A Dream Come True

My mother married my dad in 1943. She was true to him to her death in 2009. He was the love of her life. But in all honesty, she had another love, that she met in 1962 and then, in 1986 travelled back to see again: The Grand Canyon.

I was 5 when my family bundled into our sky blue Country Squire station wagon, and drove across the country stopping at as many national parks as we could between our home in Silver Spring, Maryland and our destination in California. My mother's excitement as we approached Grand Canyon National Park was palpable. The set up for visitors in 1962 was a little a bit different than it is now, I'm told. We bundled out of the car, tired from our journey. My mother, an amateur geologist and enthusiastic rock hound, looked off in the distance, and sighed with joy, until my brother tapped her on the shoulder and suggested she turn around. What she turned to see was the full beauty of that aptly named canyon, truly grand. It took her breath, her speech away, and she wept fro the sheer glory of it.

She spoke of its beauty the rest of her life. She and my father planned to travel back for their 40th anniversary. When he died in 1981, 2 years shy of that anticipated time, she thought this meant she'd never get back.  But returning to the Grand Canyon was a dream, one she fulfilled five years later with the help of my brother, Erico, and his wonderful wife, Heather.

Erico and Ruthe on the Rim of the Canyon

It was not the trip you might expect. My mother had Multiple Sclerosis, and at that time, was in a wheelchair, only able to walk short distances. True, she did exercises every day to help maintain strength and muscle tone, but she also needed at least one nap a day to restore her energy. What they'd planned, with the help of the park service, was quite amazing. They spent a couple of days on the surface, resting and preparing, then, with the assistance of the rangers and staff, Heather, Erico, and Ruthe joined a mule team, and rode down the canyon. Ruthe, who really had never ridden a horse, who had multiple sclerosis, and lacked leg strength and balance, who wore corrective glasses to hep combat her diplopia, got on a white mule named Miss Piggy and rode to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Ruthe and Heather Prepare for the Descent

The trip was both beautiful and breathtaking. Ruthe was placed in line immediately behind the lead guide, with Heather following her. Heather told me, when we got together after the journey, that Ruthe got so tired at times that Heather would look at her, slumped on the mule, then look to the side and see the drop off to the Canyon floor below, and wonder how long it would take her to jump off her mule and catch Ruthe as she slid off her own mount. When not calculating that, she would wonder how to tell those of us not on the trip that Ruthe had slipped off the mule and fallen to the river below. But just when Heather thought her tiny mother-in-law was about to put the calculations to the test, Ruthe would straighten, and then turn around a flash a beaming smile at Heather. 

That's my mom, beaming!

They made it to the bottom safely. I'm not entirely sure, but I do think Ruthe was airlifted out rather than riding back up. (I'm scanning family pictures now, and in the album, all the pictures on mule are in a descent, then the bottom, then taken from a helicopter.) I do seem to recall that once back up, there was another rest period, then travel to California for a mini family reunion, which javaczuk and I were able to fly out and join for a few days. 

She made it! At the Colorado river

The US National Park Service is celebrating its Centennial anniversary. All summer long, I've been enjoying social media images of the glories that one can discover in the parks part of the diverse system. But none of those images, as spectacular as they are, have made me as happy as discovering the pictures taken on that 1986 trip.

As a side note: In going through the boxes of memorabilia this summer, I found this letter to my mom from Grand Canyon National Park Lodges.

It's ok. Not her address any more...

To Ruthe, one of the highlights of her life was riding a mule down that "gorgeous hunk of rock." To me, the Grand Canyon wasn't the only thing that was grand or inspiring on that journey. 

Homegoing: A novel by Yaa Gyasi

There's a reason this is one of the most talked about books this summer. The basic back-of-the-book blurb doesn't give the true power of the story, which follows two half sisters from different villages in Ghana, and the lives of their descendants, for 3 centuries. It's quite a tale, and an eye opener for me. I read a lot, and have experienced the lives and conditions of Africans and African Americans in many books, some quite visceral and explicit in detail. However, the linear story, added to the individual ones made this quite compelling. This says a lot, since each story pretty much stands alone for the character it focuses on. In some cases you learn a little about the previous generation/main character, in other, nothing at all. And, as the stories alternate between the decedents of each sister, this made the family tree in the front of the book exceedingly valuable for me.

I am not a lover of short stories, so the fact that I liked this book so much, which is very much like a book of related short stories, indicates the power of the writing. My one complaint is that I really do want to know more about most of the characters and their lives, and also to know more definitively the back story before their births. My knowledge of African history is not my strong suit, so I did do a bit of reading on that to help shore up the knowledge base of where the story begins. For me, as a white reader, I was quite involved and quite moved/impacted by many of the experiences. It is not my heritage, nor my history (for despite living in the South much of my life, Southern heritage is not my family heritage.) I am curious to hear how other readers, for whom aspects of this story are incorporated in their own family history, relate.

Tags: 2016-read, didn-t-want-to-put-it-down, i-heard-about-it-on-npr, made-me-look-something-up, read, read-on-recommendation, taught-me-something, thank-you-charleston-county-library, thought-provoking, will-look-for-more-by-this-author, wow

Monsters: A Love Story by Liz Kay

This book cover kept catching my eye, so finally, I gave in. I really enjoyed the story, characters, and dilemmas that occurred, though I did feel a bit removed from it all, (but at times so did Stacey, so I guess I'm excused.) There was a lot of hard living, drinking, and more uses of the f-word than even my mother (which says a lot). But overall, I came away glad I read it. The snippets of Stacey's work were interesting, and I'd kinda like to actually read her poem that was based on Frankenstein, even though it's got a lot of grimness in it. (The book was about the poem, which was a book, itself, becoming a movie.) I will look for more by the author.

Tags: 2016-read, first-novel-or-book, great-cover, i-liked-it, made-me-look-something-up, read, will-look-for-more-by-this-author

The Wake of the Bloody Angel (Eddie LaCrosse 4) by Alex Bledsoe

Dang! Another review I let languish. Sorry Alex Bledsoe, especially since I really enjoyed the book. I picked it up because I was so taken with the Tuva series, that I wanted to see how your other books were. Couldn't get the first in the series, but I was able to jump right in with this one, thankfully. Some books are great romps through whatever world they're set in, and this was one. There was enough history similar to our own, and enough that had nothing to do with this one to keep me both amused and on my toes. (I'm partial to pirate tales, being from Charleston, where they once sailed our seas, and where Anne Bonny got her start, and nearly her finish, and Sted Bonnet graced the gallows at White Point Gardens.) You did give me an ear worm though, and I'll have to see how song plays in the next book of yours I read.  I like Eddie La Crosse.

(Quietly hums  "Brandy, you're a fine girl, What a good wife you would be, But my life, my love and my lady is the sea.")

The Bookshop on the Corner: A Novel by Jenny Colgan

A librarian in Birmingham (the UK one not the US one) gets laid off, and decides to open a mobile bookshop -- in Scotland. Sounds like a fun premise for a light read, right? And after all, I like books about books, because usually I get at least one good title to put on my wishlist. And a light read is sometimes just the ticket. Aside from being completely misnamed, "The Bookshop on the Corner" was indeed a Even with my ARC frustrations, I still enjoyed the book. I'd like to thank the publishers and Library Thing early reviewers program for my copy of the book, and the author for one of the more entertaining Message to Readers. 2016-read, advanced-reader-copy, books-about-books, early-review-librarything, made-me-look-something-up, read  quick, light read. ("On the corner" makes the shop sound land based, when in fact, it is in a van, and rides the country side. Also, the actual name of the shop is "The Little Shop of Happy Ever After", which I expect was the original title of the manuscript, but that some editor found too twee, and changed it. I have no problems with changing the book title, but make it fit the book!) The main frustrations I had with it might be because I was reading an ARC. I am in the habit of looking up words I don't know as well as books mentioned which are unfamiliar. In this case, I looked up probably 17 words, two of which I was able to find meanings for. The others, thinking they possibly could be British slang I sent to various British and Scottish friends, who also were stumped. I can only assume I have somewhat unaware friends, or else these are typos that will be corrected before the final publication. As to books, aside from well-knowns, like Harry Potter or Swallows and Amazons, I was also singularly unsuccessful, even using amazon.uk. I sincerely hope there is a glossary of books mentioned for readers who wish to follow-up on interesting sounding books. But as I said, these may be ARC frustrations, and really didn't interfere too much with the telling of the story.

Time and Time Again by Ben Elton

I got a little snitty reading this book, complaining to my self, and to husband, that if someone's going to write a time-travel book, at least they should know history. I even went to tweet about it, but then had the sudden thought that the things that were bothering me, might actually be a plot element, and I shouldn't go all history major on the author, but be patient and read the book. Glad I listened to myself (and  stopped the tweet before I hit "post"). It allowed me to figure out one plot twist, but be surprised still by another. 

Let me ask you this: if you could go back in history and change one thing to fix the wrongs of the world, what would it be? I love a book that's food for thought.

tags: 2016-read, made-me-look-something-up, made-me-think, read, science-fiction, thank-you-charleston-county-library, time-travel-reincarnation-etc

At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier

I never come away from a Chevalier novel without knowing I have gained something. Sometimes that "something" is a wonderful bit of fiction, but often, it also is that more elusive classroom of life, where I have learned a bit more about the subject of which she's written. It can be painting a masterpiece, weaving one of my favorite medieval tapestries, finding fossils, or as in this book, more about trees and our nation's history in the early to mid 1800's. The story starts in the swamps of northwest Ohio (okay, I admit it. I didn't know there were swamps there) with the somewhat hapless and luckless Goodenough family, who are, indeed, good enough to make a mess of things, including planting the orchard that would allow them to claim ownership of their land. (Now that decree I did know about: to claim a sake of farmland, there needed to be 50 trees planted as an orchard in 3 years of settling, to show you were really serious about farming the land.) The story bounces back and forth between James and Sadie, sometimes sideswiping their surviving children, and then moves to follow the youngest, Robert, as he travels west. (The day Robert first saw the giant sequoias of California was the day I also discovered old family pictures from 1962 when my own family discovered them as well.)

Chevalier has woven two actual figures into the novel, both of whom have crossed my interest radar in the past: John Chapman (aka Johnny Appleseed) and William Lobb, each of whom helped transport trees (actually seeds, seedlings, and saplings) from their natural environment to new ones, often miles and growing zones away.  Fascinating stuff, how we changed our world through plants. And because that fascinates me, the story built around it interested me, too.

Tags: 2016-read, an-author-i-read, made-me-look-something-up, read,  taught-me-something, thank-you-charleston-county-library