The first book in Doig’s trilogy about the McCaskill’s of Montana is English Creek (although it’s the second book in the series I read.) Each book stands on its own. Set in the summer of 1939, the story centers on Jick McCaskill. Jick served as the narrative in the final book of the trilogy, Ride with Me Mariah Montana , which I read in 2023. In that book, Jick is at the end of his career, as he ferries his daughter, a newspaper photographer, around Montana for the state’s centennial.
Jick comes of age in English Creek. His older brother, Alec, learns about love and living on his own while Jick learns about the land as he travels with his father, the district ranger. He helps haul supplies to remote camps and fire lookouts. He meets Stanley, a man with a drinking problem and a secret, who introduces Jick to alcohol. And at the end of the summer, he and Stanley run the camp kitchen for the fire crew fighting a dangerous blaze. Then war begins in Europe. In the epilogue, it’s after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Alec joins the military, only to die in North Africa.
Doig does a wonderful job of drawing the reader into the magical country of the American West. I highly recommend this book (and this trilogy).
Ivan Doig, Dancing at the Rascal Fair
(Antheneum Books, 1987), 405 pages
While this is the second novel in Doig’s trilogy of life in the fictious Montana’s “Two Medicine County,” it should have been the first. The novel sketches two young Scottish men, Rob Barclay and Angus McCaskill, who leave their homeland for Montana in 1889. They are looking for Lucas, Rob’s uncle, who has done well in this new country, as evident by his sending back a $100 check every Christmas for the family.
Reaching Montana, it takes a while for them to find Lucas. Finally, they get a lead that he has brought a saloon in Gros Ventre. Catching a ride with a freighter, as there are no stagecoaches or trains running into this part of the state, they find Lucas. They also discover a surprise. Through mining, he has blown off his hands. But he makes do and runs a saloon and has enough money to even help stake the two boys in the sheep business.
Starting from nothing, they stake a claim and build cabins, spending the first winter together. The area in which they homestead becomes known as Scotch Heaven. Rob marries and Angus meets Anna, whom he hopes to marry, but is heartbroken when he marries another man, who raises horses. Before Angus is shunned by Anna, Rob’s sister Adair visits from Scotland for the summer. Angus becomes upset. He realizes Rob has set him up to marry his sister. But after Anna shuns him, Rob marries Adair. It’s not the best marriage, as Rob is still in love with Anna.
Rob and Angus friendship finally breaks over Angus’ ongoing desire for Anna while married to his sister. Interestingly, Adair accepts her status as Angus’ second choice, but the two remain faithful and still have love for each other. Their son, who will eventually become a ranger for the new National Forests and marry Anna’s daughter, goes into the army as the nation enters World War ii. He never made it to Europe and the fighting but remained at a base in Washington State where he served on burial detail for soldiers dying of influenza. As the flu spreads, taking with them many of those who have settled in the Two Medicine Country, Agus and Adair wonder which is worse, for him to be in Europe fighting or in the states with the flu danger. Angus has the flu and almost dies. After he regains his health, he learns that Anna died as the pandemic swept through Montana.
The story involves with Rob and Angus, now enemies, forced to work together due to a stipulation in Lucas’ will. A bitter winter about wipes them out. Only a heroic effort to haul hay from the railroad, a day’s distance away, saves their flocks. By the end of the book, Angus and Rob are the two successful herders left of those who had settled “Scotch Heaven.”
“Dancing at the Rascal Fair” is a Scottish dance tune and Agnus, who often quoting poetry, brings this song repeatedly into the story with different lyrics. I especially liked his one about the Scottish church on page 71: “Orthodox, orthodox/who believe in John Knox.’Their sighing canting grace-proud faces/their three-mile prayers and half-mile graces…”
I enjoyed this book and recommend it. Not only is Doig a wonderful storyteller who can also capture the grandeur of the land, he forces the reader to deal with issues of relationships. He reminds me of Roy and Eddie, who were in my Cedar City congregation, who were sheepherders. In a way, one can feel for the heartbreak both Angus and Adair felt in their marriage.
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While these books, along with Ride with Me Mariah Montana complete Doig’s trilogy, he continued to write about the Two-Medicine Country. Another book by Doig, set in the fictional town of Gros Ventre in the early 1960s, is The Bartender’s Tale..
Neil King, Jr. American Ramble: A Walk of Memory and Renewal
Illustrations by George Hamilton (New York: Mariner Books, 2023), 354 pages including notes on writing and reading.
A friend lent me this book. When I heard what it was about, I was skeptical. King, an editor for the Wall Street Journal, walks from his home in Washington, DC, to New York City. I thought, “that’s not that long of a walk, certainly nothing like the Appalachian or Pacific Crest Trail.” Then I began to read and quickly fell in love with the story.
King, after battling cancer and Lyne disease (which resulted in paralyzed left vocal cords), and as the nation is coming out of the COVID epidemic, leaves his D.C. home. He heads out of town and toward New York City. He carries an 18-pound pack; his one luxury being a Japanese style fly rod. It was a Monday in April, the month Chaucer set off in the Canterbury Tales. But this wasn’t a quick escape. King spent months lining out a path, contacting people along the way, and learning the vast amount of history of the region.
Unlike Appalachian Trail hikers, King spends his nights in bed and breakfasts, boutique hotels, and a few traditional chain hotels. The B&Bs allows him to meet more people and, as a journalist by trade, that’s what King does best. He meets people and learns their story, while sharing parts of his own. Most people are incredibility gracious, but a few, such as the young man in an upscale neighborhood who refused to let him fill his water bottle, are not.
King’s choice for lodging also keeps him from encountering ticks which might happen if he sleeps on the ground. Having had Lyme Disease, he wants to avoid ticks which spread it, if possible.
Throughout the book, King draws on literary references. From Chaucer, the Bible, Homer, Bruce Chatwin. Edgar Allen Poe (who few suspect was also a walker), John Muir, and Henry David Thoreau.
War along the route
King’s route allows him to explore war. Battles against Native Americans (which turned William Penn’s “City of Brotherly Love” into a hotbed against the native population), to the Revolutionary and Civil Wars all occurred along his walk. He crosses the Mason Dixon Line, but even in York, Pennsylvania he finds a city who welcomed the Confederates in the days leading to up to Gettysburg. At another place, he walks the old railbed to a Y in the line at Hanover Junction. Here, Lincoln’s train took the left track for Gettysburg where he gave his address. Two years later, his train took the other Y, as his body was taken on a tour through the northeast before his burial in Springfield, Illinois.
In conversations about no trespassing signs, King reflects on how they became popular only after the end of the Civil War with millions of freed slaves trying to find their way in the world. He also finds it ironic that the middle ground in the colonies, between the north and south, were settled by pacifist (Quakers, Pietists, Dunkers, Amish, and Mennonites).
At Valley Forge and along the Delaware River, King explores the struggles of George Washington’s Continental Army during the dark days of the Revolutionary War. He even crosses the river by boat (as opposed to a bridge) to sense what Washington may have experienced. King will cross other rivers by boats as he makes his way north to Manhattan.
Learning about religion and race
Wandering through Lancaster County, King meets Amish farmers and has an opportunity to explore the role religion plays in our nation… Lancaster is the home for both James Buchanan and Thaddeus Stevens—men so similar (both lifelong bachelors) and so different as they played major roles leading up to and during the Civil War. King refers to them as America’s yin and yang. He talks with members of the African American community who has helped keep Steven’s memory alive. Steven fierce hatred of slavery came from his Vermont upbringing by Baptist parents and being born with a disability that helped him have empathy for others. Steven even decided to be buried in a small mixed-race cemetery.
While with the Amish, he reads an old book published in 1660, the Martyrs Mirror which spoke of persecution of anabaptist (Amish) in Europe and provides a glimpse for what some sought in America.
While much of King’s walk is relatively flat, his one “hill” is a garbage mountain in New Jersey. On the top, he catches his first glimpse of New York City while pondering our throw-away culture.
Recommendation
I really enjoyed this book. Particularly impressing was how King wove in so many themes (race, the land, our heritage) into his journey. I was also impressed how he didn’t shy away from unflattering pieces of our history but dealt with it all. In the end, King provides us an example of ending the division in America by humility, acknowledging that which we don’t know, while being neighborly and talking to one another.
I read 45 books in 2024, which is down from recent years. I’ve been reading over 50 books, but this year my 45 includes Augustine’s City of God. He broke his magus opus into 22 books, so maybe I exceeded my goal as I only counted it as one! I’m not sure my favorite book of the year, but it’s probably one of the four I have highlighted in the title slide.
The numbers do not add up as some of the books fit into multiple categories. I will add probably 3 more reviews in early 2025, some of which are already written. I generally don’t read “how-to” books, but this year read two (both related to Amateur Radio). Also, three books were re-read. Four were by foreign (non-English) authors.
Below are the books with a photo of my favorite book for the month. Also included to links to my reviews. I will update this list to include reviews posted in 2025.
In the last few months of this past year, I read three books of poetry of which I’m providing brief reviews. To those who enjoy poetry or to play with words, I recommend each collection. They’re all delightful and very different.
Holly Haworth, The Way The Moon, poems
(Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004), 71 pages.
Drawing on the 13th moon cycles a year (every 28 days), Haworth has written 13 poems, each in four parts representing the four stages of the moon. In each section, she explores the natural world around the Blue Ridge Mountains of Southern Virginia. Haworth captures not only the cycles of life, but also how fleeting it can be. She writes with a naturalist eye, capturing and recording sightings in nature. I enjoyed her collection and reread it, but my one criticism is that at times her poetry seemed more of a list without a perceivable narrative other than the changes of the moon’s phase.
Among the wildflowers which Haworth is enchanted with are chicory and Queen Anne’s Lace, two plants in which I have written a few poems about. (To read one of my poems titled “Chicory and Lace,” click here.) I read this book in late summer/early fall, as the last of the chicory appeared and the Queen Anne’s Lace was balling up tight, as stockings stored in a drawer for another year.
Wayne Caldwell, Woodsmoke, poems
(Durham, NC, Blair, 2021), 81 pages.
Caldwell employs two voices in these poems which are all set around Mt. Pisgah in Western North Carolina. The main voice is Posey, a widower who misses his late-wife, Birdie. Posey lives alone and shuns most things modern. He still heats his home with wood, has a mule name Maud and a dog named Tomcat. According to his poems, he has learned to slow down with age. He doesn’t go to church, but his poetry is filled with Biblical allusions. While he burns most trees in his woodstove, the one exception is dogwood, because of the myth that Jesus’ cross was a dogwood. Posey shares the history of the area as well as his family and his interest in his new neighbor, Susan McFall.
There are a few poems written by Susan McFall, whose husband had run off with a younger woman. She builds a house above Posey’s, where she explores nature and looks out for Posey.
These are wonderful poems whose narrative captures the heart of Southern Appalachia.
Christian Wiman, Hammer is the Prayer: Selected Poems
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016), 207 pages.
I heard Wiman speak last years at Calvin University’s Festival of Faith and Writing. While I had heard of him before and had read a few of his poems in journals, I found myself wanting to read more of his work. Unlike the other two books of poetry above, which have a unifying theme, this collection of selected poetry is more complex. The pieces are drawn from several Wiman’s works. If there is a unifying theme, it would be around illness and death, as many of the poems deal with Wiman’s battle with cancer.
While many of these poems stand alone, some build upon each other. The longest poem, “Being Serious,” contains 20 parts and an epilogue, 35 pages, that captures the life of “Serious,” from his birth to death and to God. While this collection is not at all “preachy,” God is another theme that reoccurs frequently. In addition to his own poetry, there is a section of poetry by Osip Mandelstam which Wiman translated. Mandelstam was a Polish/Russian who died during Stalin’s purges in the late 1930s.
This is a deep collection of poetry that will be worthy to be read many times.
I arrived in Kungur early on Sunday afternoon, the day before, after traveling three days on the trans-Siberian from Ulan Ude, west of Lake Baikal. That afternoon, I took a tour of the city and asked the guide about church services. At the Tikhvinskaya Church, she learned there would be services the next morning which would include baptisms. On Monday, I was there shortly after the doors opened. This church had only recently resumed being a church. During the Soviet era, the government converted the church into a prison.
Statue of Lenin and an old water tower across from train station
When I arrived, only a handful of people were in the church. Mostly, the congregation was made up of older women, but I did notice one man who was about my age and who seemed as clueless as me when it came to Orthodox traditions. As is custom, we all stood. However, around the edge of the massive sanctuary, there were a few benches and at times, some of the women would go sit down for a break. Much of the service consisted of alternating chanting from the balcony (done by a man and a woman) and from behind the icons (done by a priest). The entire service, except for a few readings, was sung without accompaniment. Not speaking the language, I was mostly clueless as to what was happening. But the building and the voices were beautiful, and I just took it all in.
Tikhvinskaya Church, photo taken from the main dome above the church
I had been there about an hour when a man entered the sanctuary and approached me, speaking in Russia. At first, I wondered if he was a beggar, looking for money, but he was too well dressed for that. He got into my face, and I smelled alcohol. He seemed distraught. I shrugged my shoulders and whisper that I don’t speak Russian. After a few minutes, he left and walked over to a window where there were numerous candles. He lighted a candle and stood for a few minutes. Then he turned around and headed over to me and in perfect English said, “I’m sorry, my father died this morning.” Caught off guard, I expressed my condolences and asked if I could pray for him. “Yes,” he said. I placed by hand on his shoulder and prayed. “Thank you,” he said, as he turned and left the sanctuary. I never saw him again.
A little later in the service, the priest opens the door through the icons and prepares communion. I debated taking communion, if offered. A few people went over to receive the bread, but most did not, so I remained where I was at. Then, an older mousy woman who’d been helping with things brought me a piece of the bread and offered it to me. I wasn’t exactly sure what it all meant, but I decided that communion is at best a mystery and the polite thing to do was to be gracious. Humbly bowing my head, I accepted the bread from the woman, held it for a moment while I prayed for her and for the congregation who welcomed me, a stranger.
After communion, a man and woman with an infant that looked to be maybe 6 or 9 months old, walked up to the priest and presented the child. From a distance, it appears the priest gave the child a piece of bread soaked in the wine. I couldn’t really see the baptism. Then there were prayers said over the child and each parent lighted a candle, then left. After some more chanting in Russia, the service ended. It was nearly 11 AM and I ran back down the hill to the hotel and checked out and headed to the train station for my next leg of the journey.
A view of the city with the Kruger River flowing through it.
John P. Burgess, Holy Rus’: The Rebirth of Orthodoxy in the New Russia
(New Haven, CT: Yale, 2017), 264 pages including index and notes. Some photographs.
Burgess, a theology professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, spent several sabbaticals in Russia learning about the Russian Orthodox Church. He worshiped in Orthodox Churches, attended Bible Studies, befriended members and priests. While Burgess roots are in Reformed Tradition, his inquisitive and open mind provides a unique insight into the Orthodox tradition.
While Burgess goal is not to give the reader a history of the Orthodox tradition in Russia, he does provide a history of the church in the 20th Century,. Much of this decade, the church lived under a dictatorial communist regime who sought to exterminate religion in Russia. The church struggled to survived as the government converted the church’s property into museums, theaters, and even prisons. The early years were the worse. The church strove to survive by supporting the government as they followed the Apostle’s Paul’s commands. During World War II, even Stalin saw the church as useful in the defense of the nation and the worse persecutions waned. But it wasn’t until the 90s, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, that the church was free to openly participate in society. Much of the book explains the rising role of the church during this era.
Holy Rus is a vague concept that see’s the Russian Church link to the nation for the purpose of the advancement of the gospel. While the idea was established during the age of the Czars, it has found its way back into the mainstream. Putin has embraced such ideology as he attempts to place Russia, and not the West, as carrying on the gospel traditions. While Burgess doesn’t say so, Holy Rus to me seems to be a Russian version of Christian Nationalism.
While this book attempts to explain the role of the church in modern Russia, it also part travelogue. Burgess takes us along with him as he travels Russia and meets with leaders and priests and laypeople within the church. This is a valuable book for those looking to understand the Orthodox Church’s role in modern Russia, but because of the expanded war in Ukraine, I sensed that the book was a little dated.
(2003, audible published in 2004), 27 hours and 41 minutes).
This Pulitzer Prize winning book has been on my TBR list for several years. I have previously read two of her books: Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine and Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism. Both books seemed more important to understanding the world we live in than old Soviet history. However, a few weeks after I finished this book, Mike Davis, of Trump’s lawyers mused about building Gulags for liberal white women. Sadly, I realized it might be a good thing I have some knowledge of what he was talking about. Gulags aren’t necessarily tied to communism. They’re tools totalitarians use to create fear within society to keep people in line. In the old Soviet Union, any minor infraction could end you in a Gulag, which helped maintain control over the masses.
I started listening to his book in early October, knowing I had long road trips ahead in which I could listen to large sections of the book (I drove to Hilton Head, SC, then to Wilmington, NC, and then home). With over 15 hours in the car, and my regular walks, I was able to finish the book in less than two weeks.
Applebaum begins discussing how the Gulag took shape from the beginning under Lenin and on through the 70s and 80s. Over the course of the decades, the Gulag changed. Lenin used the prison system to put away “enemies” who had different ideas about government. This included many communists who saw things differently. One of the interesting things about the Gulag is that many of the prisoners remained loyal to the Soviet ideals. Early on, the Gulag was seen as a way for economic gain. Attempts to profit from prison labor included building the White Sea Canal and lumbering in the north and mining in the vastness of Siberia.
Stalin took the Gulag into more extremes and in the late 30s, during his purges, the most horrific atrocities occurred (both within the Gulag system and general executions). During World War 2, the Gulags in the east had to be moved to avoid capture by the Germans. Some prisoners, unable to be moved, were summarily executed. Applebaum spends some time discussing the differences between the Soviet Gulags and the Nazi Concentration Camps. As bad as the Gulags were, at least the Soviets weren’t attempting genocide against a particular race of people.
After the war, life improved slowly in the Gulags and things never returned to how bad it was in the late 1930s. However, many captured Soviet soldiers found themselves, upon being released from German POW camps, in the Gulag. Upon Stalin’s death and Khrushchev obtaining power, things slowly improved. But still, the camps continued to the fall of the Soviet Union.
One of the surprising things about the Gulags were the corruption, both by the camp leadership and the prisoners. Gangs often ruled the prisoners, especially those prisoners who were in the system due to criminal (as opposed to political or religion) crimes. These gangs terrorized other prisoners and sometimes even the guards.
The Gulags were also a training ground for those who would eventually lead to the breakdown of the Soviet system. The non-Russians often created their own gangs and many of those within the prison system learned leadership skills they would use to help throw off the communist governments in Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic States, and Georgia. In this way, the abuses of the Gulag created a time-bomb which helped undo the Soviet Union.
This is a long book, but worthwhile. Hopefully we won’t see any Gulags in our country. But Applebaum’s book serves as a warning.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
(1962, Audible 2013), 5 hours and 5 minutes.
This short novel is set in a Gulag during the early 1950s. The prisoner wakes in his bed and begins to plan his day (or how to get out of work). It’s cold but not cold enough for them to call off work. Soon, they are all awake and begin their morning routine. He wraps his feet for warmth and worries if he will be discovered with extra cloth. They are not to hoard, but everyone does. This morning, he visits the infirmary hoping to be sick enough to avoid work. With his temperature only slightly elevated, he must work. He eats breakfast, where he’s given bread for lunch. Does it eat it all or save it and hope it isn’t stolen before lunch? Then everyone assembles for the morning count before marching off to their various jobs. Denisovich is a mason. He finds where he has hidden his trowel. He has a favorite one and is supposed to turn in the tools at the end of a shift, but he doesn’t. Laying block with the weather being well below zero means they must melt snow and warm the sand and mortar. At least it requires a fire. They work through the day. In the late afternoon, they march back for an assembled count. Standing in the cold, he hopes everyone is present and there would be no need for a recount. Then there is dinner and bed.
The story is grim. I felt the cold, the hunger, and the foreboding existence within the Gulag. There, the prisoners are not called comrades. Inside the prison camp there are those who faithful to the Soviet Union and others, like Ukrainians, who are not. There’s the Baptist who hides his New Testament and who has a different hope. But most people exist without hope. The day ends, the light in the barrack goes out, and the reader is left to understand that the next day will be the same.
The novel takes place in the early 1950s at a time when Stalin was still alive. Interesting, Khrushchev as Premier, read a copy and allowed it to be published. At the time, he attempted to move the Soviet Union away from Stalinism. The book publication occurred just before the “Neo-Stalinists” booted Khrushchev and replaced him with Brezhnev.
I was amazed the way this book highlights the quotidian events in the life of a prisoner in the Gulag. The writing (or translation) is stark and amazing. I started listening to this book immediately after finishing Anne Applebaum’s Gulag. I highly recommend reading it and wish I had read it earlier. The book will go back on my TBR pile as it is as worthy of rereading as Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea.
These two books provide examples of women making a difference in a changing world. If interested in such books, check out a recent post in which I reviewed Beth Moore’s memoir, All My Knotted Up Life.
Stephanie Stuckey, Unstuck: Rebirth of an American Icon
(Dallas, TX: Matt Holt Books, 2024), 220 pages, some photos.
Stuckey’s used to dot the highways of America, especially in the Southeast. As a kid, I remember passing them as we drove to Baltimore for my father’s company annual summer picnic. And then there were the long road trips we took to St. Louis and to Atlanta, passing Stuckey’s at many of the interstate exits. Of course, we seldom stopped. Instead, we ate peanut butter or bologna sandwiches made from the cooler in the trailer my father pulled. But Stuckey’s, like Howard Johnson’s, was an icon of the road trip.
I picked up this book after following Stephanie Stuckey on Twitter, a connection I made through a pecan farmerfrom Georgia. Her post focused on her road trips as she strove to rebuilt Stuckey’s, her family business. I have to admit a bit of envy as she able to spend a lot of time traveling and, like me, enjoys the backroads.
After years of working as an attorney and a Democratic State Legislator in Georgia, Stephanie Stuckey decides to save her family’s business. Her grandfather had started Stuckey’s in the 1930s, with a $50 loan from his mother. The nation was in a depression, but “Big Daddy” went to work buying pecans from local farmers and selling them along with candies his wife made from the nut. He set up shop along the highways which ran to Florida. World War II could have been a disaster with the decline in travel and rationing of gas and sugar, but he continued. He served truckers and soldiers. When the war was over and America returned to the roads, his business grew. Toward the end of his life, he sold the company for a fortune.
Stuckey’s father, having learned from working at Stuckey’s, made his own mark on the travel scene. He started a company that established Dairy Queens along the interstates of America. He also spent a decade in congress, and Stuckey grew up in Washington, DC, traveling in the family’s station wagon back and forth to Georgia. Now in her 50s, having served as an attorney and running nonprofits, Stephanie Stuckey brought back the company which bears her family’s name.
This book is more than just the story of Stuckey attempting to resurrect her family’s business. She provides a history of the company and her family’s involvement within the business. As a Southerner, she also deals with the issues of race, acknowledging the help her grandfather received from African Americans. While Stuckey’s was a southern business, it was never segregated. Stuckey’s even appeared in the “Green Books,” which told Black travelers safe places to eat and buy gas as they traveled across the Jim Crow South.
This is a delightful read of a brave woman setting her own path in the world.
Clare Frank, Burnt: A Memoir of Fighting Fire
(Audible 2024) 11 hours and 43 minutes, narrated by the author.
I always shop the 2-for-1 sales on Audible. Generally, there is at least one book I’ve been wanting to read, and I will have to shop around for the second (free) book. That’s how I came across this book by Clare Frank. She’s the first (and so far, only) woman to serve as Chief of Cal Fire, the largest firefighting organization in the nation. Cal Fire handles large wildfires as well as providing fire protection in more urban parts of the state.
Frank followed her brother into the fire service. She was only 17! Emancipated from her parents, she left her birthday blank on her application since the minimum age was 18. After doing well in her training, they offered her a seasonal position. From there, she rose up the ranks. Starting in 1982, just as women were beginning to become firefighters, she retired without ever having served under another woman.
Her track is a little unusual. While working as a firefighter, she pieces together course work to obtain an associate degree. It takes her a longtime to finish her bachelor’s degree because of being deployed around the state. But she does. She also obtains a law degree, which becomes easier as she has infection in her feet after a fire along the Mexican border. She had to take a five-year break from firefighting because she couldn’t wear boots. When her feet recover, she resumes her career. With a law degree, she rises even higher in the ranks, leading the fight to recoup cost from utilities and others who have caused fires.
The fire along the Mexican border is interesting. It’s the first time that the fire map only half covers the fire, as it was burning on both sides of the border. The fire also requires cooperation with the border patrol. Sadly, there were deaths within the fire of those trying to illegally enter the United States.
I appreciated how Frank broke up her story. She jumps back and forth, from her last 22 months as chief of Fire Cal to her beginnings. This kept the book from being just a linear line of stories and built anticipation as she advanced through the ranks. Along the way, we learn about the tradition and the requirements of fire service. She tells of a few harrowing experiences, such a large multi-vehicle accident which killed several people and left one woman blind. This is one of the scenes she speaks of being engraved in her memory and she wonders about it being the last thing the woman saw before her world became blind.
The stress which came from the horror sometimes experienced by first responders takes a toll on the relationships among firefighters. Many of the firefighters have gone through multiple divorces. The departments are not above scandal. She recalls wearing her dress uniform too many times at funerals for fellow firefighters. The last being a pilot of an air tanker which crashed around Yosemite a few months before she retired. Running such a large organization, she acknowledges that she had never met the pilot. Others she didn’t know also bothered her, such as the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots killed on a fire in Arizona. This was a bit personal for me as one of those firefighters was a member of my church’s youth group when I was in Utah.
While Frank mostly focuses on her work in firefighting, she also provides background to her personal life, from growing up, to her husband and dogs. This helped humanize her for in much of the book she came across as a “bad ass” who got things done. But there are things left out such as how she became interested in writing, which she speaks of perusing in retirement. Her talent with words comes through in this book.
Her story within the book ends with her and her husband retiring to Genoa, Nevada, where they experience the other side of the fire as they had to evacuate their new home. Thankfully, they didn’t lose their home, but the experience gives her the opportunity to close with a warning about how fire, as a part of nature, will continue to be a challenge.
I will first share a story from the spring of my junior year of high school, followed by a review of a new religious biography of Richard Nixon.This is my last planned post till October 6. I am on vacation and will be away some from the computer. From the looks of the weather, I picked a heck of a time to take a week off!,
John T. Hoggard High School, Spring 1974
It all came to a head in Coach Fisher’s economics class. I took my seat in the class and when he saw me, he fumed.
“You are not allowed in my class,” he yelled, staring at me.
“I’m not leaving,” I said.
“Yes, you are,” he said, pushing desks with students sitting in them out of the way to get to me.
Scared, I stayed in my seat, thinking that if he physically harmed me, which he could easily do, I’d have a class of witnesses for an ensuing lawsuit.
Standing over my desk, he ordered me out into the hallway. I had spent the past two weeks sitting in the hallway, working chess puzzles in a magazine. This started when I challenged one of his diatribes about Richard Nixon. Nixon was in the news a lot in the spring of 1974.
The day before, at the end of the class, Coach Fisher told me I would fail his class because I had missed so much of it. I told him that I better not, because he was the reason I was missing his class. The class really had nothing to do with economics. Most of the 50 minutes was spent discussing basketball and other sports. What little had to do with economics was more about consumer spending than the relationship between price and demand or an understanding of macroeconomics. Fisher was a coach, who had been given a teaching position.
I decided it was time to end my exclusion from class, so the next morning, I returned.
After a few moments of a standoff, I told Coach Fisher that if he wanted me out of the class, we could go together to Mr. Saus’ (the principal) office. His anger grew and he started to drag my chair outside.
“Fine,” I said. “I will go to the principal’s office,” I said, getting up. He ordered me to sit in the chair outside his door, but I walked down the hall and turned toward the office. I expected him to follow, but he didn’t. Mr. Saus wasn’t available, but I was sent into Mr. McLaurin’s office. He was an assistant principal. I told him my story. He listened and had me remain in his office while he disappeared for a few minutes. When he came back in, he told me to go back to class, that Mr. Fisher would let me back in.
Fisher didn’t fail me for that six-week period. I passed the class with a decent grade without having to do anything because Fisher essentially ignored me for the rest of the semester. I just sat there. I would have to wait till college to grasp economics.
Richard Nixon was president during the formative years of my life. I was in the sixth grade when he was elected president in 1968. At the time, Nixon, to me, seemed to be the best choice.
I would continue to support Nixon throughout my junior high and early high school years. Why, I’m not sure. Why did I believed him when he said he didn’t do anything wrong? This belief was strong enough to encourage me to speak up for Nixon in Coach Fisher’s class, which led to our encounter. Later, after he resigned from the Presidency the summer after the above incident, I felt embarrassed. Some of that shame remains. How could I have been so naïve?
There were two events that happened in high school which my mom always blamed on me losing all respect for authority. And they happened about the same time. The first was a wreck. A young woman (she was 21) turned in front of me from the left-hand lane on Shipyard Boulevard. I hit her in the front quarter panel and both cars were totaled. Thankfully, my mom was seated right next to me and saw it all. I was knocked out and sent in an ambulance to the hospital. The young city police officer, whom my mother witnessed flirting with the other driver after the accident, charged me with following to close. From the damage to her car, that was an impossibility. Thankfully, a neighbor who was a state highway patrolman, came to our aid and helped prove my innocence. Click here for a sermon where I share more about the wreck.
I don’t think my mother even knew about the incident in Coach Fisher’s class.
The accident in which I was wrongfully charged occurred within a year of Nixon’s resignation. Mom was right. Both probably contributed to my cynicism when dealing with authority figures. And Coach Fisher became the icing on that cake.
Daniel Silliman, One Lost Soul: Richard Nixon’s Search for Salvation
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2024), 317 pages including an index, bibliography and notes on sources.
One Lost Soul is a religious biography of our 37th President. Silliman begins with a brief overview of Nixon’s early life, after which he jumps from one critical injunction to another to show the role religion played in Nixon’s political career. These include Nixon’s anti-communism work as a young congressman, the run with Eisenhower as Vice President and his “Checkers Prayer,” the role of religion in the 1960 election, his holding “church” in the White House, the Vietnam War, his outreach to China, the Watergate Coverup, his resignation as President, and a bit about Nixon’s life after his presidency.
Silliman’s theme is that Nixon spent his life, from childhood, with a desire to find acceptance and love. Such desire began in his father’s grocery story but continued throughout his life. His obsession led him to work hard. He believed in the “great man” theory of history and wanted to be such a man, as seen in his reaching out to China. He had a hard time accepting God’s love or the love others. On the night before his resignation, Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State visited with him. On Nixon’s suggestion, the two men got on their knees and prayed. Nixon cried as he asked, “What have I done?”
Kissinger shared this moment with his staff members before Nixon called him to ask that he not tell anyone that he had cried. Kissinger later asked, “Can you imagine what this man would have been had somebody loved him?”
I had always wondered about Nixon’s background as a Quaker. I still remember a Mad Magazine from the time with a cartoon-like article about religion. When they got to the section on Quakers, one panel said something like, “There are 100,000 Quakers in the United States. The next panel said that Quakers don’t believe in war. The third panel featured Nixon saying that he was a Quaker. The final panel read, “That makes 99,999.
Silliman points out that California Quakerism differed from the East Coast variety in several manners. In some ways, it was more like a Methodist tradition, with focus on working out one salvation. Nixon saw military activity as a way toward peace, so instead of seeking a consciousness objector status during World War 2, he joined the navy. Even during Vietnam, Nixon maintained hope the bombings would bring the North to the negotiation table. While this upset many Quakers, the decentralized structure of the denomination meant that any church disciplinary actions would have to be taken by his home church in California. While Nixon continued to claim to be a Quaker, he had not been active in the church since a child.
As President, Nixon created White House worship services. For these, he would import ministers to preach. Interestingly, Nixon maintain total control of the service down to the hymns. The services served a political purpose as Nixon often invited those to attend as favors. These services were Protestant, but on one occasion was led by a Jewish rabbi.
Nixon could also be impulsive. In the middle of the night during the anti-war protests, he takes his valet (and some secret service agents) to the Lincoln Memorial. There, he talks to anti-war protestors who are camping out on the steps. He asks questions of them. When they depart, he expresses his hope their opposition to the war won’t turn into hate for the country.
Silliman points out many good things Nixon did. Certainly, his work with China stands at the top. But he also refused to play the religious card against John Kennedy in the 1960 election. While it would have probably worked at the time, he didn’t feel it appropriate. He was also deeply concerned with Civil Rights, even though for political reasons, he refused to make a public statement on Martin Luther King’s arrest during the 1960 election. In 1968, he tried to play it both ways, reaching out to Strong Thurmond and other who supported segregation. This was the beginning of the Republican “southern strategy.”
While this is a sad and tragic story, I can’t help but to have hope that at least Nixon had a conscious that bothered him. I didn’t come away from this book thinking he was a psychopath. There were times he had empathy for others and instead of thinking too highly of himself, he doubted his own self-worth. In a way, it was his lack of self-worth that made him so desperate to win and to prove himself.
This is a good book not just for understanding Nixon, but also understanding the difficult many people have in accepting grace.
This biography is a part of the “Library of Religious Biography” series. I have read several others in the series including Aimee Semple McPerson: Everybody’s Sister, Billy Sunday and the Redemption of Urban America, and Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Spiritual Life.
I’m reviewing three books. One a faith memoir, another a humorous travelogue, and one a classic work that has probably influenced our society more than we can image while also being a work few can claim to have read. There’s something here for everyone
Beth Moore, All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir
(Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2023), 295 pages plus 8 pages of color prints.
Beth Moore has been on my radar for at least twenty years. Women groups at churches I’ve served have used her Bible Study materials. Over the past eight years, I have witnessed from afar her challenges within the Southern Baptist and evangelical community as she boldly spoke out against Donald Trump after his remarks about grabbing women in private places were made public in 2016. And later, I watched from a distance as she both challenged the Southern Baptist for covering up sexual abuse of leaders within the denomination. Yet, while I have read some of her articles, I had not read any of her books until I picked up this memoir. I recommend it.
This is an honest and can imagine how painful the book was to write. In a way, it’s more of an autobiography than a memoir. She tells stories from her childhood and admits how the family tried to hold on to respectability while harboring dark secrets. The darkest was her father’s unwanted touching. She also writes about how she was drawn into church and even the pastor who affirmed her going into ministry as a teenager. Starting out leading women’s ministry classes and acrobatics, she grew a business into a major organization. Coming from a Southern Baptist background, she always stayed with women’s ministry and avoided any leadership position which would undermine pastors (whom she assumed should be male).
Moore: politics and leaving the Southern Baptist Church
Moore also avoided politics until Bill Clinton had his White House affair. This caused her to leave the Democratic Party for the Republican Party. In this manner, she followed the crowd as evangelical leaders across the county openly condemn Clinton. She expected the same response after the release of Trump’s Access Hollywood tapes. It shocked her that instead, many evangelical leaders circled the wagons around Trump.
This memoir tells the story of her coming of age, her marriage, her relationship to her parents, the building of a ministry, and how she came to the decision to leave her the Southern Baptist Church. It was a hard break as she loved the denomination who had nurtured her. The book ends with her and her husband finding a new home within an Anglican Church. While there have been many knotted-up challenges in her life, through it all she always found solace and strength in her Savior, Jesus Christ.
While there are troubling events described in this memoir, Moore’s writing is a pleasure to read. And amongst the pain, there is also laughter. The reader will meet a woman of faith and conviction.
Tony Horwitz, One for the Road: An Outback Adventure
(1987, audible 2020).
I picked up this book from an Audible Sale. Having read and enjoyed three of Horwitz’s books, I thought it would be something nice to listen and laugh while driving. Years ago, I had read Bill Bryson’s, From a Sunburnt County, and was thinking this book might further expand my knowledge of Australia, while providing humorist distractions. It didn’t take long for me to realize the book I was listening to was written long before Bryson’s.
Horwitz was a funny writer. The first book of his I read was Confederates in the Attic. I read most of that book on a cross-country flight. I kept trying, but without much success, to muffle my laughter. Everyone seated around me wanted to know what book I was reading! While this book provides many funny moments (along with a few crude jokes told my travel companions while he’s on the road), it’s not nearly as funny as his later works. As I said, I thought this book was a newer book. After listening just a bit, I found myself googling Horwitz and discovered the book was his first, published in the late 1980s. His writing became tighter over time! Sadly, I also learned that Horwitz had a massive heart attack and died in 2019. He was only 60 years old, just a little younger than me.
First journey into the Outback
In this book, Horwitz has moved to Australia, his wife’s home. It’s in the mid-1980s and they both take positions with a newspaper in Sydney. But Horwitz’s wanderlust doesn’t fade and after a year, he obtains permission from his editor to head out into the bush to see Australia. It’s 1986, and Haley’s Comet is big in the news. Obviously, the comet wasn’t any brighter in Australia than it was here in the states. But the place to see the comet was supposed to be Alice Springs, in the center of the continent. Horwitz sets off by hitch hiking (in the summer, no less). He’s later assigned an article on the conflict between natives and tourists at Ayer’s Rock (now known as Uluru). Renting a car, he drives over to the site and on this way back rolls the car. Luckily, he is bruised, but okay. He flies home, but a little later works out a deal for a month traveling and sets off again.
A month in the Outback
Hitchhiking in Australia is a bit different. Instead of using one’s thumb, the hitch hiker sticks out a finger. But it’s the same in that one must be careful. While he’s traveling there are reports of people killed by hitchhikers, which makes his attempt to get a ride even more difficult. He travels across the country to Perth and then heads along the coast to Darwin. While he has been warned to avoid the Blacks (abiogenies), he finds them hospitable. In one case, they trust him enough to hand him the keys to their junker car along with a handful of bills and have him drive into town to buy beer! In places it was against the law to sell bear to abiogenies, and at other establishments, proprietors refuse to sell to them.
It seems Horwitz’s travels focuses on drinking. In remote areas, people measure distance not by miles or kilometers, but the number of beers consumed. The amount of alcohol consumed while driving is frightening. And people also drink at home and in pubs. Darwin, at the time, had the highest beer consumption in the world, 58 gallons per person! In another town, the authorities tried to reduce drinking on Sundays by passing a law that a pub could only be open for five hours. So, the pubs came together and staggered their hours so that the day was covered. This created a weekly “pub crawl,” as folks went from one to another, every five hours.
While traveling, Horwitz encounters those who work with livestock, in mining and oil exploration, fishermen (and he even spends a day fishing for crayfish) and pearl divers. In places he finds lots of prejudice against natives and immigrants, but in other places find people working together and getting along with one another.
Passover in the Outback
One of the more interesting stories occurred in Broome, a town along the northwest coast. Horwitz, who describes himself as a secular Jew, realized Passover was coming up. Wanting to share the feast with other Jews, he asks around. No one knows of any Jews, but someone suggests he speak with the local Catholic priest. The priest points him to a Jewish government physician. Horwitz meets the physician, who invites him to his home for Passover. Later, when there is a day of remembering those who had died in wars, Horwitz attends. The priest gives the keynote speech and mentions his encounter with a wandering American Jew, which brought a smile to Horwitz. This story, told near the end of the book, allows Horwitz to reflect on his cultural background and his desire to wander.
Recommendations
I don’t think this book is up to the standard of Horwitz’s other books. In addition to Confederates in the Attic, I have also read A Long and Dangerous Journey and Spying on the South). However, I still enjoyed it and recommended it. It’s a great first book and in it one sees Horwitz’s potential to become a laugh-out-loud travel writer. The narrator for the Audible edition is one of Horwitz’s sons.
St. Augustine, City of God
(427, Penguin Books, 2003 edition), 1097 pages, Audible translation narrated by David McCallion, 46 hours and 32 minutes, 2018.
There is one reason why I am behind on my readings for 2024. I had set a goal of 48 books and am currently six books behind thanks to slogging through this classic. I’ve listened to it all and went back and reread interesting parts. Maybe I could count this as 22 books (as Augustine did) and then I’d have already exceeded my goal! I had an old copy of this book from seminary, but it was abbreviated, with just the best parts, so I had to purchase a new copy.
City of God is a classic. In it, we see Augustine’s keen knowledge of the world. He knows the myths and legends of the pagan gods, the history of the world up to his time, and is well versed in philosophy and science. He understands astronomy including how eclipses occur. While he discounts numerology as a tool for understanding scripture, he is knowledgeable on mathematics. He discusses botany and biology, including knowing of some animals who live super hot environments which he uses as support for his ideas on hell. And he has a great grasp of the history of the world and can parallel what occurred in the Bible to what was happening at the same time in Rome, Greece, or Persia.
First half of the work
The first half of this massive work defends Christianity from the charge that Rome’s fall was due to Christians abandoning the pagan gods. Augustine spends 12 books showing how the pagan gods failed to protect other cities such as Troy. Augustine shows a keen knowledge of the pagan world in his defense. In this section of the book, he also advises Christians on how to act during such a tragedy in which many had committed suicide seeing it as preferable to torture and/or rape. Augustine encouraged his readers to trust in God even in the face of torture and death.
Second half of the work
In the second half of the book, Augustine follows the development of the two cities. He links the earthly city to Cain, which is the city for reprobate. The early city is identified with Babylon and Rome. Working through the Scriptures, he makes a case for a parallel city planned by God for the faithful, the elect. In addition to showing the development of the two cities, he also parallels much of what happens in scripture to what was happening in the rest of the world during the same period.
In this half of the work, Augustine shows his keen insight into the scriptures. While he acknowledges there is no mention of Christ in Old Testament, he lays out how Hebrew Scriptures points to Christ. It is in this section he also ties Hebrew history to the history of the larger world. Augustine makes a strong case against those who think they can predict Christ’s return. His writing on this subject makes it clear that there were many who seemed to think they knew God’s mind with their elaborate schemes plotting out the end of time. Not much has changed, has it?
Conclusion of the work
The last chapters focus on the end of history. Augustine makes a case for hell but suggests life in hell would be preferable to total annihilation. He discusses the final judgment. He also writes about the heavenly City of God coming in fulness but is reluctant to make to suggestions of what it might be like beyond what’s found in Scripture.
Augustine seems to value the body and our experiences in this world. I was surprised when he addressed praying for our enemies. While he endorses such prayers, he suggests we should not pray for those spirits (demons) who have no bodies! Augustine obviously writes from a patriarchy society, I didn’t find his writing to be anti-female, as I sometimes see him interpreted.
Conclusion
While at times this book seems to slog along, there is much to discover in it. I found myself realizing how my limited knowledge of Roman culture and history made it more difficult to fully appreciate Augustine’s insights. I don’t think the 21st Century can nurture another Augustine. Could you image today someone what could discuss history, theology, religion, along with advance astronomy, physics, biology with the brightest in these fields? This work has greatly influenced Western Culture, from politics to theology. It inspired Martin Luther and John Calvin, two of the leading thinkers of the Protestant Reformation. It should be studied.
Tim Alberta, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism
(New York: Harper, 2023), 493 pages including index and notes. No photos.
Tim Alberta is a journalist and the son of a preacher. His father grew his congregation in southeast Michigan to a megachurch status. Having spent his formative years in this church, Alberta had always appreciated coming home and visiting. But during his father’s funeral, in which he spoke, he realized the church was in trouble. Many of the leaders and members disliked his reporting on the American political scene. He was attacked while at the funeral. He wondered what had happened to the people he had known and loved and who had nurtured him.
Those who attacked Alberta after his father’s funeral were the same people who questioned Bill Clinton’s suitability for the Presidency. Yet, they ignore or overlook the obvious and blatant sinfulness of Donald Trump. Alberta wonders what happened to them and the church. Both seem to have abandoned the teachings of Jesus for the political rhetoric of the nation. Alberta set out to explore American evangelical Christianity. Much of what he found was troubling.
In this book, Alberta visits numerous churches, along with colleges and conferences, around the country. He starts with Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. When possible, he speaks to the pastors and leaders of movements along with those involved or formerly involved. He attends churches who messages are mostly political, who flaunt COVID guidelines, glorify guns, and speak of owning the libs. He questions what happened to Jesus’ teachings about loving one’s enemies.
Alberta also visits with those who found themselves pushed out of churches because of their loyalty to Christ alone. These include Russell Moore, who had been one of the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, along with the new pastor at his father’s former church. He discusses the “hidden” evangelical issues around sexual abuse, introducing his readers to Beth Moore and Rachel Denhollander. He even looked at how other countries are drawn toward totalitarian dictators, drawing on the work of Miroslav Volf and Cyril Hovorun. Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that the church is under attack, not just in America, but around the world.
Alberta doesn’t provide easy answers for how the church can stop being enamored with political idols. Perhaps this is best. The church, as he points out, isn’t in our hands. We belong to Christ’s church, and he controls it, not us. The only hope found in this book was in Alberta’s description of a few churches, such as the one his father had served, which had once been a megachurch. After losing significant members to other churches on the political right, they have found a stronger and more vibrant ministry even with fewer people.
I would make one minor correction. Alberta speaks of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church being further to the right, theologically and otherwise, to the Presbyterian Church in America (page 438). I disagree. The PCA doesn’t even have an option for women leadership, compared to the EPC which does allow women to be in ordinated positions.
This is a long book, but I recommend it for understanding how today’s church is caught up in the political sphere. It may be considered a companion to Katherine Stewart’s The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. May we remember that the church doesn’t exist to serve political causes. We serve Christ, who is the King of King.
(Harper Horizon, 2024), 367 pages plus an insert of color photos.
Having recently turned 60 years old, Tim Kaine, a Senator from Virginia, who ran as the Vice-Presidential candidate with Hillary Clinton in 2016, set out to explore his adopted Virginia from the ground. 2019 also marked his 25th year in public service. He had served as the mayor of Richmond, as lieutenant governor and governor of the state, as well as a United States Senator. His goal was to hike the Appalachian Trail in the state, ride a bicycle along the state’s portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway along with the Skyland Drive, and paddle a canoe the length of the James River, which runs across the middle of the state.
Walking
While the Senate was in recess in 2019, Kaine spent his free time hiking the 559 miles of the Appalachian Trail in the state. Beginning in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, he heads south to the North Carolina border, just south of Damascus, Virginia. A quarter of the “AT” is in Virginia, a state which has more miles than any other. Having hiked this trail from the other direction, I found myself reliving my own experiences. Many of the shelters were familiar as were places like Woods Hole Hostel, which I stayed at before it was even open. The owners who had purchased the farm shared with me their dream of having a hostel along the trail. Like him, I also had some less than fond memories such as the thick growth of poison ivy along the trail south of I-77.
I also realized the differences between his hike in 2019 and my hikes in the mid-1980s. There are far more people hiking the trail these days and more hostels. Furthermore, there is a whole network of people willing to pick up hikers. When I hiked the trail, if you needed to get somewhere, you hitchhiked.
Kaine hikes the trail with a variety of people. There are friends from Richmond, classmates, along with his wife and kids, who join him for sections of the trail. As he walked south, we learn about Kaine’s life and his great love for the outdoors. Kaine is from Kansas City and fell in love with camping as a child in the Midwest. He jokes that while he never edited the Harvard Law Review as a student, he set the record for the most nights outdoors.
While at Harvard, he met his wife, Anne. Interestingly, she spent part of her years growing up in the Governor’s mansion. Her father was the first Republican governor of Virginia since Reconstruction. He was also the governor who stopped Virginia’s fight against school integration, a decision which ended his political career. With family roots in Roanoke, Anne shared her love of the Virginia Mountains with Kaine.
Throughout the book, the reader catches a glimpse of Kaine’s faith. He often sings hymns, recalls portion of scripture, and has an abiding faith in Jesus Christ. In addition, the book allows him to share what is happening politically in the nation, as the times he must run back to D.C., to take care of business.
As I have always said, backpacking is a great equalizer of people. It doesn’t matter how much money is in the bank when you are hiking. There’s no place to spend it. The reader learns how Kaine, as a senator, had to struggle to find water or to stay dry, issues all hikers endure.
Bicycling
The second portion of Kaine’s odyssey involves riding the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyland Drive on a bicycle. Here, in 2020, he joins several of his college and law school classmates for the ride. A few years earlier, another of the group had hosted them for a ride across Iowa. The group hires a guide who drives a van with a trailer. And they stay in hotels and lodges along with the way, with their guide setting up their lunch at overlooks on the road. They enjoy good breakfasts (as opposed to the oatmeal along the AT) and nice dinners. This is the quickest section of the three-prong journey and is completed in seven days.
2020 is also the first year with COVID. Kaine spends much time discussing the problems with the disease (he and his wife both suffer from it and later, he finds himself dealing with long-COVID). In addition, he discusses the problems in the nation with the rioting after the unprovoked killings of African Americans.
Paddling
In 2021, after the turmoil of the election and the attack on the capitol, Kaine sets out on his last leg, paddling the length of the James, from the edge of the mountains to where it flows into the Chesapeake Bay. Like his AT hike, this is portion of the trail is done in sections. Kaine mostly camps in state parks along the river, or stays in hotels and B&Bs, while paddling a section each day. His canoe is an Old Town, which his in-laws hand given him and his wife shortly after they married.
As he travels, the reader learns the history of the river and about Kaine’s work as governor with many river projects that enhanced the waterway. The upper parts including portaging around dams and running rapids. Drawing on Earl Swift’s, Journey on the James, which describes his paddle in the 1990s, we see how the river has both been cleaned over the past quarter century. Cities and towns have transformed the river from an industrial wasteland to a pleasant park and riverwalks. The most difficult rapids are at the fall line in Richmond. This section, Kaine runs in a raft. After Richmond, the river widens. Kaine continued paddling the Old Town open canoe until the last day, when he transferred to a sit-on-top sea kayak which he and his son paddled to the end of the river at Fort Monroe.
Along the way, Kaine informs his readers about Native Americans in Virginia, as well as the role African Americans played in the state. The river’s dark history includes bringing many enslaved Africans up its waters to be sold into slavery. Kaine trip ends in the waters of Civil War battles and the site of the United States’ largest naval base.
Recommendation
I really enjoyed this book. As a Vice-Presidential candidate, Kaine seemed to me to lack pep. Reading this, I understand he’s probably more of an introvert. Yet, he gets things done. I wish this book had been available earlier, as I am now impressed with him and his grasp of the state which he serves. I would recommend this to Virginians and to those interested in the outdoors or the more personal side of politicians.
Aaron Bobrow-Strain, White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Brought Loaf(Boston: Beacon Press, 2012), 252 pages include an index and extensive notes.
A story from my bakery days
In a supervisor meeting sometime in 1979 or 1980, Jerry Hendrix, the General Manager of Fox Holsum Bakery, berated us for not being able to produce uniformed loaf bread. “I don’t care if it’s crap,” he said. “It needs to be consistent. If it’s consistent, I can sell it.”
It was a tough time for bakeries. To start with, our government sold an excessive amount of wheat to Russia, who were dealing with poor harvests. The price of flour had doubled, cutting deeply into our profit margins. Furthermore, the price of sugar had gone up as had the cost and availability of natural gas. We were being squeezed from all directions. And now, our number one product, a pound and a half loaf of white bread was becoming unmanageable. Most of us felt that the problem came from the yeast. A few months earlier, we have left behind Fleishmann’s Yeast” for a new company’s product, “Dixie Yeast.” At first, things ran fine. The yeast still worked fine on our variety bread and on the roll line, which used traditional mixing equipment with chilled jackets.
The white bread line was different. This bread was mixed in a do-maker. This machine that mixed the ingredients at a very high rate of speed and a high temperature. The fermentation was first done in large vats that consisted of water, sugar, yeast, and other dough conditioners. Flour, along with shortening and sugar (corn syrup) were added straight into the mixer, along with the brew from the vats. The bread was cut into a piece of dough and dropped into a pan. Such rough treatment of the dough required not only chemical treatment, but also demanded ingredients to be constant. We produced 4200 loaves an hour of this bread. But each vat of bread rose differently. Sometimes the bread was too large, making it hard to slice and bag. Other times, the loaf was too small, and looked sick.
The General Manager and the company’s owners didn’t want to hear our excuses about the yeast. Sometime around this point, we learned the owners of the bakery had, with other industrial bakers, invested in the yeast company. A host of specialists were brought in. They tried new kinds of chemical dough conditioners, but nothing works. The decision was made to go back to Fleishmann’s yeast. Things returned to normal. After a lot of checking, we learned that the yeast was being mixed in fiberglass tanks instead of stainless steel. The fiberglass tanks were harder to clean (but they were cheaper). Eventually they had to change out their production tanks. A few months later, we went back to Dixie yeast, and it worked fine.
My review of White Bread
I tell the above story to illustrates a lot of what Aaron Bobrow-Strain writes about in his social history of white bread. Bleached, chemically enhanced bread has always been suspect. But by the 1950s, Americans ate an average of eight slices a day of the stuff. By the late 70s, when I worked in an industrial bakery, the decline of such bread was on the horizon. In another production meeting, at a time of high inflation, we heard warnings that if a loaf of bread rose to cost more than a dollar, it would doom our industry. People, we were told, would never pay so much for bread. I often think of this when I spend four dollars on a loaf today.
While bread might seem to be an odd research topic for a social history, but Bobrow-Strain provides an interesting insight into the rise of the loaf, and its decline. He also provides insight into other issues going on in America (and to lesser extent Europe and the rest of the world) during the rise of industrial baking. In 1890, 90% of the bread consumed in the United States was baked in a home kitchen. By 1930, during the depression, this completely reversed. 90% of the bread was baked in industrial factories.
The rise of factory produced bread is a compelling story that often reflects American prejudices and biases. Prior to the rise of industrial baking, most of the commercially available bread were baked in basement shops in cities like New York City. Here, in these bakeries, immigrants lived and worked in less than sanitary conditions. The first industrial bakeries jumped on American nativism feelings to promote their product as wholesome and clean. In addition, as technology changed, they were able to purchase ingredients much cheaper than the small local bakeries or even housewives. With the increase of transportation options, industrial bakers were in the position to seize the bread markets.
White bread ruled the day, but there were some who questioned this including blaming the fall of France to Germany in 1940 on white bread. French bread is white (but not necessarily industrially produced), while the Germans preferred a darker bread. Later, in the Cold War, American’s felt their “white bread” was superior to Russian dark loaves.
Advertising encouraged consumers to equate the softness of the new industrial bread with freshness, overlooking the use of chemicals to condition the dough. Interestingly, at the dawn of America’s entry into World War II, a significant number of American men did not meet the physical demands for military service. Processing of the flour to produce the whitest loaves robbed the wheat of essential vitamins. But such enrichments could be added back chemically. The first national food order during the war required such enrichments. By the end of the war, no one wanted anything less that “enriched” bread.
Throughout the fifties’, people considered enriched bread a superfood. It even caught on in places like Japan. When I visited Japan in 1979, it was shocking to see on the shelves white bread void of crust! By the 60’s, the hippie counter cultural laid groundwork for a rediscovery of bread baked at home or in small shops. Newspapers ran recipes about home baking and cookbooks sprang up included the Tassajara Bread Book. I discovered this book while working at the bakery and used (and still use) the recipes in the book to make heartier loaves of bread.
Bakers began to respond by adding more bran and even adding cellulous (wood pulp) to increase the fiber within bread. One of our variety breads was “VIM” in which we added a couple 50 pounds of bags of cellulous to each mixer. I recall it making the dough sticky and almost as hard to machine as rye bread. Another trick was to add sourdough flavoring to the mix to make the bread taste a little more like sourdough bread, which required a two-step mixing process and allowing the “starter” to proof, which took up space and equipment.
Bobrow-Strain ends his story with how white bread, once seen as food for the wealthy and royalty, became equated with “white-trash” and even soul food. Unlike the 70s, today’s bread aisles in supermarkets carry a variety of bread. We now eat bread with more grains or whole wheat that the industrial white bread which I made during my baking years.
Toward the end of the book, Bobrow-Stain takes us inside Grupo Bimbo, the largest baking company in the world today. Oddly enough, it is a Mexican company who has taken over many of American top bakery labels. I still remember the first time I saw “Bimbo Bread,” which was in Honduras in 2004. Why would anyone use such a label for product, I wondered. Of course, I thought of the word in its negative American slang connotation. In Latin America, Bimbo is the name of a bear mascot.
Conclusion
While I enjoyed this book, I know it appealed to me because of my background in a wholesale bakery. But there is much to learn here, so I recommend it to others. Bobrow-Strain even moves outside of bread to discuss our attempts to “eat healthier” and how Americans (since Sylvester Graham in the early 19th Century) have followed food gurus who promised great things but often failed to deliver. The book is worthwhile for this, alone, in a day in which we seem more susceptible to all kinds of claims that may have little scientific backing. The author also has a love of baking and eating good loaves of bread, so he’s writing about something for which he cares.
