It’s August already! How did this happen? Time must fly ever faster in a place of the heart. Maybe even place of the healthy heart. Note the ANTI-oxidant-filled blueberries ripening before your eyes on the webcam and the willowy Queen Anne’s Lace, wafting into Fall. Note, too, the few, very few, more sailboats in the harbor.
Lobster boats and sail boats moored and moving in the harbor's Main Street.
Then, when the news of the rest of the world was filled with people behaving badly, just in time, a hero emerges. Walter Leonard, former classification czar, has filed a formal complaint against the National Security Agency and Justice Department seeking punishment of officials who classified a document that he says contained no secrets. Finally someone is willing to take on over-zealous classifiers and the (mostly elected or appointed) officials who don’t want us to know what they are doing to us or ours. A familiar Freedom of Information rant, maybe, but today, one with a welcome twist.
On that happy note, I will blame the fleeting time, a bit brisker book business, and flicking fingers of webcam downtime fame to justify putting bookish email responses here for all to see and maybe help out with a comment. #1: If one moves to Boston, what are some good getting-to-know-you books? Hard to say for someone else, but as I became worldly at the Wahpeton (ND) Public Library a year or two ago, I found Cleveland Amory’s The Proper Bostonians generally helpful, especially when later enjoying Nicholas Kilmer’s Man With A Squirrel, Charlotte MacLeod’s The Withdrawing Room, or Jane Langton’s Murder at the Gardner. And maybe because I’ve always liked political novels, I liked Edwin O’Connor’s The Last Hurrah for big-city Irish politics made more current by William Bulger’s While the Music Lasts: My Life in Politics with a side look at Howie Carr’s The Brothers Bulger which adds to the mix brother Whitey, so much in the newspaper of late. Obviously, these mostly oldies are intended to get you into Boston Public Library for some serious shelf-browsing and to appreciate that BPL has an outstanding President in Amy Ryan. Hi, Amy. Other suggestions?
Oh dear. If you are refreshing the webcam, you see the dog and walker venturing off the road with no poo bag in sight. When you come, just remember where not to walk with eyes up.
#2: You might want first to look through Robert Finch’s Iambics of Newfoundland (when you are here next year, I hope) because the person who bought it recently said it was not what she expected and mostly slow-going. #3: Remember as you devour Douglas Preston’s Dinosaurs in the Attic that Albert Bickmore, Museum of Natural History’s first Director, lived in the second house down the hill from Roseledge Books. This may not convince you that a degree in Museum Studies is in your future, but it may hint at what you missed at the Sea Street Barn Sale several years ago. Something you won’t miss when you come and the tide is out are “the wrecks” in the cove out front of the house next door, burned before Harry’s aunt bought the house because burning was cheaper than insuring or hauling them away.
A kelp-covered remnant of schooners burned in the cove below Roseledge
First bestseller of the summer (3 copies sold): Farley Mowat’s Bay of Spirits. Lee Vance’s Restitution is likely to be the second, but first I have to get the box of new books from the post office. They don’t deliver because I live too close and I don’t walk because there is not time enough. So you all get to enjoy more pleasure of anticipation.
Day downer: Tom Cruise is going to play Jack Reacher, yes 6’5″ 250 lbs. Jack Reacher, in the movies. AARGHHH!
Spiderman turns into a circus and Jack Reacher becomes a cartoon. DOUBLE AARGHHH!
Triple AARGHHH! Those “oxidant-filled blueberries” need a prefix!