Nonfiction

Greetings, oh faithful readers--and how goes the early Fall for thee? Today, as I start to write this, it is Sunday night, around 8 p.m., and for some reason, "known only to God" as my family was wont to say, the wind is really up and rustling leaves and papers on Himself's desk here in the den. No rain, however, which I understand Liberal has gotten, off and on. We are mainly "off", here in South Texas, and we are on Stage 4 water rationing--now, pay attention and I'll tell you what that piece of news entails for the general population; it's a major drought--not just "dry" or "we can't leave the sprinklers on all day, can we?"--your sprinkler system, as a homeowner, is turned off--off, as in nada, none, not any day--and you can handwater (you're standing there, on your lawn, literally holding the hose in your little pink paw and trying to keep what grass and bushes you have alive and that's only allowed two days a week, depending on your house number, from 6.am. to 9a.m. and 6p.m. to 9 p.m.)


Thank goodness those of us who installed underground drip systems are allowed to set them to water two or three days (for three hours) a week but not any soaker hoses or sprinklers. If you can spare a Mason jar or two of water, your next "toad strangler", we implore you to send it on--one man said he saw a fire hydrant trying to bribe a dog! Ah, well, nor would I like to stand on a river bank and watch my house breaking up going downstream or get caught in a fire that spreads to include my house and 124 others, like in Oklahoma.

This Sunday that you're reading this is, obviously, the anniversary of 9-11 and of course you know where you were when you either heard the news or saw those ghastly pictures on the telly. I can vividly remember that horrible, end-of-the-world picture of that black, rolling cloud coming down Wall Street--it personified, to me, what is meant by Armageddon. However, we're a resilient populace and, while being appalled, taken aback, angry, and never-the-same-again, we survived and will continue to do so. 9/11 was a truthful moment and as it was non-fiction, so is my column (Patti, you've got to admit I turned a national disaster into a great segue! Call me and assure me you think so, too~!)

Okay, Poppets, let's look at a "cliffhanger" of a book--literally. "The Ledge; An Adventure Story of Friendship and Survival on Mount Rainier", by Jim Davidson, one of the two climbers who are also best friends (the other was Mike Price) "as they stood triumphantly on top of Washington's Mount Rainier, celebrating what they hoped would be the first of many milestones in their lives. Then, the cave-in. They plunged deep inside a glacier crevasse-the pitch-black, ice-walled hell that every climber's nightmares are made of." Davidson was fully aware of the risks of what could happen but was "hopelessly in love with the challenge." Besides, as we all secretly believe--"It'll never happen to me!" Oh, really?

He fell and was "trapped on a narrow, unstable, frozen ledge, deep below daylight and high above a yawning chasm." The crumbling ice and snow around him were enemies to deal with---"My eyes travel up the frozen walls. I figure it is 80 feet up to the sunlight. The walls above me climb up at about 80 degrees, then they go dead vertical, and then, higher up, they overhang. It is as if I am looking out from the belly of a beast, its jagged white teeth interlocking above me." Davidson desperately tried to save his injured companion and, finally, with very little equipment and no partner to help him on, even morally and verbally, he'll either have to resign himself to a cold, lonely death or--climb up to the top with his strength waning every hour.

This book is a tribute to friendship and the laws of Nature that never change for any man and, finally, to say it is an adventure story is like saying 9/11 was about how well built the towers were. In one poignant moment, stuck in that shaft of ice and cold and exhaustion, he "talks" to his father as he's attempting to go up toward the top--

"I grab the biner that, when released will thrust me out onto the sharp end of a big lead fall over a manky screw (that was not a misspelling-it's the name of a screw, apparently). sJust one simple unclip and I will force myself to play this terrible hand right now, all in, to free climb up in one great go for broke effort. One way or the other, it will be over in the next minute. Perhaps that is what I want the most: for it all to just be over. I hook my index finger on the biner's gate, ready to open it. Now. And then I hear a loud voice in my head. It's Dad. "Stop! Ya can't do it. Ya gotta keep doin what you were doin'" I argue and say it will just take a minute--"All I've got to do is climb this one section and it's over." Dad doesn't buy it. "Ya may not be strong enough and if ya fall, the screw's not gonna hold. You're gonna go all the way down. I know ya want to climb out fast but the risk is too big. Ya can't do it. The aid climbing's working. Stick with it."

I love that "dialogue" he had with his dad in a dangerous deathly cold environment, getting weaker and colder--I believed he did hear his dad's voice. In any case, this is an excellent story and you need to read it if you like honest characters and a real "icy" cliffhanger (or crevasse chiller!)\

I was rather amused by this next title--"How to Love an American Man; a True Story", by Kristine Gasbarre, in that I pictured a whole series by this author only set with a man in different countries. Actually, the premise is rather interesting. "Kristine made a New York career out of dating driven, inaccessible men, and when she realizes that her love life will never result in happiness if she continues on the same path," she decides to go to Italy and stay with her adoring grandfather. Then she receives the news that he has died. Scratch Italy. So, she returns to her hometown--small hometown--to help care for her grandmother--"refined, private matriarch suffering from early dementia along with the loss of her husband" and in return for the lost love stories and life lessons from her grandmother's 60-year marriage, they both find that she is Krissie's coach through her fear of loving.


Grandmother talks about if someone really listens to you and sees and hears what's important to you and you do the same for them--you are an individual and allow them to be one not try to make the other one into something they're not comfortable with. Consider Grandmother's wonderful Walnut muffins that she was putting in a container for Krissie to take to her mother and father--the muffins that were without nuts she put on the bottom of the container because that's what Krissie's father liked ("your father hates nuts in anything--always has") and the muffins on top with nuts because Krissie's mother loved nuts in anything--always had! Each understood how the other one reacted to personal choices and made allowances, was the point Grandmother's muffin tale made.

And at the end, after telling her beloved doctor, Chris, goodbye as he leaves to do six months medical work in Paris and they've discussed how much they care for each other, she is talking to her grandmother who is happy for her but says, "Kristine, all your life, the only one you can always count on, one hundred per cent of the time is you--you're a woman who'd had goals, who always knows her self and what she wants and that's the most important thing for a woman to be in this life." Theirs was a delightful relationship and each gave to the other and got much back in return. You'll love this charming "old-fashioned" story, in a modern time, and the truths it contains.

Okay, that's one for the men and one for the women, now, here's one for all my readers of any age, income, education or position in this world. "Unlikely Friendships; 47 Remarkable Stories from the Animal Kingdom", by Jennifer Holland, is a treasure of a book and each "pairing" of best friends has its own history to it, and let me give you a few examples of the "unlikely friendships" that you'll find in here;

• a fish poking its nose out of the water to nuzzle a dog,
• a Cockatoo and a cat,
• a Cheetah and an Anatolian Shepherd,
• a Pit Bull, a Siamese Cat and the chicks,
• the Papillon (Spaniel) and the Squirrel,

and the Owl and the Spaniel--and the owlet had been abandoned almost at birth, so Sharon, who runs that conservation center, took him inside and sat down on the sofa with "Bramble" in her lap. Sophi, then 3 years old, "jumped up on the sofa to investigate the new arrival and licked him gently on his beak, and from that day on, it became a daily ritual--Bramble would "beak" Sophie in return for Sophie's kisses."

Sometimes a friendship is about need, as in the case of the blind Lab and her affectionate "seeing eye" cat This is about the true power of friendship and, to some degree, the many forms of "love" that seem to exist in the animal kingdom.

The author, along with her husband, lives with two dogs and dozens of snakes and geckos. She is a senior editor for "National Geographic" magazine and the snakes on her property? They keep completely to themselves. And, for a last word about these wonderful friendships, I love the one that brings together a Lion, a Tiger, and the Bear at the Noah's Ark Rehab Center in Locust Grove, Ga. and they all met as young ones of three months old. The ones in charge (human, that is) enlarged the grounds as the animals "enlarged" and added a double-decker "clubhouse" for them to play in. There isn't one--not one of these stories you won't delight in reading and the pictures are "worth the admission price all by themselves". Come and check it out and thank me later.

So, our heat is slowly lifting--our highs this week are around where they should be--mid-nineties instead of low 100's--and what is a hoot is how much cooler people say they feel the minute the first week in Sept.arrives--even if the temp hasn't moved much. Ah, the power of the mind! Remember to keep walking or swimming or golfing or playing tennis--however you like to exercise, keep on. Read a good book, enjoy laughter with friends and keep in touch with family members and remind yourself, every so often, to appreciate small things and forgive the occasional rudeness--Life's too short. Thanks for reading this col. and we will be "together" again, soon, okay? Bye!