 Rock, but she also includes these random short chapters, one of which is entitled "The Mother's Prayer for Its Daughter." In this brief chapter she prays for things like her daughter to be protected, to consume beer instead of crystal meth, etc. and I particularly laughed at this part:

"And when she one day turns on me and calls me a
Bitch in front of Hollister,
Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a
cab in front of her friends,
For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it."

A good day to all.

Poor Tara, and Poor ME!

This is our friend Tara.

Tara has been a friend of ours for many years, mainly because she is my best friend's other best friend. Wait, yeah, I said that right. One might suspect that there is some kind of rivalry between Tara and me, since we are both such good friends with the great Andi, but no, this is definitely not the case. As long as Andi has loved Tara, I have known and liked Tara as well.

Doesn't Tara look really pretty and fancy here? That's because this is her professional picture! You see, as of this week, Tara is now a published author! It's quite exciting. Her book, entitled Hereafter, was published by Harper Collins and is set to be Part One of a trilogy about a love story between a river ghost and a human. It's getting good reviews and looks to be selling everywhere, including Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Borders, and Target. Andi said she even bought her copy at her local Walmart in Maine.

Tara had a book signing at Full Circle Bookstore in OKC today and I was excited to see her and have her autograph a copy of the book! As a courtesy to Full Circle, I canceled my order with Amazon about a month ago when she announced her book signing event today, and I planned to buy the book from the store today. I was SO excited to begin reading it tonight. WAS so excited. That's when the evil ogres that run Full Circle, a bookstore that I previously enjoyed, decided to insert their heads up their butts and not order any of Tara's books for us to purchase and, subsequently, for her to sign. Seriously, BJ, Silas, and I got to the signing at 3:10, which was ten minutes after it was scheduled to begin, and they were already out! What a bunch of morons. Nearly as bad was the fact that they were fairly unapologetic about it. They said they would order more and have her sign them at a later date, but of course it is my responsibility to find out when my book will be ready and then drive all the way back to the store to pick it up. I was told with a laugh that shipping is "steep" at the price of $7 (no kidding!) so I better just come pick it up. So we waited in line empty-handed so that we could talk with Tara and tell her congratulations. What a mess. I feel especially sorry for Tara and business she must have lost out on. Friends like us will come back to the store for the book, but I'm sure that there were many random patrons at the bookstore that were interested in her because she was there, and had the great idea of purchasing a book that a local author would even personalize when "Wala!" they are told with a sneer by a store clerk that the store that they are purchasing from is idiotic and did not buy books that the signing author is selling.

So, on a bright note, buy Tara's book! I hear it's fantastic! Then, since I don't have mine yet, you can tell me all about it in the cruel, cruel way that this world works.

Books and Needles

On Friday, BJ and I joined our friends Amber and Erik and braved the OKC Friends of the Library Booksale. In case you've never been, this place is a madhouse on crack. People, mainly hoarders as BJ and I have determined, feel the excitement about 50-cent books and they go absolutely hog-wild. I mean, seriously, fend-for-your-life-wild. And while you're at it, you better fend for your feet too, because some of the hoarders bring rolling suitcases, shopping carts, and outdoor trash cans (yes, you read it, TRASH CANS) to put their golden finds in. Suffice it to say, I'm 99.3% confident that the four of us were the most normal people there.

To show for our efforts, BJ and I came home that night with tired backs and a large number of books, all for under about 13 bucks. I chose a lesser number of books than BJ this year because I told myself before the sale that I have to read everything that I buy. This seems reasonable enough, but in years past I have found that, come annual booksale time, I still have one or two or ten books to read from last year's sale, which I thought at the time, "Hey, I might read this, and it only costs 50 cents!" and then of course did not read it. Here are my purchases from this year's sale:

1. WLT by Garrison Keillor
2. Lake Wobegon Summer 1956 by Garrison Keillor (yes, I'm a GK fan)
3. The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs (seemed appropriate)
4. Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs (don't know yet if I'm a KJ fan...we'll see)
5. Passage to Juneau by Jonathan Raban (has long been on my shelfari "to read" list)
6. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

In addition to this book is a newly-acquired (and personalized!) copy of The American Zig-Zag by my favorite author Van Reid, previously referred to in a past post for his work on the Moosepath League books.  This new book is actually a series of short stories. So, my work is cut out for me. By the end of 2011, I have a goal of reading the above seven books. I can begin on the first one once I complete Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding, with which I am nearly finished. In the days of yore, finishing seven books by the year's end would not have even been a question. Easily accomplished! With my recently-acquired hobbies of knitting, blogging, and jogging, however, Jenny-time must be divided, and reading sometimes comes last.

In other news, I had my third knitting lesson with Leslie today! Leslie has quickly become my favorite knitting buddy, and I enjoy chatting with her as she schools me. Today, Mr. Silas accompanied me to the lesson and was angel-baby, as usual, in his traveling high chair, eating his cheerios. I think that good karma is coming Leslie's way, as she understood that I had to make this appointment without having child-care, and still she was cool with me bringing not only Silas, but also his food to entertain him. When Leslie someday has a child of her own, may good things come back to her in the way of people understanding her baby-needs and pulling her a solid, just like she did for me today. Of course, I cleaned up our mess afterward, but still, she didn't have to acquiesce to my conditions! I know I haven't blogged much about knitting lately, but knitting I have been doing! I've now whipped out 2-1/2 adult scarves, 2 baby scarves, and 2 hats. I'd share my latest and greatest project, but I can't because two of you who read this blog are getting one, so I can't spoil the surprise...

Happy day to everyone!

Lincoln

Today is February 12, the birthday of my favorite President. How many people out there have favorite Presidents? I'm curious about your answers, and why it is that your chosen President has captured your respect.  My favorite, in case you haven't guessed from the birthday, is Abraham Lincoln, commonly regarded as one of the giants of this country for his incredible efforts to keep the country together during the Civil War. Last year at this time I had just concluded one of my all-time favorite reads, a biography of Lincoln entitled Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness by Joshua Wolf Shenk.  Shenk's work contained both historical and psychological aspects, as Lincoln was known to have suffered from severe depressive episodes in which he was suicidal at times.  Given that I am a mental health professional, the book was perfectly up my alley.  Shenk gives a thought-provoking account of Lincoln's life, how depression was viewed at the time, and how he pulled himself out of suicidal spells and devoted his life to a cause.  Lincoln, according to Shenk's research, did not shy away from these depressive episodes, but rather embraced the way that they impacted his functioning and allowed the sadness to transform him into a man-on-fire.  This was an enlightened man who opposed slavery, blamed both the North and the South for their responsibilities in bringing it about, and fought tirelessly to restore harmony among the Union and bring freedom to a group of worthy African Americans who had never known it.  We often think now about the impossibility of a United States President actually being able to impact our individual lives; Lincoln, however, was a man who could and did.

I loved this book by Joshua Wolf Shenk. It was an excellent read and I was disappointed when it concluded. The last chapter had me bawling (which isn't saying much, to be honest), particularly the last line, in which Lincoln sees Congressman Isaac Arnold approaching on the White House lawn on the evening of April 14, 1865, and says to him, "Excuse me now...I am going to the theatre. Come and see me in the morning." =( If only...

I'll conclude with this paragraph that Shenk wrote about Lincoln, which I believe aptly sums the book:

Had he devoted himself to a guru or medical practitioner...he may have found comfort in someone else's prescription for him, at the cost of a vision that he'd already come to understand---that is, his desire to do something meaningful for which he would be remembered.

Happy birthday, Mr. President Lincoln. Though he may not have been happy, he has in turn brought happiness to many, many others.  May he rest in peace.

Can't Get Enough of 'The Moosepath League'

Today I'm writing a post about a series of books that is quite near and dear to my heart. I don't recommend books lightly, that's for sure. There are so many books out there that one could waste her time reading, so I always make a point to research for gems before I invest my limited time (I am not unique here...we all have limited time!). One way that BJ and I have had assistance with finding 'book gems' is via Nancy Pearl, whom I have written about on a previous post.  A librarian with connections to Tulsa, Pearl has read thousands of books and has compiled the best ones, in organized lists with summaries, into Book Lust, More Book Lust, and Book Lust To Go, all three of which I own.

But on to the point of this: Pearl recommended a relatively little-known series of five books by Maine-native Van Reid.  The series is entitled The Moosepath League, and consists of the stories of Cordelia Underwood, Mollie Peer, Daniel Plainway, Mrs. Roberto, and Fiddler's Green. Honest to God, never have I fallen in love with books like I have fallen in love with these stories. I own all five of them, two of which have been autographed by Van Reid himself! Reid's stories are connected through the characters and chronicle four upstanding and likable gentlemen, the members of the Moosepath League, as well as a number of beloved characters that they encounter (many of whom make appearances throughout two or more of the novels) as they happen upon trouble. Unbeknownst to the gentlemen, they thwart the schemes of naughty characters all throughout the books, often with hilarious endings.  The books take place in 1890's Portland, Maine, and the reader is introduced to a different time and place in which the railroads and maritime industry were kings, and people were interested in verbal story-telling rather as opposed to receiving stories through the television or radio as we often do in present-day. One of my favorite aspects of these books are the stories that take place within the stories, such as when a fellow passenger on a train, for instance, tells of the time that such-and-such happened to him. The stories in some way remind me of Seinfeld episodes, because each little piece ravels itself into a masterpiece that culminates in a way that the reader (or viewer, in the case of Seinfeld episodes) witnesses all pieces coming together in harmonious fashion.  The books are family-friendly, clean, hilarious, witty, and leave you wanting more. My personal favorites are Daniel Plainway and Mollie Peer. Sadly, I believe that the books may be out-of-print, but they can still be purchased on Amazon, or as I have found, at library book sales for absolute steals. Each time I find these hardbacks at the Friends of the Oklahoma City Public Library sale for a dollar apiece, I snatch them up and give them away to people, simply because I can't bear to think of what will happen to the books if I don't buy them.

Okay, I'll get off my Van Reid soapbox now. But let it be known that to librarian Nancy Pearl: I'll always be grateful to your recommendation of the Moosepath League. Thank you, thank you, thank you.