Author of The Starlight Series

Almost two years ago a friend asked if I would like to join a book club.  She and a couple avid readers thought that it might be a means of challenging us to read more, socialize more, find new friends.  “Well, I don’t know,” I replied, thinking of the dozen other time-consuming projects that scream to be finished.  “Let me think about it.  Yes.”  Okay, so it doesn’t take me long to think about any excuse that allows me to read even more than I normally would.

We began with four. Our membership now boasts nine or ten, with an average of five or six each month.  Lately the average has been higher, probably because we have such great fun while we are becoming cosmopolitan readers. We are a diverse bunch, varying ages, all with grown children and most, if not all, boasting grandchildren.  Three of us attend the same church, several belong to the same bridge club, and becoming acquainted with each other is also becoming a highlight of the month.

We usually meet at various coffee shops at eleven o’clock, where we enjoy a light lunch and good coffee.  Today, however, we met at the beautiful country home of Marilyn, the first friend I asked to join, well, actually the only friend who accepted my invitation.  I had enjoyed her home many times, but the other ladies had not.  Listening to them ooh and ahh at the fascinating collection of furnishings and artistic, creative talents of Marilyn and her husband, Jerry (with whom I attended grade school a good many years ago), made me smile. 

As they toured, I sat in the sunroom and gazed through huge windows at the small lake that nearly surrounds the house.  I’m not anti-social; I have a hip whose joint grinds against bones that should glide smoothly.  So I avoided the two flights of stairs.  Two weeks from yesterday, that hip will be replaced with a shiny state-of-the-art new one.

Next Wednesday, Marilyn will become a member of another club, one I joined five years ago, when I received a new knee.  It’s membership increases by the hundreds daily, most often with wonderful perks for its members.  Five days before I acquire the bionic hip, Marilyn will gain a similar knee.  Did I mention that most of us are grandmothers?

“My house won’t be this clean again for a long time,” Marilyn quipped when she invited us to meet at her house.  Having been through the PT of the new knee, I know first hand how right she is.

This month’s book choice was Emily and Einstein, a fanciful tale of reincarnation.  It’s a good read, and I heartily recommend it.  There has been only one book that was difficult for me to “get into,” and that was Three Cups of Tea.  I can’t recall the author’s name at the moment. At the meeting, a couple of the gals were discussing the possibility that the author of that book had possibly not told the whole truth.

Here is a list of books we have read and enjoyed:

Outlander  by Diana Gabaldon….Maisie Dobbs by Jacquilin Winspear…Legacy of Silence by Belva Plain…Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver…Water For Elephants by Sara Grun…Waiting For Snow in Havana by Carlow Eire…No Graves as Yet by Anne Perry…The Lion’s Game by Nelson DeMille…The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Shaffer and Barrows…Private by James Patterson…Little Bee - cannot recall author.

As the list shows, we are eclectic in our tastes and reading preferences.  Linda, a sweet, gentle teacher of small children, loves contemporary mysteries and murder stories.  Marilyn, the adverturer/world traveler, chooses unexpected books, the ones that make us think.  Marlene has a delicious sense of humor and loves all books.  Sue and Marti are out-going and gregarious, and their title suggestions are always good ones. Mary-Ellen is a romantic.  Sherry is busy with work and grandchildren; she reads and attends as often as she is able. We have two newer members, Mary Clark and a newcomer to Salem whose name I did not get; but I’m looking forward to her input and recommendations. Me? I love books: mysteries, series, dramas, historical fiction, contemporary fiction, sagas….if it has pages and words, I like it; but don’t offer to loan me your Kindle or Nook!  I love the heft of a real book in my hands, real pages to turn and dog-ear, books in which I can put my name, loan out and never have returned.

While our focus is on reading and discussing books, we don’t let that stand in the way of other subject matter: such as exactly what goes on at the infamous nude dance club in a tiny little hamlet in Southern Illinois; how any sane woman can believe that women have no desire to look upon the “flesh” of men, not even their husband, and that women should always dress so as not to expose their “flesh” to men, else they “inflame them with lust.”  Sounds like Sharia law to me.

We exchange opinions about politics, food, teaching, children, grandchildren, gardening, husbands, education, travel, and other intriguing matters.  And, of course, there is always lunch or snacks or coffee/tea wherever we meet.  All in all, it’s a wonderful way to spend a couple hours once a month, on the second Tuesday, twelve times a year.

Care to join us?

DAD

Dad

Hair combed straight back, a crooked smile, tall, dark and handsome, too,

My father was a quiet man with eyes of steely blue,

His hands were rough and calloused, sometimes black with gritty sand

From hours in the foundry, that could kill a weaker man.

Hard times, hard work and little pay can make a young man old,

But country music, baseball games and beer renewed his soul.

He played an old flattop guitar.  He could strum it by the hour;

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I danced around the living room of our little house.  I had just returned from an appointment with my doctor, and I was ecstatic. I smiled at my mother-in-law and my young sister-in-law.  My fourteen-month-old baby daughter lay sleeping in the crib.  The room was cozy and warm, a comfort on that chilly early-April day. 

“On October 23rd, we’re going to have another baby!” I announced.  The two women, one in her late forties, the other in her teens, looked at me with a touch of dismay.

“Oh,” said my husband’s mother.  “They’ll be really close, won’t they?”  She sounded uncertain.  Nine years separated my husband and his sister, so their mother basically had two “only children.”  There had been no competition for their mother’s attention.  On the other hand,  a gap of only twenty-three months separated my younger brother and me.  I couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t part of my life.  However, while I was having babies, he was serving a four-year stint in the U.S. Air Force.

I loved being pregnant!  After a few days of early morning sickness, I felt good.  I had carried my daughter high, but this baby literally sat on my lap, even when I was standing.  During the last weeks, I often cradled my lower abdomen when I walked, just to relieve the pressure on hip joints.  Heartburn reared it’s uncomfortable head, but the goal was in sight!  We chose a boy and a girl name, for there was no way of predetermining the sex of unborn babies at that time.  My husband had his heart set on a boy, but I didn’t care.  To coin that old phrase:  I just wanted a healthy baby. (more…)

“You’re pregnant.”

I lay there on the examining table, feet still in the stirrups position, and let the doctor’s words wash over me.  Four months earlier, I had miscarried at two months; so I was almost afraid to believe the doctor’s words.  There I was, still nineteen years old, married eight months, pregnant for the second time and scared to death.  It was mid-February, and I would be twenty on the twenty-seventh.

“Your baby should come around the fourteenth of September,” Dr. Kemper continued.  “We’ll get you set up with prenatal vitamins and monthly appointments.  Congratulations.”

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SCOTT MICHAEL, my two favorite masculine names.  I gave them to my son, reversed, Michael Scott.  He in turn, gave them to his son, as Scott Michael.

Scott Michael

Today, July 25th, is the twenty-first birthday of my second grandson.   His parents and grandparents eagerly awaited his arrival, but he took his time getting here.  After a long day of hard labor, his mother’s doctor decided that it would be best to deliver him by C-section.  His soon-to-be dad told us and Joyce’s parents that he would come get us when the baby was delivered.

I waited for several minutes before I decided that I could not let my son wait alone.  I told  the others that I would “be back,” and I went downstairs to the surgery wing of the hospital.  I rounded a corner and there on the floor, outside the operating room, sat my son, hands hanging limply across his knees.  The worry on his face broke my heart.

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When a beautiful, brown-eyed, dark-haired baby girl arrived in the Donoho family some years ago, I fell in love with her at first sight.  They named her Joyce.  I have known her father since we were teens, and our families have been friends for years.  I watched Joyce grow from a rosy-cheeked toddler to a pretty little girl with a shy smile and a smattering of freckles across her nose.

My son, Mike, was a couple years older than Joyce’s older brother, David; but the two boys were friends as they all grew up.  When Mike was fifteen, he complained to me one day that there were no “nice girls” in high school.  I assured him that there many nice girls, but he wasn’t having it.  I smiled and told him, “One of these days you’re going to look around and discover that Joyce Donoho is the prettiest little thing you have ever seen.”

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Drs. Joseph Ready (from left), Jef De Brabander, Andrew Pieper and Steven McKnight discovered a compound that boosts learning and memory in rodents.

DALLAS – July 8, 2010 – UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found a compound that preserves newly created brain cells and boosts learning and memory in an animal study.

The study of this compound, which appears in the July 9 issue of Cell, springs from a $2.5 million National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award to Dr. Steven McKnight, chairman of biochemistry at UT Southwestern and senior author of the study.  (more…)

Last Saturday, I shared some new experiences with part of my family;  and I loved all of it.  It was one of those gorgeous June mornings: a sky filled with puffy clouds, a soft breeze, something to be thankful for, because we knew that noon would usher in humidity and temperatures in the nineties.  That’s just how it is in June in the Midwest.

In the early afternoon, my daughter, Becky, and I met her daughter, Jessica, her son, Nick, his wife, Karissa, and their six-year-old son, Caden, at the Science Center in St. Louis, MO.  They had just come from a great morning at the St. Louis zoo and lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen in the Galleria Mall.  Some wonderful exhibits were on display at the Center, but our goal was the Omnimax showing of the Hubble Telescope Satellite.

I had seen photos and online pictures, but nothing had prepared me for the “in-your-face” experiences of the launch, the repair and images transported back to earth from outer space.  I think I murmured, “Oh, my!”  and “Wow!” often.  It was an incredible experience, and I recommend it with unabashed exuberance!  How’s that for an endorsement? (more…)

He was born May 28, 1984, one more little boy added to the cast of muliple millions of people upon the earth.  He was a long time coming, a big boy, deemed by his mother as “worth the hours of effort” to get him here.  Like his father, Nicholas has dark hair and big, dark brown eyes, handsome from the start.  His skin is dark-toned, too; and he turns as brown during the summer months as residents of the Middle East.

Nicholas Alexander, Age Four

The first grandchild on both sides of his family, Nick received adulation from his grandparents,  aunts and uncles.  Since I am his maternal grandmother, I know whereof I speak!  Plenty of attention came his way, but he remained sweet-natured and was never hateful or mean-spirited.   He was a striking toddler, big for his age, with a mop of dark curls that framed his face.  Strangers often stopped in restaurants to compliment his parents on their beautiful boy.

Years pass so swiftly, and we become so immersed in the business of daily living, that we are surprised when our toddler becomes a teenager.  Before he reached that bittersweet stage, he presented me with the opportunity to drive him to an emergency room–two summers in a row. He and his younger sister, Jessica, stayed with me through the hours their parents worked during the summer.  (more…)

This morning I rose earlier than usual, in order to visit and have coffee with one of my very dear friends.  While I enjoy grabbing an extra half hour of doze-time, my friend is up at 4:00.  The only exceptions occur on weekends, unless he is on call at the hospital, for my friend is a physician, a truly dedicated one.  On Saturdays, like today, he arrives at the Courtyard Coffee House after 7:00, instead of 6:00.  As a rule, he begins rounds at the hospital at 5:00, before he takes his first espresso break at the cafe.  Between 6:30 and 7:00, he goes back home to have breakfast with his wife; and then he’s off to his office to do paper work until patients arrive at the clinic where he works every day.

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