Wednesday, March 25, 2009

TRUE BLUE FOREVER

If your literary taste is limited to action/adventure novels where the hero saves the world at least once by the end of the first chapter, then True Blue Forever is probably not the book for you. It is a coming of age novel that grabs you by the heart rather than the throat. Scarbrough has recreated the world that most of us lived through, touching the reader with the joys and happiness of youth, as well as the sadness and anguish of our high school years. It is a nostalgic adventure for adults, but also a primer for those who have not passed this way before. You are going to love Jenna and Mickey, the two main characters of this novel, because you are going to see something of yourself in each of them. To paraphrase Pogo in the comic strip by the same name – we have met them and they are us. I highly recommend this book!

Monday, March 23, 2009

ASK AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN UNTO YOU . . .


In the middle of an impossibly hectic schedule, my computer died. I didn’t want to wait on the computer shop to fix it, so I called the tech guy and was connected to a number where they were playing some ancient Tommy Dorsey tunes. I swayed with the melody for what seemed like an eternity before the song segued into what sounded like a Turkish song, with a short-necked unfretted lute and a kudum drum in the background. I didn’t realize for a moment that the chanting was someone addressing me in a language that sounded suspiciously like English.

“How may I help you?” he sang.

I described my problem in as few words as possible and waited through a long, pregnant silence while he processed the input.

“You talk kind of funny,” he said at last. “We get Law and Order over here on the telly. You sound like that actor Fred Thompson who plays the district attorney.”

“Well, we are from the same neck of the woods,” I explained.

“You live in the woods?” he said.

Sigh . . . .
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