Springing Through the Scenic South - March & April 2021

Left cold Michigan behind us on March 22, and made our first stopover in Williamstown KY at the Ark Encounter.  We have passed this many times, but finally decided it was time to get up close and personal!  They have done a great job in replicating the Biblical Ark and their many exhibits present their case for a 6,000 year old Earth...although we really aren't sure if we agree or not!  Does it matter if God didn't actually create the world and all that is in it, in 7 days?  We just know He is the amazing Author of Creation!

Then on to Knoxville to watch soccer, volleyball, flag football... and then on the road to Myrtle Beach along with our 2 eldest grands, Azi and Jet!

My 70th Birthday Celebration at the Dead Dog Saloon!!


A two week stay at our Vistana timeshare, Broadway Plantations, gave us plenty of room to host college friends, Bonnie & Gene Ward (laughter, golf, eating, shopping).  And then joining Paul & Deb Haken for card games, mini-golf, laughter and lots of chatter!

After a lovely stop in Waxhaw NC to visit Wycliffe missionary friends, Mike & Tracy Wright, we hit the road again for Knoxville.  Enjoyed spectating again at their games, we also busied ourselves with a master bedroom project and helping complete a front yard landscaping makeover.  We headed to our favorite campground, Yarberry, to rest!!

Our final destination was Laurel MS, a wonderful Main Street town (just like Otsego!) who is working hard to improve their downtown as well as capitalize on the popularity of HGTV's "Hometown" with Erin & Ben Napier.  We were super impressed with their well preserved historic district with large early 1900 residential homes.  Bill snuck behind Ben's workshop to chat with an employee and discovered where most of their TV projects were located!!  What a guy.  It was a great finish to a sweet trip.

Spring Reads While Traveling the Southern States

 When Joy Came to Stay by Karen Kingsbury

What I like about this author is that her stories always seem to have a happy ending.  What I don't like about this author is that her stories always seem to have a happy ending... kind of  a conundrum for me!  Kingsbury does a great job in dealing with hard issues and Maggie's depression is a timely topic for 2021 after a year of digging out of the pandemic.  Depression is generally linked to anxiety, anger, rejection and loss; and Maggie is dealing with all of these, stemming from a past experience of hurt and pain. The author's Christian perspective provides a good foundation for facing depression in a Biblical way.  The dialogue is real and the quickly sent prayers in the middle of the mess show us how to keep our communion with God honest.  However, having lived through difficulties and knowing that God doesn't always answer our deeply wrenching prayers, made me skeptical of how all the pieces fit so quickly together.  Could Maggie sort through all of her past in such a short time?  And do the broken pieces of our lives get resolved so perfectly?  Although my skepticism shows, I really did enjoy this read and what Kingsbury tried to tackle...it certainly pulled at my heartstrings with accompanying tears of compassion.

40 Acres and Maybe a Mule by Harriette Gillem Robinet

Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction in 1999, this 120 page juvenile fiction book packed a powerful punch.  During the Reconstruction Era, previously held slaves were freed by Lincoln's Emancipation.  General Sherman's promise of 40 acres of land to farm gave them much hope. 
Unfortunately, those 40,000 freedmen  who gained 400,000 acres of land in the South found it taken away and given back to the original planters by President Johnson, Lincoln's successor, who was a southern sympathizer.  This book is the story of 2 brothers who lived through this hopeful venture and proved that they could be successful farmers.  Told by the youngest brother, I was touched by the difficulties they faced and how teamwork among many different homeless freedmen created a new "family" unit.  The support and caring between this group and a neighboring white family was a picture of what 2021 America could look like.

Silent Hearts by Gwen Florio

Another very realistic fiction story about two women in Afghanistan, an American aid worker and her Pakistani interpreter, who forge an unlikely friendship as their two worlds collide in the violence of Kabul. This author masterfully draws us into the lives of real families who are ravaged by war, and how very much alike women are even though separated by very distinct culture differences. These courageous characters are bound together in the fight for voiceless women, and in this fight they find common feelings, common responses, and common goals.  Unforgettable. 

Akin by Emma Donoghue

 On Oprah's book list, O Magazine proclaimed Akin  "a soul stirring" novel.  From my view, it did not produce what I had anticipated.  Donoghue is no stranger to writing, nor to intergenerational characters such as Michael and Noah.  Seventy nine year old Noah finds himself the only living relative of 11 year old Michael after his mother is incarcerated from a drug charge that she apparently took the hit for.

As Noah embarks on a trip to his boyhood home of Nice, France; he must grudgingly take his new charge along with him or cancel his trip.  There are some comical exchanges between the two, but mostly Noah fails at connecting his scientific brain with the interests of this wounded boy.

Not a chemistry fan, the long educational illustrations from Noah bored me.  I was frustrated by Michael's total disrespect, even knowing he was consistently testing his new caregiver.  Having never had children, and having given up on his nephew (Michael's father), Noah did not have the resources to understand nor relate to this boy.  The good news is that by the end of the book, he wanted to try.

Arthur Truluv was a much more likeable character, who had empathy and common sense in relating to his newly found teen-age friend, in The Story of Arthur Truluv.  Akin did not resonate with me.

Virgil Wander by Leif Enger

 Leif Enger is a masterful storyteller; more specifically he is a weaver of tales about life in the northern Midwest state of  Minnesota.  "Peace Like a River," his first novel, left me speechless with wonder as I pondered the beautiful characters and the calm prose.  An action writer with a swift pace he is not....but a developer of larger than life characters and authentic life scenarios is definitely his forte.  But even more than that, his canny ability to describe inanimate objects with human characteristics by the turn of a well worded phrase, is the strength that makes a reader lean in and relish his books.  Several times I caught myself pausing, re-reading the line and then settling back with a contented grin.

Virgil's life has just taken an odd turn.  As Virgil describes it, "Apparently my heartbroken Pontiac breached a safety barrier and made a long, lovely some might say cinematic arc into the churning lake."  Fortunately for Virgil, an observer dove into icy Lake Superior to retrieve him, but throughout the story he is on the road to recovery...recovery of his lost adjectives, of his physical strength, of his dreams.  

Leif unfolds Virgil's story with a variety of whimsical hometown locals who have known and loved him for years, but perhaps the strongest relationship is with a stranger, Rune, who arrives in this depleted industrial town looking for clues about the disappearance of his son.  Rune, though serious in his intent, also has a philosophical outlook regarding life; that you should take pleasure in the small things around you.  Virgil appreciates how Rune methodically creates and crafts kites for the sheer pleasure of it, how he spends time in listening to hurting people, how he finds joy in the raven that befriends him.  

Kite-flying is the bridge to their relationship, and it is where the author adeptly uses his vocabulary to woo us.  At their first meeting, Virgil spots the kite from his 2nd story apartment and wanders purposefully down to the lake to speak to the stranger.  "It's good in the air, this one" Rune mused, "Not that it behaves. No No!  Its manners are very terrible!  But what a flyer....as if hearing its name the kite woke riffling in his hands."  

Once Virgil catches the kite flying fever, he thinks "Who doesn't want to be carried sometimes?  Come to think of it, it sounded a little like how I felt flying Rune's kites."  And towards the end of the story, after an acquaintance has lost one of Rune's beautifully crafted kites to a powerful gust of wind; Virgil ponders that special gift from his friend: "I loved that kite...we were old friends.  I had soared and laughed with that kite.  It got me out on the perimeter......Thinking it over, I became a bit less angry, and more proud of the kite itself; it had refused to be flown by Leer one moment longer.  It broke the line and caught the next gust out of town.  A perilous move, choosing to throw yourself at the future, even if it means one day coming down in the sea."  

Of course, this last thought is what Virgil had been wrestling with since his accident.  Who did he want to be in his older life?  Did he want to continue as the hometown cinema owner and part time city clerk or were there still adventures and dreams to be had?  Could his brush with death give him new perspective and a new lease on life?  Can we perilously throw ourselves at the future, not knowing if we will crash into the unknown sea ahead?  Virgil Wander must choose.

The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

 Once again Sarah Addison Allen delights me with her tale of a "need Mom's approval" thirty-something daughter living at home while caring for her aging mother.  Josey, known all over Bald Slope because of her family's wealth (as well as her own bad behavior as a child), has been totally dissatisfied with her life but not until crazy Della Lee moves into her closet does she begin to wish for more.  Della believes she has landed there to assist Josie in pulling away from home, thinking for herself, and pursuing the secret love of her life.

Josie does begin to do those very things as the story unfolds.  She steps out of her routine, makes new friends and finally believes she can be lovable...although her mother has indicated the opposite all of her life.  Along the way Josie begins to understand some of her mother's angst and her dead father's weaknesses. The magical elements which have made Allen's work so charming are intact:  moving books with exactly the right content found on tables or car seats, and plucky characters with slightly "psychic" or paranormal tendencies (like when the water automatically boils in the kettle whenever the man Chloe loves walks into the room where she is).

I'm sure there may be other readers who hunger only for realism, but Allen's whimsy continues to make me smile.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

As suggested by our book club, we branched out in our selection for this month and tried a classic.  I've read a few Dickens novels way back in my past but had forgotten how long it takes for him to develop his characters, interweave them throughout the story and finally bring it all to a conclusion (850 pages). It is not an easy process to wade through the language of the 1700's, and many times I could not decipher the real intent of a person's statements, as it must not have been politically correct to be direct with one another in that day and age!!                       

David Copperfield writes his story...from very young boyhood through his adult career as a journalist and writer.  Most believe that this is an autobiographical novel of Dickens' life, as there are many parallels.  I'm not sure that I will soon forget his amazing yet comical characters: trusted Traddles, sweet silly Dora, sensible Aunt Trotwood, loving Peggotty, steady Agnes, never wavering Mrs. Micawber, sacrificial Mr. Peggotty, maniacal Heep, and the murderous Murdstones.  Dickens has a wonderful way of bringing characters into his stories who represent all levels of society....some whom I totally dislike upon meeting them, but by the end am persuaded of their strengths and goodnesses.  Writing with a quiet wit and humor, Dickens still manages to attack the ills of the time.  Debtor's prison, child labor, poor living conditions, society's condemnation of immoral women, greed and loss are all brought under the author's scrutiny.

 I fully concur with Algis Valiunas in her April 2021 article 'THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO DICKENS' as she concludes:  "There was a darkness in him.  Dickens carried with him all his life the indignity and terror of having been put to menial labor in a shoe polish factory when he was twelve, and he was a cad to his wife after he fell in love with a much younger actress.  But Dickens loved being alive, knew his life was a divine gift, and propagated that love and that knowledge wherever he went.  It was his love that allowed him to construct the most extraordinary fictional world since Shakespeare's: a world uniquely his yet unmistakably our own, poised precariously between good and evil, but tilting in the end toward the eternal victory of faith, charity, compassion and delight.  The canon is forever enriched by the Gospel According to Dickens.  He penned a modern quasi-mythic trove of Christian wisdom and, above  all, joy."

Waking Up White by Debby Irving

 "In this society violence against poor people and minority groups is routine.  I remind you that starving a child is violence; suppressing a culture is violence; neglecting schoolchildren is violence; discrimination against a working man is violence; ghetto house is violence; ignoring medical needs is violence; contempt for equality is violence; even a lack of willpower to help humanity is a sick and sinister form of violence".  These are words from Coretta Scott King spoken in 1969, and the more I try to educate myself in the nuances of American culture and racism, the more I realize that my problem has been the lack of willpower to be a voice for change...I have been a bystander.  

Irving does a great job of sharing her story, being raised in a rich upper class family in Winchester, Massachusetts.  She outlines the ways that she fell easily into the socioeconomic privileges her life afforded, with no thought of how others in lesser financial straits coped.  Her family culture taught her that she simply needed to work hard to meet her goals, to help "fix" other people's problems by teaching them to be more like her, to not push back in a hard conversation so that silence became the best solution.  These well ingrained family culture points had to be dismantled at age 50, as she became more aware of her part in allowing racism to prevail.  She found out that people of color do not want white people to "swoop in" and save/fix them, they want the tools to help themselves.  She is learning to bring listening skills to her difficult conversations so that she can hear other voices and cultures, and learn how she might be wrong.  She now understands that for many, working hard cannot get them into the best schools or jobs...because her privilege gave her referrals by prestigious and powerful white people.

This book added different layers to what I have been learning about myself, about how I view my opinions and values as right or normal, about my role as a bystander.  My heart is ready to figure out how to be an ally in this important fight.  May God give me wisdom.

The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg

 "Arthur thinks that, above all, aging means the abandonment of criticism and the taking on of compassionate acceptance. He sees that as a good trade."

So writes Elizabeth Berg in her early description of the main character of her 2017 novel.  And wouldn't it be wonderful if more octogenarians like Arthur had this philosophy?  Actually, it would be wonderful for me to have this goal in my daily routine.

A recent widower, Arthur spends his days riding the bus to visit his lovely wife Nola for lunch at her gravesite, then gets home in time to nap and talk to his cat, Gordon.  Upon waking the next morning, this pattern repeats itself, as it has for the past six months.  The cemetery serves as an outlet for his imagination as he reads headstones and creates storylines for Nola's "neighbors".  And it is there that Maddy enters his life.  Seventeen and despondently sad, Arthur sees past the nose ring and slight chip on her shoulder, to her inner beauty.  Arthur kindly engages her in conversation.  Consumed with her own difficulties as the brunt of bullying in her high school, Maddy questions the purity of Arthur's motives.  As the beautiful and peaceful cemetery becomes a daily refuge for Maddy, she begins to open up to Arthur's overtures.  She visits his home, she meets his also-elderly neighbor, Lucille, and she begins to not miss her mother as much; while these welcoming Seniors take a more than curious interest in her life....and give her the unconditional love that she has desperately craved for so very long.

In the middle of a global pandemic, a hateful political climate and a world where unkindness prevails; this read was a breath of fresh air.  I wanted to hug Arthur for his non-judgmental attitude and for his courage in making huge adjustments in his life to accommodate others.  He opens his home to both Lucille and Maddy.  He gently suggests that Lucille volunteer her time to teach baking classes...which fills her need to be needed.  He bargains with Maddy to pay for her time in cleaning his home in exchange for room and board...which validates her need to give back.  Maddy blossoms under the support of a teacher who reaches out, and the exceptional care of Arthur and Lucille.  This trio living in the same household become a different kind of family: not traditional, but a family nonetheless.

Unselfishness, kindness, inter-generational acceptance, loneliness, loss...these are all themes that Elizabeth Berg includes in this sentimental read.  Although the ending is expected, it still left me wiping tears from my cheeks...and rooting for all of the kindhearted "Arthurs" out there, looking for opportunities to make a difference, one person at a time. 

Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World by Max Lucado

 This was a perfect book for the craziness of our world right now.  Having faced anxiety over Covid, over health issues, over cancellations of three family trips...I was ready to fall apart.  Thankfully the prayers of friends, exercise, different supplements, acupuncture, wise counsel ...and this book...brought me such relief.  Lucado brings such great illustrations to his writing, and his breakdown of Philippians 4:4-8 makes such good sense.  Making the choice to have joy in the daily grind of life then leads to gratefulness, which leads to specific prayer.  If my thoughts are still anxious, verse 8 reminds me to change the channel on my mind and think on things that are kind, pure, good, commendable, true.

His clever acrostic for anxiety, using the above verses, is CALM: 

• Celebrate God’s goodness
• Ask God for help
• Leave your concerns with God
• Meditate on good things

Because Bill and I were also listening to a favorite pastor on this topic, we got a double dose of peace and Holy Spirit power--a wonderful way to spend our January/February days.

The One in A Million Boy by Monica Wood

 Who has never made a serious mistake that they have regretted for much of their life?  This lovely read by Monica Woods brings us several characters who are living with just such regrets.

Ona Vitkus at age 104 years, lives independently in her cozy little home, but realizes that she needs a bit of help in maintaining the outside tasks.  The kind scoutmaster in town, with a community program for his scouts, drops off a young boy to assist Ona.  A One in a Million Boy.  A quiet boy. A boy who makes lists and relentlessly counts.  A responsible boy who finishes his weekly tasks. A boy who is wise beyond his years.  A boy who recognizes Ona's loneliness and determines to give her purpose.  A boy who records Ona's long history and uncovers secrets and shame.  A boy whom Ona begins to love as they develop an unusual friendship.

Quinn Porter, the boy's much absent musician father, steps in to assist Ona with her yard chores.  Ona doesn't understand why.  At first she believes she was mistaken about this sweet boy..did he decide to shirk his duties?  Did he become enamored of another task to pursue?  Did their friendship not mean as much to him as it did to her?  When Ona reads the obituary in the local paper, her questions stop...and a new friendship with Quinn begins.  he works tirelessly in repairing Ona's home; beautifying flowerbeds, cutting tree limbs, fixing the broken porch, replacing lightbulbs.  He works to complete the boy's agreement contract with Ona.  He works to assuage his guilt over spending more time on the road than in his home.                                  Belle Cosgrove, the boy's distraught and grieving mother, also enters into a relationship with Ona because Quinn suggests that in entering Ona's home he senses the boy's presence...and oh how Belle needs to feel that.  Unlike Quinn's rocky start with Ona (he had to get past her prickly exterior), Belle and Ona bond more quickly, their commonalities as women and mothers who had each lost a son being foundational to this fledging friendship.

This trio of characters embarks on a journey together.  This journey involves a road trip to re-unite Ona with her son, but more importantly this journey of friendship begins to heal the broken places in each of their hearts.  Belle, brokenhearted over her only son's death; Ona, brokenhearted over the lost years of a damaged friendship; and Quinn, brokenhearted over the loss of his marriage, his career dreams and the truthful reality that he was not a good father.

Wood weaves a story rich with quirky, imperfect people who learn how to lean into each other.  Though they might not acknowledge or understand it, each bridges their individual loneliness to serve the other, to accept the other, to put the others' needs ahead of their own. It's a story of redemptions.

The final chapter backtracks to the boy's final morning, riding his bike in the pre-dawn to put the finishing touches on Ona's memoirs...the sounds of hundreds of birds breaking forth in song.  The selfless heart of the One in a Million Boy wanted to fulfill this important Ode to Ona.