Author Archives: Mary

The Layered Look: The Painted Hills of Oregon

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Painted Hills 750

You have to keep reminding yourself that what you are seeing is real. The rolling, rounded hills striped with colors of rich rust, deep green, and yellow appear surreal, like an artist’s conception of outer space. You want to capture them on camera quickly before the illusion disappears, just to prove to the folks at home this marvelous pallet of pastels really exists.

Believe it. The Painted Hills in north central Oregon are authentic, and very old. About 30 million years ago, volcanoes from the Cascade Mountains 100 miles to the west deposited layer upon layer of cooled ash over the region. In time, plants and animals churned the surface, water flowed, eroding and redistributing the minerals, and air oxidized the ash. Many different minerals combine to produce the colorful display we see today: aluminum, silicon, iron, magnesium, manganese, sodium, and many more.

Very few plants are able to grow on the Painted Hills. The soils bind water so intensely plants are unable to draw nourishment. So, except in crevasses and gullies where some plants survive, the hills are bare.

From a distance the striped hill surfaces look hard as though they are painted on canvas, but close-up, you can see they have a popcorn appearance and, particularly after a rain, they are soft and spongy. For this reason, visitors are asked to keep on trails and to avoid walking on the hills. Noticeable trails, however, are created by deer and antelope.

Several good walking trails traverse Painted Hills with excellent interpretive signs and brochures. The moderately strenuous, 1.5-mile Carroll Rim Trail rewards the hiker with an outstanding view of the Painted Hills and Sutton Mountain. For a close-up view of a crimson hill and to see the claystone popcorn structure, take the short Painted Cove Trail which winds around the hill on a wooden walkway.

Another interesting hike is the quarter-mile Leaf Hill Trail that takes walkers past the area where large quantities of plant fossils have been removed for study. Except for this trail, fossils are rarely found in the Painted Hills.

The Painted Hills, located 10 miles west of Mitchell, off U.S. 26, is one of three units of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. In 1975 Congress established the monument which is composed of 14,000 acres and contains rocks preserving millions of years of plant and animal life. The other two units are the Sheep Rock Unit, near the town of Dayville, Oregon, and the Clarno Unit, 18 miles west of Fossil, Oregon. The Sheep Rock Unit, located at the intersection of State Route 19 and U.S. 26, has several trails and overlooks.

The Clarno Unit, 18 miles west of Fossil, OR, known for its Clarno Nut Beds, is one of the world’s finest fossil plant sources where more than 300 plant species have been found. Several trails allow visitors to see the actual fossils embedded in rock.

Be sure to visit the Thomas Condon Palenotology Center, a National Park Service research facility dedicated to the John Day Fossil Beds. It also serves as the park visitor center and fossil museum. We were fascinated as we watched through a picture window a scientist at work in a laboratory and collections room which contains more than 45,000 specimens.

Another interesting side visit is the James Cant Ranch, located on both sides of the John Day River in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. The Cant Ranch complex is preserved as an interpretive site showing visitors an early 20th-century livestock ranch. The James Cant Ranch is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In addition, there are several short trails with exhibits showing a ranch of yesteryear with original wagons and farming equipment.

There are several camping facilities near Prineville, a small town (population 5,000) about 50 miles southwest of the Painted Hills. Prineville Reservoir State Park, located 17 miles south of Prineville, is a large 70-site facility. In addition, several U.S. Forest Service campgrounds are in the area.

Take your time at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. The area, particularly the Painted Hills, is a unique, fascinating place to visit and a photographer’s delight.

 

Book Review: Moonshadows

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Moonshadows

 

Settle in for an engaging period mystery with Moonshadows by Julie Weston.

Nellie Burns steps into a man’s world of photography in the small mining town of Ketchum, Idaho in the early 1920s. In Chicago she’d worked in a photography studio, but only with portraits. Now she plans to follow her heart’s desire with nature photography.

Nellie hires crusty retired miner Rosy Kipling to take her out to capture a winter night scene where “the moon will shine full on and create shadows on snow.” Although he’s never far from his bottle of whiskey, he and Nellie form a sort of bond.

While on her cold night-time trek, she makes a startling discovery at a nearby cabin. She discovers a hideous crime, then another. Nellie uses her talents as a photographer to capture on film what she discovers, but then finds herself embroiled in the mystery. Nellie’s fierce desire to be independent may cause her to be a victim as well. As the story spins into a tight mystery, Nellie emerges as a reluctant heroine, sometimes doubtful of her course, but determined that right will prevail.

The reader sees, through Nellie’s observant eyes, the flavor of Idaho’s rugged landscape in the early 20th Century. Moonshadows is packed with Idaho history, rich characters and information about the early days of photography and its cumbersome equipment. Weston does a worthy job of capturing the spirit of small town living and the attitudes of the day.

Moonshadows is the first of the series, ”A Nellie Burns and Moonshine Mystery.” For more information about the author, visit julieweston.com

Book Review: Free Spirit

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Free SpiritJoshua Safran’s Free Spirit: Growing up on the Road and off the Grid is a haunting, beautifully written memoir about his appalling childhood. Although the subject matter is grim, the book is never-the-less poignant and often wryly funny.

Joshua’s early memories take place in the l970s San Francisco. His mother Claudia, steeped in hippie/revolutionary activism, searches for what she believes to be utopia. She leaves San Francisco in search of the perfect “intentional community,” a promised land free of nuclear war.

Joshua and his mother embark on a series of wild on-the-road adventures. There is no doubt Claudia loves her son, but many of her actions show a gross lack of common sense. In one instance, mother and son travel for days–mostly hitchhiking–to a Rainbow Gathering. She doesn’t think to bring a tent, or even food. Joshua is left on his own for days while his mother takes up with a just-met lover. Rain-soaked and miserable, the six-year-old pilfers a blanket and, on his own, finds food and shelter. Drugs and alcohol are plentiful; real food scarce.

Through the years Claudia travels with different men, but Joshua, even as a young child, can see no idealistic future with any of them. Claudia is unbelievably naive, always making excuses for her current lover’s failings. Through all their travels, she teaches her son a love of books and he learns to read at an early age.

They try a variety of living situations–communes, make-shift homes, a teepee, buses, a trailer, an abandoned ice-cream truck, and on Camano Island, Washington, a lean-to built on a stump. In the meantime Claudia has married an abusive Salvadorian guerrilla. Joshua struggles with his step-father’s alcohol-fueled abuse to both his mother and to him, or alternatively listens to their noisy love-making in their tiny water-logged shack. Joshua is eager to go to school, but he has huge obstacles to overcome to even get ready. They have no running water, no electricity, not even a decent outhouse. Joshua doesn’t own a comb, toothbrush, or a mirror. His clothes are patched and dirty. Kids bully him and tease him about his unkempt appearance. Still, he loves school, loves to learn and especially loves being warm. Eventually they move to Stanwood, just across the bridge from Camano Island, and he takes solace in the Stanwood library, relishing in the many books, being able to use the bathroom to wash himself with warm running water, and as a refuge from his abusive step-father.

Free Spirit is, in the end, a story of triumph. The language is rough and the situations harrowing, but it is an honest, stark but eloquently-told coming-of-age story. At the end of the book the author sums up his adult life. What he has accomplished is impressive.

To learn more about the author, visit http://www.jsafran.com/

 

Book Review: Go Set a Watchman

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go-set-a-watchman-281x400Go Set a Watchman, the book itself, has an interesting history. When Harper Lee presented her first novel to a literary agent in the 1960’s, the author was persuaded to rewrite it from the main character, the child Jean Louise Finch’s, point of view. To Kill a Mockingbird was the result, a book that became one of the most widely read books dealing with race in America. Now, 55 years later, the “original” book has been released.

Go Set a Watchman begins with Jean Louise Finch, now 26, returning home to the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, from New York City, where she has lived and worked for the past few years. She plans to spend three weeks visiting her father, 72 year-old Atticus Finch a beloved attorney who, despite suffering the crippling effects of rheumatoid arthritis, still practices law. Although the novel doesn’t specify the date, it is presumably in the mid-to-late 1950’s, because the Supreme Court has passed the school desegregation law, a 1954 law that has incensed most Southerners.

Having lived in New York, Jean Louise is seeing Maycomb County in a different light. In New York she has worked and lived near people of color, but in Maycomb she’s taken aback by what she sees as gross inequality. Worse, she sees her father, whom she has always worshiped, in a different, unfavorable light.

Go Set a Watchman is an important book for our times. Harper Lee doesn’t gloss over racial attitudes. She looks at the whole person, strengths and flaws together. While To Kill a Mockingbird is considered a coming-of-age novel, Go Set a Watchman is a coming-of-age novel for an adult, a work of wisdom, humanity and passion, a book evocative of another time, but relevant today. It isn’t necessarily a fun or easy read, but it’s a book that made me think. I highly recommend Go Set a Watchman.

Book Review: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand

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Major Pettigrew

Helen Simonson’s debut novel, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, is a delightful, charming story centered around Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired).

In the small English countryside village of Edgecombe St. Mary, Major Pettigrew, a widower, is attracted to a lovely widow, Pakistani shopkeeper, Mrs. Jasmina Ali. Although Mrs. Ali was born in Great Britain and, in fact, has never been to Pakistan, she follows many of the traditions of her culture.

The Major and Mrs. Ali are drawn together by their love of literature and loneliness resulting from the loss of their spouses, but soon find themselves caught up in stronger feelings than mere friendship and a good pot of tea.

When they attend a country club program that spirals out of control, they find their relationship threatened. The village considers the Major a pillar of their community, while regarding Mrs. Ali as a foreigner.

The author, Helen Simonson, was born in England and raised in a small village. The English humor and way of expression is part of the enchantment of this novel. At one point the Major finds himself in a stressful situation. “He calmed his voice to a tone suitable for placating large dogs or small, angry children.” Great emphasis is placed on tradition, the importance of one’s family, and appearances. The threat of change can be one’s undoing, or can it be a good thing?

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand is a fun read, but it also has its moments of truth, issues most of us face in our modern world. I loved spending time in the English mindset, particularly of an older man happily set in his ways. And I particularly appreciated Major Pettigrew’s wit. To learn more about the author, visit http://www.helensimonson.com/

Book Review: Arctic Dreams

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Arctic DreamsArctic Dreams by Barry Lopez is a compelling masterpiece about the Arctic, the mysterious land of stunted forests, frozen seas, and animals perfectly suited to the harsh far north.

The book offers exquisite descriptions of the biology, anthropology, and history of a land few of us will ever see. The arctic’s harshness has carved a way of life unknown to all but a few. Through the centuries, various countries have sent men to explore this mysterious land, and more often than not, the explorers did not live to tell about it.

Arctic Dreams is not a book you rush through. Nor does the author hurry through his descriptions of the animals, plants, sea life, or the frozen sea itself that is both the giver and taker of life.

Lopez’s keen observation of life is amazing in its scope. He is an uncompromising defender of the wild country and its native inhabitants, and shares minute details of the far north. He lingers with his description of the polar bear, its habits, its ability to not only survive but thrive in this cold country. He shares his fascination of the narwhal with its ivory tusk spiraling out of its forehead. This “unicorn of the sea” lives year round in the Arctic waters of Greenland, Canada and Russia. Many animals, birds and sea life are discussed in great detail: how they survive, how they relate to each other as sources of food, and how they serve the native people.

The author speaks highly of the Eskimos and normally uses that broader term for the native Arctic people throughout the book. Eskimos today more often speak of themselves in terms or their origin, such as “Inuit” that refers specifically to Eskimos of the eastern Canadian Arctic. Lopez has high regard for the Eskimos’ skill of survival, of observation, and adaptation to the harsh environment.

Memorable moments in the book stay with me. In describing a particular scene at Melville Bay, Lopez states, “It was so beautiful it made you cry,” but in the next breath, while looking at an iceberg, he says, “It was so beautiful it made you afraid.”

Lopez’ Arctic is a land of contradictions and mystery, of rare, raw beauty. Through Barry Lopez’s precise and thorough descriptions, I experienced a sense of this frozen landscape and could see, through his observant eyes, the beauty of this wild place.

If you’re a lover of nature and value detailed descriptions, you will appreciate Arctic Dreams. It’s a scholarly and engaging Arctic experience. To learn more about the author, visit http://www.barrylopez.com/

Book Review: Sacred Hearts

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Sacred HeaartsI was riveted to this book. Having read Sarah Dunant’s The Birth of Venus, I hoped this last novel of the trilogy would be as good. I wasn’t disappointed. Sacred Hearts is a powerful account of convent life in the northern Italian city of Ferrara.

In the late sixteenth century, the price of wedding doweries was so exorbitant that most noble families could afford to marry off only one daughter. The remaining women were dispatched to convents, with doweries to be sure, but much less than for a wedding. Many of these women went against their will. Some adjusted to the rigors of convent life, others chafed at the idea of spending their lives cloistered in a strict environment, following rigid rules, sometimes at the whims and dictates of the outside world.

When sixteen-year-old Serefina is forced into the Santa Caterina convent, ripped from her family and the man she loves, she is consumed with rage. She’s a talented young woman, bright and gifted with a thrilling singing voice, but she is determined to never surrender to what she believes to be a place of horrors.

Sister Zuana, the convent’s dispensary mistress and the daughter of a doctor, is sent to sedate the ranting young newcomer. Remembering her early years at Santa Caterina, the older nun becomes a mentor. What follows–the intricate relationship of trust and betrayal–is the story of Sacred Hearts. The Abbess, Madonna Chiara, who commands the convent’s total and unquestioning obedience, plays an important role in the intrigue and complications of life in a shuttered world.

Durant describes convent life in such realistic detail that the reader can feel the chilly dampness of the stone walls and floors, the bone-weariness of 2:00 a.m .prayers, the discipline of imposed fasting, silence, and humiliation. But one also feels the pure acceptance of Christ, the joys of serving, and of being able to exercise one’s talents to benefit sisters of the convent to the glory of God.

Sacred Hearts is an absorbing, meticulously researched novel of historical fiction. Durant gives life to the Renaissance period, particularly of its brutal affect on women.

I highly recommend this book and plan to read the second of the trilogy, In the Company of the Courtesan.

Harmattan!

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Image © 1968 Sydney Oats, used under CC by 2.0 license

Image © 1968 Sydney Oats, used under CC by 2.0 license

 

From:  Tubob: Two Years in West Africa with the Peace Corps

 

 

One day while living and working in the west African country of The Gambia with the Peace Corps, my husband Bruce and I looked to the east and saw a solid wall of sand coming our way. Fierce winds carried sand and dust with amazing force. The wind was so great, Bruce hung onto a corner of our roof, afraid that it would blow off. I hung on to Bruce. We closed our eyes to the stinging wind and bowed our heads to shield our eyes. When it was over we found sand everywhere, in every crevice, nook and corner.

A harmattan? We’d heard of the harmattan, a strong wind that blows from the Sahara Desert during the dry season. This must have been it.

A couple of weeks later we received a note from George Scharffenburger, The Gambia’s Peace Corps Director. He was bringing his guest, Terry, who was in charge of The Gambia desk at Peace Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C. to visit us. Terry was interested in seeing how Peace Corps volunteers lived and worked in their host country.

We lived in what was known as the “U.N. compound.” Our living conditions were quite adequate, considering some Peace Corps accommodations. And compared to our African neighbors, our kitchen was luxurious. In The Gambia, most villagers where we lived “up river” in the village of Mansajang, cooked on an open fire, with a large pot balanced on three rocks.

We considered our living situation very special with a 3-room mud-brick 30 x 10-foot house, and a round thatched-roof one-room mud-brick hut, about 20 feet in diameter, that we used for a bedroom. The 3-room house contained a kitchen, a small sitting room where we ate, and a small bedroom. The bedroom was for the convenience of U.N. visiting guests, such as the Frenchman responsible for keeping the many fresh-water well foot-pumps in repair. Bruce worked as a Peace Corps volunteer for the United Nations well-digging unit, while I was a health worker based at the Basse Health Centre.

By American standards, our 3-room house was very crude. There was no glass in the windows, nor screens. There was a large gap between the corrugated roof and walls, and all that openness meant flying insects had easy entry. The kitchen didn’t have running water; in fact, it didn’t have a sink. We did have a small refrigerator, which was a blessing, and a small propane 3-burner stove, much like a camp stove. There were no enclosed built-in cupboards, but we fashioned a set of shelves for our food supplies. Our pots and pans, dishes and silverware were arranged on a table, which also served as my work space to prepare meals.

Our shared latrine, merely a hole in the ground, was in a corner of the compound with a thatched fence around it for privacy.

An African family also lived in the compound, plus there were two empty huts, placed there for the convenience of traveling U.N. drivers transporting supplies back and forth 250 miles to the capital city, Banjul. The African family of 4 lived in a round hut exactly like the one we used as our bedroom.

George and Terry arrived bearing mail for us from our family. There was no individual mail service where we lived, but it was the custom for people coming from the capital city to bring mail with them. We showed them around; Terry was obviously impressed and mentioned that we had a nice arrangement. Up-river where we lived in “the bush” was noticeably hotter than down-river where they had the benefit of ocean breezes.

Terry soon wanted to take a shower. She was a bit taken aback, when I showed her our “shower,” which amounted to a wooden platform with two full buckets of water. Terry had never taken a bucket bath, but she was game. Actually, I think she thought it quaint. When finished, I noticed she didn’t go to the well to refill the buckets for the next person, as she had found them. The well we used served the entire village of Mansajang.

I served dinner, we had a nice visit, then turned in for the night. The “guest” bedroom had two single cots. During the night we had another harmattan. There’s really nothing we could do to protect ourselves or our guests. With all the openings in the small house and nothing but screens in the hut, we just hunkered down to wait it out. This was Terry’s first experience with a harmattan. The next morning she woke up covered with fine sand in her hair, her ears, her bedding, even in her opened suitcase. With resignation, I began washing all the pots, pans, dishes and silverware which lay exposed on the table so that I could begin to prepare our breakfast. But first, I had to dump water out of the kitchen pail, since it was filthy with sand and dirt, and fetch fresh water from the well. Things move slowly in Africa.

Terry obviously no longer felt our living situation quaint. I don’t know that she saw the humor in my statement, “Now you know how a sugar cookie feels.” George and Terry’s enthusiasm for our living conditions vanished. They couldn’t leave fast enough. For us it was business as usual.

 

 

Book Review: Life in a Whirlwind of Numbers: 26 Years of OCD

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Life in a WhirlwindIn Life in a Whirlwind of Numbers: 26 Years of OCD, David William Dahlberg shares his painful and often overwhelming life with OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder).. What made David’s condition even more tragic is that his condition went undiagnosed until well into his adulthood.

Triggered by a distressing event in his early teens, Dahlberg is tormented by consuming images and frightening scenes that won’t go away. He develops ritual behavior that he repeats over and over again to expel the tormenting images. Math was an easy subject for Dahlberg, but numbers both triggered his phobias and played into temporarily abating them by numerically ritualizing common actions. With a complicated system of calculations, he determined which numbers, or combination of numbers, were “good” and which were “bad.” Even going to bed would sometimes take a half hour or more, taking his feet off the floor a prescribed number of times, coinciding with the clock.

His condition began affecting his school work. He was a bright, musically talented boy, but, left on his own it would take an uncommonly long time to complete his lessons, obsessing over a phrase and repeatedly writing it. Often socially withdrawn, he would infuriate teachers and other students with inappropriate comments. Studying by himself seemed impossible; he couldn’t stay focused on the task at hand. Although he could concentrate on music while in band or orchestra, when alone he found himself repeating the same passage over and over again, obsessed with doing it the “correct” number of times.

It became clear, especially in later years looking back, that when he was in a classroom or otherwise around people he could hide his irrational fears, or at least he wouldn’t act on them when he could be observed. But when alone his time and energy were spent trying to dispel the persistent images.

Throughout his school and college years, Dahlberg struggled with OCD, while all this time his condition went undiagnosed. He had never even heard the term Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. In addition to having to make his rituals in certain numeric order, for years he suffered from sleep deprivation. He was married a number of years before a crisis occurred in which he sought professional help. It was then that he learned his condition had a name: OCD.

Life in a Whirlwind of Numbers is a well-told story about the all-consuming, debilitating affects of OCD. I admire the author’s honesty and courage in discussing his often painful and tormented life. He leaves the reader with hope that diagnosis and treatment are available, as are medications to bring relief. I recommend this enlightening book to anyone interested in learning more about obsessions, and especially to those who suffer from the affects of this condition.

Book Review: The Interestings

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Meg Wolitzer’s engrossing novel, The Interestings, brings the reader into the lives of six The Interestingsteenagers who meet at a summer camp for the arts, form a strong bond, and call themselves “The Interestings.” Some of the teens come from wealthy families, some are there on scholarship. To them it makes no difference: they form life-long friendships that will endure through decades. That is, most of them. Some will follow different, even dangerous paths.

Most of the novel is seen through the eyes of Jules Jacobson, who comes to the summer camp with aspirations to become a comic actress. Beautiful and gracious Ash, Jules’ best friend and hopeful playwright, and Ethan, a gifted animator, eventually marry and become extraordinarily wealthy. We follow the six teens into adulthood as they pursue their diversified lives.

The book takes place almost exclusively in New York beginning in 1974, the year President Nixon resigns, and sweeps through to the characters’ fifties. Wolitzer’s skill in following these six characters—male and female, young and old, gay and straight, rich and of ordinary means, depressed and vital—is never confusing, and is always thoughtful and perceptive. Even though there are flashbacks, I always knew where in the story I was. The author articulates the thoughts of the various characters with feeling and humor, consistent with their age. She also brings us along with the times: the early days of diagnosed HIV-positive, cordless phones, the Moonies, Women’s Lib, the Internet.

The Interestings is an ambitious human study and is immensely entertaining. The paperback version I read has 538 highly absorbing pages. I found myself fully engrossed with the characters, place, and time.

Meg Wolitzer is an accomplish writer and teacher. To learn more about her work, visit http://www.megwolitzer.com/