I love it when a plan comes together — or even when a plan looks like it might be taking shape. Or at the very least, when more and more people seem to agree we need a plan, or plans. Most of the challenges we face require more than one solution, but at least there seems to be a rising tide of voices looking at sea level rise and its impact on land, economy and communities.
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“I feel,” author Pete Fortenbaugh says, “that Johnsontown is a perfect petri dish to explore the complex dynamics of small community life in the face of an ever-changing world.”
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On September 11, 2001 almost everything – meals, laundry, garden, work –everything beyond search and rescue suddenly seemed irrelevant.
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Marisa Tomei — yes, THAT Marisa Thomei, award-winning actor, producer and activist — bought the book and sent it to Hollywood!
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Great Blue Heron. credit: National Park Service
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Abigail Adams was a Mighty Girl. A woman for her own time and — in demanding women’s right to vote 150 years before we finally won it — ahead of her time. She deserves to be remembered on International Women’s Day.
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Slowly I'm getting back into book activities since the pandemic hit. There are no Book Talks or Readings these days. My focus now is on podcasts, which I know little about, but am about to learn a lot more. One of my daughters, who recently started a health and wellness coaching business, is giving me ideas on content and the mechanics of podcasts. I've just written my first episode of a series.
Read MoreAfter all the newspapers and magazines I’ve been reading for years on end, I’m switching to books! My family supports my new habit with lots of good reads including the one I’m into now—a biography of the great actor John Barrymore…. I do have one problem with my copy of this particular book, however, and that is mildew. I am literally sneezing my way through it. We buy a lot of used books from various used book sellers, including THE BOOKPLATE in Chestertown, which I highly recommend. https://www.thebookplate.net Any lover of well-used books knows they sometimes bring with them telltale reminders of the prior owner’s damp house, garage or basement. So we deal with that. My husband has developed a reasonably successful remedy. He stands the book pyramid style over an office air vent, pages fluttering in the warm breeze. It takes a few days but definitely helps.
Mildew aside, it’s a terrific read. So when the New Year turned, I toasted not only 2020 but also 1944, the year Gene Fowler wrote Good Night Sweet Prince: The Life and Times of John Barrymore.
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Now that my book’s out…I got into a conversation the other day with a fellow who’s painting the house. He starts telling me about a big job he had painting Pearl Buck’s house years ago…He tells me there were ghosts in her house.
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