Nonfiction

So, then, dear Poppets, I see that it is our special time again to discuss a few books and Life, in general, and what you might like, in particular. This finds me at my old, dear desk in Memorial Library with the special sights, sounds, and "book odors"  that I so miss when in Texas. Until you've been in a library that is, shall we say, not "properly run", you may not appreciate one that is--such as ours--and, believe an "old" library user--they're either one or the other--no middle ground.

What I do not--ever--miss, when not in Liberal--is the 30 to 40 m.p.h. wind. Gracious but this takes some getting acclimated to, again, once one is no longer in it anymore.  I am always so pleased to come back to where I spent 57 years and not much has changed--except I miss Bob's Diner and Dinah and if anyone knows where she is  (I assume Wichita where one of her daughters lives), could you please call the library, ask for Jill or Pauline, and tell them and they'll get it to me.  Sometimes, one can "go back" to an actual place and see former friends and sometimes, your early years were spent in another place and environment, different people, different experiences and a prime example of that, for me as for many people, are the years before marriage and what one remembers so vividly--people, pets, schools, events, likes and dislikes, etc.

Close friends are well aware that I had strong British undertones in my bringing up and that I absolutely adored my mother's mother whom I called "Foof" and I was always called "My Lamb" or "Foofner" in return, and I laughed and learned under her wise and funny tutelage, and, in thinking about her and some of her "sayings" that I grew up with i.e."Who do you think you are?" and "To whom do you think you're speaking in that tone?" and "Remember who you are" and, again, "Do your very best and angels can do no more." Both my mother, Foof's daughter, and I used to tell each other that, in response to the first Brit saying, we'd like to have had the courage to reply with our name (standing straight and tall and, at the moment, slightly belligerent!) but Mother and I both knew what would come next--"Then, act like her and stop this behavior!"

Okay, so having said all that, you can imagine my delight at seeing the book, "Elizabeth, the Queen; The Life of a Modern Monarch", by Sally Bedell Smith, author of several autobiographies of well-known names, and it tells all sorts of things about her--I listened on my little radio, in high school, in Virginia, as she was crowned Queen and, along with everyone else, read about her--apparently, she's an excellent mimic of other people's traits, loves her two months on the grounds of Balmoral, walking her Corgis and going out with hunting parties and, if not shooting the birds, is directing the hunting dogs where to go to pick up the game birds that very important people have shot and certainly cannot be expected to go and "fetch" for themselves. I mean to say, it just isn't done.

So, if the beaters (men with the party, employed by the Queen--she has 80 servants all the time at Balmoral Castle for her two months stay there--) anyway, if they're busy loading the guests' guns or whatever and unavailable when the bird or deer goes down, the Queen takes over and sees that the game is brought  to them.  I love it. There's Her Majesty, in rough gear, boots, scarf on her head, lined leather gloves, game warden's whistle over her neck, making the proper motions to the dogs, calling their names, and then using hand gestures to convey what they were to do. And whaddya bet the dogs knew what she meant?

Cold, rainy, trampling over old logs, leaves, the crashing of gun barrels, your sandwich and flask of whiskey in the leather bag over your shoulder (what? you thought they went to MickeyD's for a hamburger? we're talking deep forest for 130 miles all around here--and, for Heaven's sake, don't even think of complaining--that's one big, main thing you learn when being brought up in Brit tradition--no one cares to hear it so, fix it yourself, or "go somewhere and get ahold of yourself and come out when you can be pleasant!" Seriously.)

Anyway, life, for her, is not always wearing a diamond tiara, she became Queen at a very young age and had to balance those duties in both Motherhood and State areas, her sister wasn't allowed to marry the divorced Royal Air Force pilot she adored--Prince Phillip saw to that and he should object? On what grounds? Other than he was a divorced man whom Princess Margaret loved--it couldn't have been on moral grounds, alone, since Phillip had an affair for 23 years and everyone knew it--and the lady involved (a Royal, of course!) Sorry to take up this much space on one topic but let me finish on one note; "An undercurrent to the speculation about Charles as the next king is that he is destined to be a transitional figure with a short reign before the succession of his more popular son, Prince William, and Kate.

It is William that monarchists count on to keep the dynasty strong in the new millennium; the Palace is full aware that the monarchy's future depends not only on reaching young people by emphasizing its own next generation." William and Kate are very popular, they dress in khakis and sneakers to visit children's hospitals, he went to New Zealand to give comfort and a personal solace to victims of natural disasters, much as his beloved mother, Diana, had done and the paper there wrote--"He came, he saw, he charmed their bloody socks off!" William and his brother, Harry, are easing into "royalty", still being called "Prince" but not "Sir" and they won't hear of "Your Royal Highness." We'll see what the future holds but do get this book and you will enjoy all of its 560 pages--it's compulsively readable.

Did anyone see some of the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show on TV recently? For those of us who love and/or have dogs, it's the--spelled t-h-e--dog show to watch, here in the U.S. as it the Eukenuba show on Thanksgiving. Anyway, there's a delightful book, "Show Dog: The Charmed Life and Trying Times of a Near-Perfect Purebred", by Josh Dean, wrote about spending a year "alongside Jack, is champion Australian shepherd--and his canine and human friends--and presents a revealing look at our love affair with the world's most doted-upon and tinkered with animal species."  We certainly get to know this lovable dog and the people around him --his owner, handler, and his breeder--and we're given an up-close look at the dog show world, its traditions, its rules, along with the many people who inhabit it, taking part in judging, training, naming, promoting, hair-styling, RV-driving, hotel finding, and everything related to owning and showing a champion dog. There are over two thousand dog shows available every weekend, here in the U.S.

Breeding a champion dog--or horse--or cat sounds simple in that "you want to reinforce the good traits of specific animals while eliminating flaws and responsible owners of a certain breed work in concert to eliminate problematic traits--in Aussies, for example, the eye condition PRA."  On several personal notes, Jack jumped up on the judge as he walked by to put a 3rd place win behind Jack's name. Jack's chief rival for all of the judge's eyes was the beautiful moving Beyonce. She floated around the ring and went so fast you almost couldn't see her legs moving, and when Kimberly, who owned Jack, felt the time was right for him to become a father--that was a fine idea that drove Kimberly and Jack around the bend.  Westminster dog show is the pinnacle--lots of media coverage--two days of TV--obviously beautiful dogs--famous people milling around the prestige of the event.  This book is truly, honestly a great picture of a great dog, Jack, his mistress and handler, his mistakes, his heart, his triumphs, so go check it out and let me know what you think.

Is there anyone out there, in the continental U.S.that is, who has not heard of the Kardashians?  Anybody? I thought not, so here's a new book by Kris Jenner, "Kris Jenner and All Things Kardashian." You gotta give the girls credit, though, they're all very attractive--and ambitious--and not necessarily role models. She was married, at one time, to the Olympic champion, Bruce Jenner, then Robert Kardashin "and how it was Bruce who finally helped end the Kardashian's messy divorce so they could all move forward as a family."

It was Kris' brainstorm to make the family into an empire--an "international brand", actually--and has made it into a TV franchise that many millions of women watch and envy.  In this book, Kris also gives details/stories of her "intimate connection" with O.J.Simpson and Nicole Brown, the trial of O.J. and its aftermath. She and Robert had to deal with the important fact that they had each believed something different--Robert sat with O.J, at the trial, and honestly believed him innocent while Kris did not and kept remembering Nicole's words to her--"he's going to kill me and he's going to get away with it"--and so it came to pass. O.J. later failed a lie detector test --too late for his trial.  A really, interesting, pretty intelligent story and I very much enjoyed hearing Kris' voice in it all. I came out with a different point of view of the family--not completely, just somewhat--and certainly was admiring of what and how Kris handled all her decisions.

So, my dears, "the time has come, the walrus said, to speak of other things--"and there's always the weather, which, on the day I'm writing this, is cold and windy (so, you expected anything else the end of Feb.?)and, again, to say how great it has been to be back at my first "home", see dear friends, relax at Spencer Browne's over tea and a Hawaiian muffin (heated, of course), laugh at my son and daughter-in-law's dog and cat, and just "kick back".  I wish all of my readers a good Spring ahead, keep walking, smile at strangers, and try to not get too upset--"it won't matter on the back of a galloping horse" (another one of Foof's wonderful sayings!) Think of me in Kerrville, Tx. and if you're "in the neighborhood", call and stop by! Take care, Poppets, and good luck!

Children's Healthy Fun Fair Coming Soon

Greetings readers! Hopefully by now the logo which appears with this column has become familiar to many residents of this community. It means that the Children’s Healthy Fun Fair is coming up once again. On Saturday, March 3, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., lots of interested children, accompanied by their parents, will be making their way to the Ag Building on the Seward County Fairgrounds to join in the festivities. Each year the fair offers fun activities, healthy snacks, great giveaways, and helpful information to attendees, all free of charge.

A number of agencies will be in attendance this year including Southwest Medical Center, Southwest Guidance Center, PACT, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Head Start, Smart Start, UMMAM, USD 480 preschool, Liberal Police Department, Liberal and Seward County Fire Departments, Liberal Parks & Rec, and many, many more. A must-visit area at the fair includes fingerprinting by the police department with fingerprint kits for parents to take home and record pertinent information about each of their children. Another fun stop will be the Seward County Community College Respiratory Therapy area which will include a respiring pig lung. Come watch it ‘breathe’. Parks & Rec has a brand new X-box Connect which they will have at the fair. This is a game that does not require controls. It goes by the movement of the kids who are playing. Some of the games that go with it require a lot of physical movement, so it is good for kids to burn off excess energy. The library will invite kids to exercise as well with their Wii Fit. For the younger ones, there will be an opportunity to do a simple craft project connected to our upcoming Summer Reading Program. Seward County Health and USD 480 preschool always have lots of neat activities going on at their booths. It’s a good idea to just start at one end of the fair and work your way all the way around to everyone so that you don’t miss a thing!

This year’s fair will feature the Sure Sight Vision Screener, which will be manned by a trained Lions Club International member from the eastern side of the state. This is a valuable vision screening tool which provides non-invasive screening to check preschoolers for early visual problems. It allows for vision screening without feedback from the child who is being screened, meaning it can be used even with smaller children. Make sure that you stop by and check it out. In addition to this machine being available at the Children’s Healthy Fun Fair, the library will host a special storytime beginning at 3:45 on Friday, March 2. Following the storytime, parents will have an opportunity to have their screened. This is a really good opportunity for families who might not be able to attend the fair.

There is truly a lot of excitement about the fun fair and the potential it has to inform and educate the public in a really fun way. Since the Home Show will be going on in the Event Center, families can easily take in both events since they are in such close proximity to one another.

In closing, mention should be made about the library’s Valentine promotion which took place from February 1 to February 14. Patrons were asked to share what book they loved by writing it on a heart. They were then entered into a drawing for some sweet prizes. Winners of those prizes included:

Boxes of chocolate: Carolyn L. and Lynn S.; Plush Puppy: Wendy D.; Plush Monkey: Micayla L.; and Plush Penguin: Angelica M. Winners, be sure to stop by and pick up your prizes, if you have not already done so. National Library Week is coming up in April. Come on in check out the exciting things that will be going on then. See you at Memorial Library!

Fiction

“Allo Poppets!  How goes it? Getting a little tired of Winter’s wet and windy blasts? Well, here in Kerrville, we’ve had some rain, some cool weather, and some lovely sunshine and temps. between 70 and 77 degrees, which is actually a little warmer in mid-Jan. than usual but I love it, being a hot weather fan.  We desperately need more rain, although our aquifer is back up to normal, but if you’ve ever endured a drought, you’re a little skeptical for the next late Spring through mid-Fall. Didja watch the Super Bowl? My team won!  What happened to yours?  Ah, well, there’s always another year and I think it’s nice that Eli Manning lived to tell a tale that came out great in the end—at least for him, it did. 

You know how children love being told stories and, as they get older, reading them for the excitement, thoughts, facts that are all new to them?  I always loved the beginning of Rudyard Kipling’s “Just So Stories” ‘cause he often began them “Once Upon a Time, O Best Beloved---“and to this day, I think the very good—really good—authors maybe silently think that as they begin to write—yes, the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced they do, if only in their own minds. Good stories, well told, “take you away to another place and time” and you hate to put them down, and maybe one or two of the titles I’m about to review will do it for you.

Let’s go back to London, Oct. 1839, in “When the Devil Drives” by Cara Peacock, London’s Liberty Lane, female private investigator (at 25), struggling to do all right so as to pay her bills, looked hopeful (and, she hoped, capable and businesslike) when a young, “poetic young man begs her to find his missing fiancee, she accepts”. She feels the girl probably just ran off with someone else and “meanwhile, back at the ranch,” the country’s young Queen Victoria is falling in love with Prince Albert, her German cousin and “another client hires her to help prevent a royal scandal”, involving Albert’s brother Prince Ernest, who is more “worldly and likes to have a good time.” 

So, now she has two cases and then a young woman is found dead and “with a strange bull-headed ring on her finger.”  The one constant around all these crime is the description of a black or dark carriage, drawn by two dark horses, that picks up the girls and disappears before it can be stopped. Those who have heard or seen this conveyance, seen or heard the horses, call it The Devil’s Chariot. This book truly is charming and written in a “deliberate” manner, in describing atmosphere, people involved, countryside—I only regretted that the horses weren’t given more book space!  For those of you who like “old-fashioned” murder mysteries, minus a lot of blood and gore, will enjoy this one—go to the library and check it out.  

This next book, “The Best Bad Dream”, by Robert Ward, is much like the “hard-boiled” private eye stories we’ve all read and, for its realistic violence and the hard, experienced personalities in here are very believable—not lovable, but, at times, understandable and pitiful while being extremely dangerous.  A major point is the Blue Wolf, “a suspicious and exclusive spa for the elderly—at least on the surface.”  The two main characters are Jack Harper and Oscar Hidalgo, “who are burned out from chasing criminals, so a long vacations seems like just the ticket.”  But Jack received a call from an ex-girlfriend Michelle,  who asks for help in finding her sister, Jennifer, who has been kidnapped.  

How can the two points of the case be related?  And how does a huge pet razorback hog, Old Big, feature in finding Jennifer?  What did the kidnappers want with Jennifer?  I got started reading this story and 40 minutes passed quickly. If you like mysteries with a touch of the ghastly, this is your choice. 

Apropos of nothing I’ve been discussing, did you see the interview (there was more than one, actually) of Mimi Alford who’s written about her 18 month affair with J.F.K. that is out now, entitled “Once Upon a Secret”?  That will be a blockbuster and it brings out, as she said, “his dark side.”  

Okay, back to my column and another “dead body book” as Ida called them, and this one is “Shedding Light on Murder”, by Patricia Driscoll, and it’s her debut novel, “set on Cape Cod, in Christmas season during a blizzard.” Grace Tolliver is an ex-probation officer in Barnstable Village.  She’s the owner of Pearl’s Antique Lamps and Shades and has hired Duane Kerby as “holiday help’ but when a well-known citizen if murdered, Duane is arrested for it and Grace feels responsible because she sent him to the man’s home on an errand.  She is busy “readying the shop for the annual Barnstable Village Stroll while keeping an eye on her frisky 84-year-old father” and she finds herself attracted to the detective on the case (you could see that comin’ ‘round the bend, right?) 

Then, a second murder hits and here come the blizzard’s winds, snow, and ice.  Lots of conversation, some (some!) action, bringing out of the people’s thoughts and character—this, my dears, is what we in the trade call “a cozy” and it’s an excellent representative of its genre. It’s not going to be one of the “top” books, such as “Heft”, or “Defending Jacob” or “Taken” by Crais or “Phantom” by Ted Bell, but, then again, it isn’t trying to be. It’s a book to “curl up with” , won’t tax the brain too much and it’s enjoyable. So, check it out. 

Now, our last book fits into the last, or “top” category because the author, Val McDermid, is an author with a  capital “A”, and her newest is “The Retribution”, a Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, who’ve appeared in other stories.  Tony is a clinical psychologist and Carol is police detective. And, between them, they’ve put away a lot of criminals but all that success has bred resentment in Carol’s department and so the “powers that be” decide to break the team up. So, there’s a serial killer to catch “and it seems that this may well be their farewell waltz.”  But Jacko Vance, an ex-celebrity and sociopath has spent a dozen years behind bars, having killed teenage girls with no remorse “and with a twisted and cunning mind long honed by years of planning, Jacko has pulled off the perfect escape”—and guess who he’s after?  

The “Times” of London paper said that “her work is taut, psychologically complex and so gripping that it puts your life on hold”—which, I think, is Brit for “good show!” The best  police procedural put you in the middle of the conversations, theories and action and after 24 novels and short story collection (doesn’t she ever sleep?), McDermid’s got it down pat. The conversations carry you along, the moods and thoughts and theories are well developed—I’m telling you, find this book and enjoy a master (sorry, mistress) at her best.  She ain’t young and won’t be around for the next 20 years—but her stories will.  Enjoy!  You’re welcome.

It has been, as always, a pleasure to “ visit” with you and I hope all is well in your world and should you see me, on the streets or in Spencer Browne’s coffee house or in the library, come up and “chat” a minute. I will be in Liberal from the 20^th until mid-afternoon of the 27^th and I really look forward to being in the library and seeing the staff—don’t you think it would be nice to have “a library cat”, say a big black one with green eyes?  Please let my director know and urge her to check the animal shelter—it won’t be necessary to tell her that I sent you or that it was my idea!  Make sure that your animals have freshwater and a warn place to sleep at night—you do!  See ya soon—Bye!  PS—think about a purring pussycat on the front desk! I’m jus’ sayin’----