It doesn’t take long for me to realize how fortunate we are to live in small town America. A once a week look at the TV news and daily snippets of NPR radio news seals the deal for me. I like being able to do my business quickly. I can go to the bank, the post office, library, grocery store and hardware store and be back home in less than an hour. If there are more than four cars at a traffic light waiting for it to turn green, I wonder, “What’s going on with all this traffic?”
I spent a week end with my sister near Baltimore two weeks ago to attend A Woman’s Journey, 1000 women were there. We have attended before, it is always a wonderful experience. The event is sponsored by Johns Hopkins Medical Center and all the speakers are J.H. doctors. My sister has lived in urban Maryland for more than thirty years and has become very accustomed to the traffic and hustle bustle. I asked her if she felt like she was coming to the end of the world when she comes to visit me. She suddenly had that look of a deer in the headlights as she nodded, ” Definitely, yes!” Even so, she is coming for another visit this weekend.
I read another entertaining novel by David Baldacci, The Escape. I love his books. I am currently reading a nonfiction The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. It is a Pulitzer Prize winner and chosen by The New York Times as one of the Ten Best Books in 2010. Lucky me, I found it last winter on a book store’s discount table while we were on vacation. It is not a fast read, small print, 549 pages, (NOT counting the 73 pages of the index and author notes!) And I have less time to read with the holidays fast approaching. It is the epic story of America’s great migration of the southern blacks moving north and west during the one hundred years after the Civil War. I am frequently shocked as I am reading…at how badly they were treated in the south. It is a worthwhile book. I’m only half way through it.
Last week we saw the Mocking Jay 2. I loved it! The series was so well done and I was sorry to see the story end. We went to the Movie House, (theater), in our small town, and were home ten minutes after the movie ended. Gotta love small towns!
Today we are getting ready for tomorrow’s turkey and ham fest. Our granddaughter flew home for the long holiday weekend from Stony Brook U. last night, we are so excited to to see her! Air Force grandson, Ethan, will be home from Japan for Christmas. Blessings! Not everyone will be here this year but I am sure we will talk to those who couldn’t come. There will be 19 of us sitting around our Thanksgiving dinner table. We are indeed fortunate.
Till next month, keep reading my friends.
Later, Ann