Tonight, I Celebrate My Love for You...#4



    So....it's been awhile for one of these types of posts and I'm ready to do several. Don't worry, I won't go overboard. I don't have that kind of time. Track has started and now I live at school for double-digit hours, go home, eat, walk the dogs, get half of something done, watch some Malcolm in the Middle, and then fall asleep after reading about 2.5 pages of something I've waited all day to read. So, you have no fear of having to read hundreds of posts about things I like!

  The last phrase/sentence may seem a little odd to some of my loyal readers and I know it would sound strange to many of my students. There have been many times in the last eight years of teaching and coaching that I have been accused of not liking anything almost to a depth of being incapable of liking anything. And the conversation and conclusion usually goes something like this:

"Mr. Dark, don't you just die laughing everytime Adam Sandler talks?"

"He's funny sometimes, but I can think of funnier guys."

"Yeah right. Wasn't (Fill in the blank Adam Sandler movie title) the funniest movie ever made?"

"I didn't really see that, but his movies are usually just the same routines that he does in every movie. Like I said, I think he is kind of funny, but not that funny."

"I guess you just hate every movie."

  And so, I have been forced on multiple occasions of self-preservation to prove that I'm capable of liking things and at times loving them. There was even a time when I carried a transparency around with me from class to class of 100 things I like. And whenever a student began a conversation that I felt was going to end in the usual, "I guess you hate everything because you don't like what I like." routine, then I would just flash my little, trusty transparency up and let it talk for me. Now granted, most of those things were not things they would like, but I thought everyone's "likes" were personal, but I've been wrong before.

 So, the item that holds the #4 place on my, "Tonight, I Celebrate My Love For You" List is....

The Library



   I have had a long relationship of both complete love and complete hate with the library. My earliest memories of the library are from the "Media Center" at Tavares Elementary and they are full of good books and Friday mornings spent watching fun movies like, "Rikki Tikki Tavi". I loved checking out books and seeing how many books they would let me take home. It seemed crazy. The school was giving me free books for a little while and when I got tired of them, I could bring them back and get more. And if I took too long to read or look at the book, they would only charge us something like $0.05 a day. What a great deal!

  Flash forward several years, and the memories are both good and bad. Many times we would go to the library when I was homeschooled and we would practice using the Dewey Decimal System and get to check out books on whatever was really catching our attention at the time. I love doing both of these. I actually got pretty good at using Dewey and if I can brag a little, I still kind of am. But these library visits would also be accompanied by us (my siblings and myself) doing some of our daily school work and getting asked by someone why we weren't in "real school". It used to make me feel bad about what I was doing because it felt hard and felt like school, but then some nosey, elderly person would tell me it wasn't "real school work". However, now that I'm older and a teacher, the work I was doing in "not real school" was so much harder and more intense than most of what I see going on at "real school", except in my classroom of course!

    Flash forward several more years, I am back to loving the library, but also basically living in one and quickly growing to detest the likes of a library. My grades in college were not always the best, but it was not for the lack of time spent studying and preparing. There were many times I would spend anywhere between 15-40 hours a week inside Mercer University's beloved Tarver Library. During study breaks, I would take a brisk walk outside or try to find the oldest books the library had. I loved doing this. I loved going in the Special Collections section and seeing all the First Editions and other collectible books, etc. However, by my senior year at Mercer, I was finding much more hate for the library than love and upon graduation I had made a clean break with libraries. It had been a good ride, but we were finished. I even had brief visions of never having to enter one again and for about two years, this was almost the case...Then I became a teacher.

  My new found love for library came to me while riding my bike around the not-so bike friendly city of Dothan, Alabama. I turned down a side street on my way to the post office and to my right was the Dothan Public Library. I went to the post office and was about to ride straight home, when I decided to spend a couple of minutes looking in the library because I was greatly intrigued by the very large and odd Tikki pole outside. I went in and once again realized my initial love of the library. They have all these great things: books, magazines, movies, documentaries, books on cd, etc and they will give them to you for about two weeks. When you get tired of them, you can come get new ones at no charge unless you are late and then it is only something like ten cents a day. I quickly got a library card. I checked out a couple books and several books on cd. I rode home on my bike quickly and began painting my living room while listening to, John Adams, on cd. I tried to listen to James Joyce's, Ulysses, but the mix of stream of consciousness writing and paint fumes were not an ideal mix.

  And this is how my feelings for the library have stayed. Mel and I often go to the library here in Macon. We check out several books at a time and attempt to read through them. Mel is better at this than I am. We have been really late on some and paid our ten cent fine and moved on with our life. A ten day late fee adds up to a dollar, while a new book costs $15-$18. Not a bad trade off, right? We have currently begun taking part in the awesome program of library sharing, which is where your local library doesn't have a book, but another one does, your library calls them, and then the other library mails it to you. And all of it for free! Crazy!

 

 Our local library is Washington Memorial Library. We love it. The book selection is great. The fines are low. The librarians are helpful. And the library share program is getting larger by the week. And the place is pretty. Check the pic. (I know its a painting, but it really is a pretty place, especially in the Spring.)



Happy reading and visit your local library,

David

Olympic Trials Marathon--Women's Race Recap


The Women's Start

    I am doing this post for two reasons: one to show those that think I just care about the men's running scene that they are wrong and secondly, to continue to make HTH, the one place you can get your news and information. So without further ado.....a report on the Women's Olympic Marathon Trials.  

   The women's race was supposed to be the marquee event due to the ever-present hype machine that seems to make its presence known in every sphere. It was sold to the running public as this epic battle between the old guard versus the new guard and each side had its representing members. It was also suppose to be a race where record after record was set. Some of the hype did occur, but for the most part, the race unfolded just like one who watches running would assume for it to. What I mean by this is that the race played out the way most major marathons play out. If you don't understand what that means, that's okay. It is very easy. The runner's start. The leaders leave the main pack behind at around mile 3 or 4. The lead pack usually has around 10 members in it and that is the story till mile 16-20. Then the real leaders pick up the pace and drop the people who are really just hanging onto hope alone. Then those who are dropped become the chase pack with the long shot of catching up and the real leaders try to pick each other off by a continuous picking up of the pace. The race usually comes down to a lead group of 3 which will wait till the last .2 in order to make any really moves.  And the winner usually pulls away for the win in the last 100 meters. And this is almost the same scenario that the Trials race followed with a few tweaks here and there.

The women's field at mile 3.

    The women's race began at 8:15 CST. The race started and the whole of the women's field formed a mass of runners that pretty much stayed together through mile 3. At mile 3, it splintered into a lead pack and a chase pack. This was the case till around mile 8. At mile 8, a third pack emerged and the chase pack further splintered into a long line. At mile 9, the lead pack consisted of Amy Hastings, Desiree Davila, Kara Goucher, Shalane Flanagan, Serena Burla, and Deena Kastor. This lead pack stayed this way till mile 13 where Kastor and Burla were dropped. At mile 16 Hastings was dropped only to regain the lead of whole race in the next mile. She was later dropped for good at mile 19. Then there were three....Davila, Flanagan, and Goucher. At mile 21, Flanagan and Davila dropped Goucher for the rest of the race. And miles 22-25 turned into an epic battle of wills from the top two female distance runners in America. Neither would go away and neither would yield to the other. It was simply amazing. During mile final feet of mile 25, Flanagan dropped Davila for the rest of the race distance, but only by about 30 feet. And it would stay this way til Flanagan broke the finish line tape for the win.

The lead pack at around mile 18.



Flanagan getting ready to drop Davila.

The top 3 and America's Olympic Marathon team for London 2012.

The top ten women's results: (The rest can be found at letsrun.com)

1. Shalane Flanagan 30 Oregon TC Elite 2:25:38

2. Desiree Davila 28 Hansons-Brooks Distance Project 2:25:55 +0:17
3. Kara Goucher 33 Oregon TC Elite 2:26:06 +0:28
4. Amy Hastings 27 unattached 2:27:17 +1:39
5. Janet Cherobon-Bawcom 33 Atlanta Track Club 2:29:45 +4:07
6. Deena Kastor 38 unattached 2:30:40 +5:02
7. Clara Grandt 24 RIADHA 2:30:46 +5:08
8. Alissa McKaig 25 ZAP Fitness Reebok 2:31:56 +6:18
9. Dot McMahan 35 Hansons-Brooks Distance Project 2:32:16 +6:38
10. Magdalena Lewy Boulet 38 unattached 2:33:42 +8:04


    As I stated in the Men's Race Recap, this race was a wonderful race. Each of the runners, especially the top 20, ran the race of their lives. Many of the women didn't make the Olympic team, but ran races that would have won most of the 200+ marathons that are held in America every year. Shalane Flanagan, Desiree, and Kara Goucher have all run very well against the runners from other countries (that should be read as...runners from East Africa) and I look forward to seeing how they do in London. I see no reason why all three of them shouldn't come close to either winning or at least medaling.


Happy Racing and USA! USA! USA! USA!

   David

The Olympic Trials Marathon--Men's Race Recap



    On Saturday, I woke up in time to brew a pot of decaf coffee (Mel's not drinking caffeine these days for our little boy. Thanks Mel!), wash my face, and find the best place on the internet to receive updates about what exactly was taking place during the Olympic Marathon Trials in Houston, Texas. Why didn't I just go to NBC Sports and watch the race, or pay my $2.99 fee and watch it on Universal Sports, or go to any number of running websites and watch a free live feed? The answer is that NBC bought the rights to all Olympic events and sued anyone who tried to televise any of the events. And on Saturday, they chose to show cartoons and delay coverage of the marathon till 3 pm. However, the hockey game that was on before the race went long and they still had to get the necessary commercials in and had to end right on time because a dog show had to start right on time, so they cut their coverage short by almost a half hour and quickly removed the content from their website, so no one could show it again. So....to make a long and very bitter story shorter, all HTH has are pictures from people and running websites that were along the race course.

  I will do my best to give you a very brief recap of the men's race. The race started at 8:00 CST. (Picture 1) However, unlike most marathons, the lines of who was in contention for a place on the finish line podium and who wasn't took place within the first mile instead of around miles 16-20. It felt like this whole race was about breaking certain runners who had entered the race with a desire to dethrone the current top runners. And this breaking was done by increasing the pace until one by one, they began to fall off and join the chase group or not finish the race at all. There were times that Ryan Hall, Mo Trafeh, Dathan Ritzenhein, Meb K., and Abdi A., pushed the mile pace to as low as 4:43 for mile after mile. Within the first mile and a half, all the runners had been divided into three separate groups and this would be the case for most of the race. The previous listed runners made up group 1 and Hall lead the race till mile 18 when he moved to second and allowed Abdi to lead for one mile. Group 2, known as the "chase pack" never got closer than 40 seconds behind group 1. And group 3 never got closer than several minutes behind group 2.


Ryan Hall pushing the pace ahead of Group 1

The "Chase Pack"

      Very simply, the race went like this: the gun went off, Group 1 took off like they were shot from a gun, Group 2 attempted to chase after them, but never got close, Group 3 ran their own race, but they were never in contention for much of anything beyond finishing and taking part in the Trials. The real race took place between the already mentioned pack of Ryan Hall, Dathan Ritzenhein, Mo Trafeh, Abdi Abdirahman, and Meb Keflezighi. They battled from mile one to mile 24 with Hall leading the pack for the majority of miles. He lead every mile except 18, 25, and 26. I was constantly hitting the refresh button in order to find out what was happening. Each mile had drama that was all its own. They would drop a runner. He would catch up. They would change leaders. The leader would add some distance between himself and the others. The others would catch up. They would drop someone else. That someone else would catch up. He would then lead the race. This went on for every mile until mile 24. At mile 24, Mo Trafeh was dropped for good. Dathan was dropped for good in mile 25. Ryan and Meb were the last men standing in mile 26 and after a brief conversation, Meb dropped Ryan in the last half mile to go ahead with the win in a Trial's record time. The top three finishers would all finish below 2:10. Dathan came in a very brave, but career ending fourth. Brett Goucher finished with a PR and a fifth place finish.

   The Trials race proved to be one for the record books. Not just because of the pace, but because it once again showed that anything is possible within the marathon distance. Meb was supposed to either not finish or come in at some distant place behind the winner, but instead won at age 39 in record time. Dathan was supposed to be at his healthiest and some (a lot of) people picked him to win, but instead his legs cramped up and he almost had to completely quit the race. Trafeh beat everyone in the USATF Half Marathon Championship in Houston on the same course and a lot of other people said he would win, but he didn't finish the race. Hall was the clear choice to win because of his dominating performance four years ago and this past year, but instead he came in second place. (I have a little conspiracy theory about why this is so, but I may keep it to myself) Other runners came highly touted by critics at large and they ran well, but were either broken or ran a great raced that was paled by the incredible races run by the top three. And lastly Abdi

Hall pushing the pace near mile 20.




Hall leading the lead pack of five around a curve at mile 22.




Meb preparing to take the lead from Hall near mile 26.

The top three and America's 2012 Olympic Marathon Team: Meb Kefezighi, Ryan Hall, and Abdi Abdirahman.

  The top ten results were: (All of the results can be found at letsrun.com)

 1. Meb Keflezighi 36 New York Athletic Club (NYAC) 2:09:08

 2. Ryan Hall 29 unattached 2:09:30 +0:22

 3. Abdi Abdirahman 33 unattached 2:09:47 +0:39

 4. Dathan Ritzenhein 29 unattached 2:09:55 +0:47

 5. Brett Gotcher 27 McMillan Elite 2:11:06 +1:58

 6. Andrew Carlson 29 Team USA Minnesota 2:11:24 +2:16

 7. Fernando Cabada 29 unattached 2:11:53 +2:45

 8. Nick Arciniaga 28 McMillan Elite 2:11:56 +2:48

 9. James Carney 33 unattached 2:12:23 +3:15

10. Jimmy Grabow 27 adidas Legacy Run Racing 2:12:29 +3:21


   If you didn't watch the race, you missed out. If you did, I hope you found it as exciting as I did. If you watched it on NBC, you probably also found the "live" coverage to be lacking in more than one way. The race really made me excited to see what will take place come summer in London. I hope one or more of these guys can earn us a medal!

Happy Racing and USA! USA! USA!

David



My New Canoe

     I have always loved going canoeing. My parents would take us to the springs around our house and we would rent canoes and go for the day on these great floats. Out of these trips, Alexander Springs and Juniper Springs were the best. The later providing the most technical runs and the best wildlife viewing. Each trip always made you wonder what it must have been like to canoe down these waterways a hundred years earlier when Florida consisted of only two counties and just about as many people. I will always treasure the trips my parents took me on. They are trips containing more memories than I can think about all at once. I hope to do the same with my coming child. I look forward to it.

   When I graduated from college, I took a job with an all boy's summer camp, Alpine Camp for Boys. While working this job, I got to live in this neat stone house that was located right on the Little River. The camp had many canoes and many days after work, I would leave the office, drop my things off at my house, grab a jacket and a pack of crackers, and then Lady and I would load up into one of the canoes and we'd canoe till it got dark or we'd stay out till later and make our way back in the dark. I will also never forget these times.

  I will aways equate canoeing with peace. There is something about being alone on the water and using your own power to propel you forward. If you are quiet, most birds, deer, heron, alligators, etc will ignore you because you don't seem to be disturbing them in anyway. I always get quieted in the presence of moving water and the way the sun or moon is being reflected off the water. There are few things better than jumping into a canoe and paddling off to wherever you can move yourself to. You will always feel a little like Lewis & Clark when you get settled and put your first stroke of the paddle through the water. So....when my dad asked me if I would like to have a canoe there was no hesitation in my reply.

  My kind dad bought me a canoe for this Christmas. It is a Sportsman model by Old Town Canoes. It is 15 feet long and weighs 86 lbs. It has three seats and places to put just about everything from a cold drink to a fishing pole. Mel and I have taken it out twice and each time has been amazing. Each time we have put in at Amerson Water Works Park. It is about a mile and a half from our house and not too hard to get to. They have a canoe only boat launch and then we make our way south. We tried going north, but after 10-15 minutes of intense paddling, we had moved no farther than 100 yards and we were both tired and we had shed two layers of clothing. Our first trip was a 30 minute trip down to the pavilion of the park. Our second trip was a two hour trip from the park to Spring Street in downtown Macon. The second trip opened up a lot of possibilities as far as how far we can go and what our pace is and such. We even beached the canoe on a sandbar and had a snack. So, now we are currently planning an overnight trip where we canoe to a certain point and camp on a sandbar. And sometime down the road, I really want to take the Ocmulgee River and follow it to the Atlantic Ocean. But we will see.... I have a bad habit of getting ahead of myself.

Happy Canoeing,

  David

  

The Olympic Marathon Trials



  On Saturday, this Saturday, 1/14/12, in the city of Houston, Texas, somewhere between 250-300 elite athletes will toe the line and race to secure a spot on the U.S. Olympic Marathon team. There are three male spots and three female spots. This race occurs every four years and has provided for some serious spectating over the years; if you want to get a serious runner upset, claim a certain year had the stiffest competition and watch them get hot.  However, this edition of the race is going to be rare for many cases. The rarest things about the race is that the men's and women's races are going to be held in the same city, on the same day, on the same course. This has never been done before. The other odd thing is the USATF (United State of America's Track and Field Assoc.) has allowed the athletes to wear any sponsor's advertisement on their running paraphernalia. The first items are pretty neat, but the second item is a sad sign of our materialistic country and culture. (It has gotten so bad that several athletes have begun advertising space on their arms and legs. Really? I won't go into what I think about all of that right now, but if you know me, I'm sure you already know what I think about it?)

  The important details are that the Men's race begins at 8:00 AM CST and then Women's race begins at 8:15 AM CST. There will no live coverage. Yes, you just read that. However, NBC, who currently owns the rights to produce all Olympic sporting events for the 2012 Olympics, will show race highlights between 3:00 PM-5:00 PM. I guess they would rather show cartoons or a couple of sorry reruns than the Olympic Trails Marathon, but I'm going to pretend to not be bitter. There are some highly favored runners and some long shots. I'm going to be rooting for both. And, you faithful readers of HTH, don't have to worry. I'll post the results. Runner's World and Letsrun.com are going to be your best sources for inside information or for that matter information at all concerning the race. And the official race website is http://www.houston2012.com/

  The top ten male runners to watch out for are the usual: Ryan Hall, Dathan Ritzenhein, Meb Keflezighi, Mo Trafeh, Brett Gotcher, Jason Hartman, Nick Arciniaga, Jason Lehmkuhle, and Fernando Cabada. But there are also many long shots and several longer shots, but as noted by many of the front-runners have said this week is that the marathon distance needs to be and must be respected because even the greatest and fastest runners have failed at the distance. The top ten female runners to watch are Shalane Flanagan, Desiree Davila, Kara Goucher, Amy Hastings, Deena Kastor, Magdalena Boulet, Jenn Rhines, Stephanie Rothenstein, Clara Grandt, and Blake Russell. The same mindset can be said for the women's race when it comes to respecting the distance and the fact that anything can happen over a 26.2 mile race.

  I am not exactly sure where I got my love for the Olympics from, but for as long as I can remember, I have been in awe of the summer Olympics. I remember cheering for the Dream Team basketball team of my youth, Carl Lewis, Dan & Dan, and many others throughout the years. I remember checking the daily medal counts in 96', 00', 04', and in 08'. If I had been blessed with much more athletic talent than I have, I think I would have given up so much to be an Olympian. The whole idea of wearing my country's singlet or jersey and representing it in front of the entire world seems hard to even imagine. But a guy can dream, right? So, I'll bring this spirit to my spectating this coming Saturday and to the Olympic Track Trials in June right before my focus turns to London.

Enjoy the race. May the best three win a chance to represent the Red, White, and Blue. May Ryan run like he has wings. May Meb, Deena, & Blake shut down the skeptics. May the long shots hang with the lead pack much farther than mile 16 and maybe even one or two of them come in third. May there actually be a sprint to the finish. I can't wait till the gun goes off.

Happy Spectating and USA! USA! USA! USA!

 

David



New Year Resolutions



   I have waited so long to give my resolutions for 2012 because for some reason, I feel a little gun shy this year. I feel like I made all these great resolutions last year and then some of them got pushed so far out of focus and there are few things I dislike more than saying I'm going to accomplish something and then not being able to accomplish whatever it was. I guess I share this with my dog Jack. We have high highs and low lows. I guess my whole little immediate family does this. And so, I have very mixed emotions when it comes the goals I set before myself in 2011. I had some great successes: I read many of the books I have been wanting to, wrote some more on several stories, finished some stories, ran my fastest 5k and 10k, and had several 50-60 mile running weeks. But there were some horrible defeats: I didn't run every day, I tore my achilles which has sidelined my running since late October, ended my marathon and half marathon goals, as well as my mileage goal. I also wasn't able to read or write all that I wanted to because other books seemed more attractive or other things demanded my time.
     So this year, I was not going to have any goals or resolutions, but saw that old quote about if you don't plan on where you're going then you'll end up somewhere you don't want to be and it got me worrying about this whole year. So, I've decided to pretend to be optimistic and say, "It all happens, right? Life and all the other things that make it up get in the way and we aren't able to do all we want, but accomplishing something is better than accomplishing nothing. Right? Or we wouldn't need to set goals because we could just say we are going to do something and we would just do it. But we all know that isn't the case."  So, I have made a few VERY general goals for myself this year and here they are in no order of importance:

  1. I want to keep reading and pursuing good books.

  2. I want to make time to write and produce at least one good story this year.

  3. I want to let my achilles heal properly and get back to running.

  4. I want to finish fixing up the inside of my house and begin on the outside.

  5. I want to learn to be a wise husband and in time learn to be a wise father.

  6. I want to share all of my favorite and secret things with my son even though I know he won't really understand them....yet.

   7. I want to grow a great garden this year.

   8. I want to make a bicycle commuter out of myself.

   9. I want to develop a habit of having a devotional.

  10. I want to become a wise steward of all that God has given me.

Well folks, those are my goals. I look forward to working towards them and what I will learn from each of them. Hope you have set some goals for yourself. If not, you should.

Happy New Year (Still saying it because I still am wondering where all of 2011 went.),

David

Nightwoods--A Book Review



   Nightwoods, Charles Frazier's third novel, is much different than his previous two. Both of his previous novels are considered historical fiction, but many of his facts just maybe in the category of psuedo-facts, especially his second effort. His first novel, Cold Mountain, won the National Book Award and the number 10 spot on the my Infamous Top Ten Book List here at HTH. His second book, Thirteen Moons, was on the New York Times Bestseller List and the Los Angleles Times Book List for many, many weeks.

   There are several living authors that I continually check up on via Barnes and Noble (I know this is weird.) and see if they have put out anything new and was very happy when I saw that Mr. Frazier had put forth a third effort. I was even more excited when I read several reviews stating that it was written in the genre of Southern Gothic Literature, i.e. O'Connor, Faulkner, and McCarthy, which the loyal readers of HTH know is a local favorite of our editorial staff. However....

    Let me start off by saying that I think, no strike that, I know that Charles Frazier is a good writer and often times, he is a fine writer. I also know that I'm a mediocre writer at best and am not wealthy, published, award-winning writer. In his third effort, Nightwoods, Mr. Frazier does many things right, but many things wrong. A fellow bibliophile friend of mine said that maybe some folks should just write one good book instead of several mediocre books. Flannery O'Connor echoes this in her take on writing, Mystery and Manners. However, I know this isn't the case in today's climate of huge publishing houses and writers desperately wanting to make money off of books turned into movies instead of lasting literature. The question that has plagued writers since the early 1900's is the one Harper Lee never was able to completely answer and we are thankful she didn't and that is, "What are you working on now?". The poor writer usually gets this question about two seconds after they have announced their newest book that has taken them a long time to work on, or in Mr. Frazier's case, five years.

   All this being said, let's get to a review of the novel and let's start with the good stuff. The thing I liked best about this novel was that I didn't know what was going to happen in this book until it did. This was and is a welcome surprise. Mr. Frazier kept me guessing until I finished the last page. He accomplishes this by a slow pace of story, but don't worry, it isn't so slow that one gets bored. The other things Mr. Frazier does well, as usual, is his vast descriptions of places, feelings, countryside, and people. The mental pictures that Frazier paints find very few comparisons in today's landscape of writers. The portions of this novel that deal with his descriptions and the portions where you can see him telling the story, slowly and working through his craft were a pleasure to read and made me glad I put down what I was reading and picked this book up. But this brings us to the bad stuff.

   This book was suppose to be written in the genre of Southern Gothic literature and that it was not; neither in characters or plot. As the same bibliophile mentioned above and I have often said, "Just because a novel takes place in the South doesn't make it Southern." And I will stick by this and add that just because some very disturbing events occur within a novel, doesn't make it Gothic. It takes a lot more to be both. A lot. The biggest fault I found with this book is that the majority of the characters are just too unbelievable. Luce, the main character, is a semi-hermit who lives at an ancient Lodge where she is the keeper and who graduated from high school at the most, but she thinks like a woman who has graduated from Yale with a PhD  in Women and Gender Studies and American Existentialism. Stubblefield, the grandson of the owner of the Lodge, thinks and acts more like an over-indulged frat boy than a character in a Gothic novel. Maddie, Luce's seemingly only friend appears to be left-over from Cold Mountain, or maybe just a revision of the character Cold Mountain character of Sally Swanger. The other four main characters, Bud, Lit, Frank and Dolores are the most Gothic of them all, and the last three remain Gothic in genre. To be fair, the children, Frank and Dolores, could have fallen out of an O'Connor story. The other things that I didn't like about this novel all kind of go back to my original dislike, this book was suppose to occur in the 1960's, but the characters have attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and thoughts that feel like they feel out of current liberal arts college classroom. I didn't live in the 1960's, but know people who did and don't believe you would have found the majority of the opinions held by Mr. Frazier's cast in the Appalachian mountains in the late 1960's. And the last complaint is the language. I don't expect and don't want there to be books that don't contain language that you would actual hear everyday, but in this novel it seems that in an effort to be disturbing or "gothic", Frazier resorts to a cheapening of the rich language of the Appalachian region. His other novels don't do this, but this effort appears to read more like a no-plot sitcom than a novel that I know, or at least feel like, Frazier worked hard on.

  I will end by saying that I am glad I read this book. It was mostly good. I hope Frazier continues to write. He is a good writer. I only hope his next effort is more like his first and doesn't feel so contrived, but don't take my word for it. Read it for yourself.

Happy Reading,

    David



   

Happy New Year from Hines Terrace Herald

   Dear Hines Terrace Herald Readers,

     The staff here at HTH cannot thank you enough for the support that you give us each and every day. When I open up my blog each day and look at the stats, it always happily suprises me to see that anyone is reading this thing at all. And I cannot even begin to express my joy and elation when one of you takes the time out of your busy day to leave a comment. We appreciate the time you spend reading this blog and hope you enjoy the posts more often than not. And so, we just want to wish you a very joyful and peaceful 2012. We also hope the Mayan calendar IS truly off 50 years give or take a few years like they say or this may just be the last new year's post I do. And that is fine with us, but we would rather keep this thing up and running since we will be adding a new staff member come early May.

     Mel and I have a nine year history of weird New Year's Eve events and every year we promise to each other to do better, but come December 31st each year, we find ourselves back in the Twilight Zone of some sort. One year we were stuck on a youth group bus on a ski trip with a guy named Squirrel. The following year we found ourselves riding in the backseat of a crazy guy who my sister was absentmindedly dating and he took us to a redneck party in Palatka, Florida where I rescued a dog who was drowing in a river thanks to being fed some Jack Daniels and then sent into a dark, cold river until he couldn't move. The next, we found ourselves at a wedding in the Fitz,. where we witnessed most of Mel's high school teachers drinking far too much and telling us too much about ourselves, themselves, and my supposed good looks by an overly friendly female English teacher that was as old as my Granny. Our first year in Macon, a drunk lady burned a whole in my vest while I was wearing it with her cigarette. However, the last two years, we have been on an upswing. This year, several friends had us over for a low-country boil and a bonfire till about 11:30 PM and then Mel and I headed downtown Macon to watch the above Cherry Blossom Ball drop at midnight. I'm glad we went. They are getting better, but the crowd has always been a great cache of legends; much like the local fair. The way I look at it, by the time our kid turns five or six, we should be hanging with Ryan Seacrest in Times Square, but we'll see.

   I want to end this post with two items, one is poem from Wendell Berry from his collection of poems titled, Given, and the other is a portion of a prayer from a collection of prayers by Puritans titled, The Valley of Vision. Each item highlights what I personally want to focus on in 2012. I want to continually focus on the truth that God is faithful and cannot not be faithful and I never want to lose focus of that no matter the financial, political, moral, etc. climate. And the other is that I don't want to lose focus on the grand impact of the Cross. Without it, I am nothing. So, I'll let the words (the better and more profound) of others speak for themselves.

IX

The incarnate Word is with us,

is still speaking, is present

always, yet leaves no sign

but everything that is.

                                             -Wendell Berry, Given poems (pg. 78)

Deliverance

...May his shed blood make me

more thankful for thy mercies

more humble under thy correction,

more zealous in thy service,

more watchful against temptation,

more contented in my circumstances,

more useful to others.

-Valley of Vision (pg. 46) 

Happy New Year!

Grace and Peace,

   David