I hate change, and Book Lists in These titles mean nothing.

I have change. So I took my coins out of my walking rotation. I put the quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies into their respective collection glass jars on the counter. I have plenty of bottle caps to regulate my walking. The shelves were getting too crowded anyway.

Another change is happening at the riverside park in LaCrosse.
https://www.rotarylights.org/live-river-cam.html
For the last few months there have been cranes working on the waterfront. Turns out they are redoing the approach to welcome more tour boats. The river queens and new Viking cruise boats too. The newspaper article Jim looked up gave numbers of boat landings expected and said there would be room for several of them at a time. Look at that. Look what’s happening to my park. For shame. It’s as bad as the county spraying my flowering crab and cutting down the trees along my country road.

Why didn’t God put me in charge?

Talking God, I think I might just not go see Grassley. I saw him ten or so years ago and liked the experience. I’d like to compare him now to him then. I wrote about it then but I looked and can’t find it here or in 750 words. I think it was after OD’s failure.

I always say I enjoy every political thing I’ve gone to. It takes a push to do it. But it captures my sense of circus and intellectual ego. I especially like live/in person accountings from elected officials. I tried to remember one that wasn’t fun and came up with the Saturday morning at the Farm Bureau office when a recently elected former wife of a former state representative opened AND CLOSED her meeting with a prayer. I came really close to walking out at the beginning prayer and then when the closing one came I regretted not leaving at the beginning. She is also the woman who organizes the annual reading of the ‘entire’ Bible on the court house grounds using complimentary electricity.

God I’m not an atheist for nothing. Put that on my tombstone.

So there.

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The book list thing is the idea that one has 25 books that they would keep if they had more than 25 or would obtain if they had less than 25.

I started out with -
1. Arthur Miller’s memoir - Time Bends
2. Theodore Dreiser’s novel - An American Tragedy
3. James Blaldwin’s novel - Another Country

And I’m still working on it.

I mentioned the idea to Jim a short while ago and he started immediately and quickly had a begining list.

From the back of his important tax information envelope from Joana’s Catholic Forester account:

1. The Centaur (Updike’s early novel)
2. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald of course)
3. The Continental Op (Hammett)
4. illegble - I’ll ask him when he comes in. (Turned out to be a Lew Archer mystery by Ross McDonald)
5. What it Takes (1988 presidential candidates by Richard Ben Cramer)
6. Veeck as in Wreck (Basebalmanager/hero Bill Veeck)
7. Bill Mauldin’s Brass Ring
8. A Maigret collection (short stories by Simenon)
9. Arms of Krupp by William Manchester
10. Burning Girl (novel by Claire Messud)
11. House of Barrymore (biography of them all by Margot Peters)
12. Hemingway bio (I think he meant James Mellow’s A Life Without Consequences)
13. Zelda (Mrs. Fitzgerald bio by one of the Mitford girls)
14. Bob Artley farm drawings and cartoons
15. Normal People (Sally Rooney novel)
16. Herriot (? ) (James, English vet stories I believe).

I’ll come back and clean this up later.

I had quite a few ups and downs looking for titles and author’s names in the ‘stacks’. I found ‘em too. So I guess the ‘collection ‘ isn’t in too bad of shape.

Funny what we have for obsessions. Books and houseplants.

Talk to you later
Have a good day.

Last updated April 11, 2022