Regal Fritillary

 On Friday 7 of us gathered at the Weaver Dunes Nature Conservancy location to collect wild flower seeds. We had to drive to another spot. The four women rode in the conservancy's Ford F150. Dang, it is hard for me to get into the back seat of a Ford F150 but I managed. I collected thimble weed seeds in a milk jug attached to my carabiner. When we were coming close to the end of our 3 hour shift the seeds were close to the top of the milk jug. Every time I opened the jug to put more seeds in the prairie wind would take an equal amount out. I saw half a dozen regal fritillary butterflies. These orange and black butterflies are scarce and threatened but they are plentiful on this prairie.

 

 

The Twenty-Ninth Day

Alex Messenger is the author of The Twenty-Ninth Day. This is a coming of age story about a 17 year old young man. Alex is an adventurous who embarks on a canoe trip with 5 other young men through the Canadian wilderness. They take three canoes and three bear barrels of food. They paddle through rivers with harrowing rapids and large lakes. The scenery was gorgeous. Along they way they catch trout and grayling and fry them up for meals. Some of the meals sounded delicious. On the 29th day of their adventure, while alone exploring an ancient indigenous site, Alex is attacked by a grizzly. He has a severe puncture wound to his right groin. He has scratches on his back, his ear. Two of the tips of his toes are missing. Over the next six days his friends take care of him. They have a first aid kit with limited supplies. They have a satellite phone where they get medical advice. This book was riveting and exciting to read.

 

  

Paper Girl

Beth Macy is the author of Paper Girl: A Memoir Of Home And Family In A Fractured America. Beth grew up in Urbana, Ohio. She was the youngest of five children. Her father was an alcoholic. Her mother worked hard to support the family. Beth had a job delivering newspapers in the early morning. She did well in school. She got a degree in journalism with the help of a Pell grant. She married and had two kids and lived on the east coast. Starting in 2020 she returned to Urbana to help care for her ailing mother. She noticed the town had changed. The town no longer had a newspaper. The was no cohesiveness. Social supports were falling away. High school graduation rates had plummeted. More and more parents resorted to home schooling or religious charter schools. Some of the town members got deep into QAnon and conspiracy theories. Former friends couldn't talk to each other anymore because of the political divide. The author tells the story by interviewing a couple of high school students who are struggling with homelessness and family addictions. I thought it was a very interesting story.

 

  

My Lobotomy

My Lobotomy is a biography written by Howard Dully with the assistance of a journalist. Howard grew up in California. His mother died of cancer when he was six years old. For a time his father and brother lived with other family members. Later his father married a woman named Lou who also had a son. Howard was a normal boy. He was big for his age. For unknown reasons Lou took a deep dislike to him and everything he did. He was punished more strictly. He was denied things his brothers got. His father was working four jobs and was never home much. She kept taking Howard to psychiatrists and they kept telling her nothing was wrong. Then she found Dr. Walter Freeman. Dr. Freeman thought he was being helpful but he wasn't. After four electro shock treatments Dr. Freeman lobotimized Howard. He inserted ice picks into his eyes until they were two and a half inches into his brain and then he twirled them. Lou thought he would be a vegetable but he wasn't. He recovered. Lou said if Howard's father didn't get rid of him she would get a divorce. Howard's father had him enter an institution for handicapped children. Howard's grandmother wanted to adopt him but his father wouldn't allow it. By the time he turned twenty and was released from the institution he had no diploma, no job skills, and didn't know how to write a check. He was homeless for a time. Then he started stealing from pawn shops by writing bad checks. He spent his twenties in and out of jail. He spent his 30's as an alcoholic. When he was forty he met Barbara and started to put his life together. When Howard turned 50 a pair of journalists were planning to do a radio show on NPR about Dr. Freeman. Howard helped with the interviews. He got to read the deceased doctor's notes about him and the other patients he lobotomized. He was eventually thrown out of all hospitals and the medical profession. This was a very interesting book to read.

 

 

My Year Of Rest And Relaxation

Ottessa Moshfegh is the author of the 2018 novel called My Year Of Rest And Relaxation. This is a darkly comedic novel about a young, beautiful, wealthy college graduate who wants to take time off work to rest. She can use her trust funds to pay her expenses. Both of her parents have recently passed away. She lives in Manhattan in a building with a doorman. She quits her job at an art gallery. She finds a psychiatrist with unusual methods. This psychiatrist throws drugs at her willy nilly. She gets ambien, vicodin, Xanas, Risperidol, anti-anxiety, anti-psychotic, and sleeping pills. One of them has a side effect where she leaves the building and goes shopping so she is careful about that one. The only glitch is that her college friend, Reva, keeps coming to visit. Reva is jealous of her wealth and beauty. Her visits are sometimes pleasant and other times annoying. I think it's crazy that a young woman in the prime of her life wants to sleep her life away to reset her life. One summer day Reva calls again and her call is not answered. Soon after that 9/11 happens. Reva is at work at the World Trade Centers and she looses her life.

 

  

The Sparrow

The Sparrow is a novel published in 2019 by Mary Doria Russell. This is a long (8 hours to read) book set partly in Puerto Rico, Italy, and another planet in the solar system. The main character is a Puerto Rican Jesuit priest named Emilio. He is living in Puerto Rico supporting a church and the impoverished children around the church. He invited his friends to join him. Anne and George are married. She is a physician. He is an engineer. Another friend, Jimmy, lives in the area. Jimmy is an astronomer. One night Jimmy hears signals from another planet. Research starts. These four people plus another female scientists and three Jesuit priests embark on an adventure to that distant planet. Despite the fact that there are so many Jesuit priests in the novel I wouldn't call it a religious novel. Spiritual yes but not religious. This was a very interesting novel to read.

 

 

Time Of The Lotus Bloom

Now is the season for the blooming of American lotus. The flowers near shore stand higher above the water line than the flowers in deeper water. Lake Winona has 4 patches of lotus blossoms now. This is the largest aquatic wildflower in the state. I have seen them before when paddling the Mississippi in Cottage Grove near Lion's Park. Water lily leaves have a notch while lotus do not have a notch. If you splash water on the leaves the water beads up and rolls off like a windshield that has been Rain X'd. The waterproof leaves inspired scientists to develop Gore Tex. I think lotus are beautiful.

 

One More Thing

B.J. Novak is the author of One More Thing: Stories And Other Stories. If you ever watched the television comedy series The Office, you probably know who B.J. Novak is. He also does stand up comedy. This book is a series of short stories. Some are a paragraph long. Others are 50 pages long. After finishing the book I highly suspect that if the author wasn't a television star I doubt this book would have been worth publishing. 

 

 

 

 

All In Her Head

I recently finished a medical history book by Dr. Elizabeth Comen called All In Her Head: The Truth And Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women's Bodies And Why It Matters Today. From the beginning of medical history in ancient Greece and Rome, this physician details how women has been discounted by physicians over the years. Some people think women have flawed versions of the ideal male body. This thinking is pervasive throughout society. She explores eleven organ systems and lays out the details which can be enraging at times. After finishing it I feel informed and angry.

 

 

Songs Of Willow Frost

Jamie Ford is the author of Songs Of Willow Frost. Years ago I read his other book called Hotel On The Corner Of Bitter And Sweet and absolutely loved it. I loved this book too. The story is about William Eng who is living in an orphanage in Seattle, Washington during the depression. When he was a young boy his mother's  limp body was carried out of their apartment. He was told she was gone forever. Once a year all the boys in the orphanage celebrate their birthday. He and the other boys are taken downtown to see a movie. He sees an actress called Willow Frost and he is sure she is his mother. With a friend he runs away from the orphanage to find her. His mother has a complicated history that the film industry does not want known. 

 

 

Homeschooled

Stefan Merrill Block is the author of Homeschooled: A Memoir. Stefan is the younger son in a family with two boys. His Dad worked as a counselor in a mental health clinic. His mother was a stay at home Mom although later she tutored other kids in math. Stefan's Mom encouraged him to be homeschooled. She didn't want him to grow up. She said she didn't want him to be damaged by the school environment. He reluctantly went along with it. They were living in Texas. Together they spent time swimming in the pool in the backyard or shopping at a mall. After five years of this he pushed to go back to school for high school. The adjustment was hard. He didn't know how to take tests. He didn't give up. He asked teachers for help. Eventually he caught up and did well in school. The author writes about his mother's manipulation of him honestly but he presents her with respect and affection.

 

 

 

 

August(us)

 Augustus was a chubby lad;
Fat ruddy checks Augustus had;
And every body saw with joy
The plump and hearty healthy boy.
He ate and drank as he was told,
And never let his soup get cold.
But one day, one cold winter’s day,
He scream’d out — “Take the soup away!
O take the nasty soup away!
I won’t have any soup to-day!”

 

Next day, now look, the picture shows
How lank and lean Augustus grows!
Yet, though he feels so weak and ill,
The naughty fellow cries out still —
“Not any soup for me, I say:
O take the nasty soup away!
I won’t have any soup to-day.”

 

 The third day comes; Oh what a sin!
To make himself so pale and thin.
Yet, when the soup is put on table,
He screams, as loud as he is able, —
“Not any soup for me, I say:
O take the nasty soup away!
I won’t have any soup to-day.”

 

Look at him, now the fourth day’s come!
He scarcely weighs a sugar-plum;
He’s like a little bit of thread,
And on the fifth day, he was — dead!

 

When I was in elementary school I was assigned to memorize a poem. I chose this poem out of a book of poems that my parents owned. They had a set of ten children books. The poem was written by Heinrich Hoffman