I've got books on the brain today. For two entirely different reasons.
The first is more pleasant, so we'll have a go at that to start, shall we?
At work Sunday night, I stumbled across a piece of copy that made mention of the fact that today, Monday, April 23, marks "World Book Night." This is an international initiative created to promote the love of books and reading, something I'm always happy to throw my considerable weight behind. With this event, book "givers" are tapped to reach out to those who have little or no access to books, or simply those who are infrequent readers.
The book givers have designated sites -- my home base of Lancaster County, Pa. has three: Mount Joy's Milanof-Schock Library, New Holland's Elanco Library and Lititz's Aaron's Books -- where they go to receive 20 copies of a book of their choice. There was a list of 30 titles to choose from this year, including Maya Angelou's divine "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," John Irving's compelling "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and Suzanne Collins' can't-put-it-down book of the moment "The Hunger Games." Also represented were sci-fi/fantasy (Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game"), horror (Stephen King's "The Stand") and sports (H.G. Bissinger's "Friday Night Lights"). The givers then disperse into their communities, to places from nursing homes or hospitals to mass transit or malls, and disperse the books.
They have to rely on their own sense of salesmanship, as it were, to hook people.
Good luck to all who are participating. It's too late to join the giver brigade for this year, but I'd wager the folks behind this event are already planning for the future. For more information, visit www.us.worldbooknight.org, or perhaps visit your local library system's home on the Web.
Now for the second item. A colleague of mine, reporter Tom Knapp, had posted on his Facebook page Sunday a link that had me shaking my head.
It seems that the school board in a district in nearby Lebanon County voted unanimously to pull a title from its children's shelves. The book in question is called "The Dirty Cowboy," a picture book written by Amy Timberlake and illustrated by Adam Rex.
And it seems to me that the only thing dirty about this character is, well, the accumulated grime on his person.
The story involves a cowboy who decides it's time to take his yearly bath. He has his dog keep watch over his clothes while he's scrubbing up. The problem is, when Our Hero emerges from the H20 all squeaky clean, pupster doesn't recognize his master's stench, and won't let him near the duds. And while hilarity ensues as he attempts to re-cover his assets, full-frontal cowboy definitely does not. Apparently there's not even the slightest slip of a butt crack.
The problem is, some parents complained to the board that the mere suggestion of nudity was more than enough, and requested that their children not, ahem, be exposed.
This is the original reporting on the story, from the Lebanon Daily News: http://www.ldnews.com/ci_20436349/c-board-votes-remove-dirty-cowboy-book-from?source=most_viewed
And here's the blog post from Rogue Librarian that m'colleague Tom had linked. It raises, shall we say, a point of view that's an alternative to the board's: http://sullywriter.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/wtf-is-wrong-with-these-people/
Honestly, I just don't get why this book should be seen as something even remotely risqué or inappropriate. It's a story about bath time, plain and simple. Do the parents in question bathe their kids fully clothed? I'd think they'd be congratulating the poor nekkid cowdude for at least attempting to preserve his modesty by hiding behind well-placed birds, boulders and boots.
Guess not.
I suppose I should end this morning's literary meanderings by telling you what's been on my own library shelf recently.
I just went through Steven King's latest, "11/22/63," admittedly a bit more quickly than I'd have liked, but you know how the library gets when you keep their stuff too long. Anyway, it's a big bite of book, but it's really quite savory. It's not a typical SK frightfest, and instead delves into alternate realities. I quite enjoyed it, and wouldn't mind having another, slower pass through it.
"The Hunger Games" is on my to-do shelf (I've blitzed through the first 28 pages and found them most intriguing), as is Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle."
And in my iBooks stash, I've been reading Wendy McClure's "Don't Trade the Baby for a Horse," a stash of shorts that serves as an addendum of sorts to her fun "The Wilder Life," a chronicle of her attempts to get in touch with her inner Laura Ingalls Wilder. If you're a "Little House" fan, these are must-reads, as is McClure's Twitter feed, @HalfPintIngalls. (Recent tweets: "I'm visiting @RoseWilderLane in San Francisco and the food here is INCREDIBLE! I'm wearing my 'eating corset,' that's for sure..." or "You call that train wreck on your head a BONNET? Happy Easter anyway!")
Monday, April 23, 2012
Saturday, April 21, 2012
RIP, GVCC
In a week that saw the loss of pop culture luminaries such as Dick Clark and Levon Helm (and on a lesser scale, Jonathan Frid, the original Barnabas Collins on "Dark Shadows"), I got hit with another demise much closer to home.
I called to check in with my parents on Friday, and The Old Man was quite upset. Green Valley Country Club, he said, had finally been torn asunder, fractured for good. If you were well and truly a devotee of "American Bandstand"or The Band, you'll get the parallel. Honestly, I feel as though a giant chunk of my childhood has just vanished forever.
A bit of background here. Green Valley is the little club down the street, less than a quarter-mile down the hill from my parents' house. It was founded in 1926 by the owner of Berks County department store Pomeroy's as a gathering place or retreat for his employees. Over the years it grew into a private club, but not for the well-to-do. The Old Man always referred to it as a "working man's club." Originally a parcel of 100 acres, there were swimming facilities, picnic groves, summer bungalows, courts for everything from tennis to basketball to shuffleboard and, of course, the clubhouse, which featured a restaurant and a ballroom for banquets and dances.
My mother and father built their house in 1960, and The Old Man began moonlighting as a bartender at the club not terribly long afterward. He was as involved as involved could be, and ultimately served decades on the board of directors, including a good chunk of time as president.
Over the years, though, as membership declined, little pieces got stripped away. The bungalows were torn down. A large parcel got sold to the local school district for new elementary and middle schools. And now, as of a special meeting in the middle of this week, officially all that's left is the swim club. GVCC is down to six acres of outdoor facilities surrounding its two swimming pools. The clubhouse and remaining land were sold outright to a local restauranteur, who apparently already has begun remodeling.
I can only hope he'll have some sort of nod to the old place's history somewhere.
In the meantime, I feel a need to grieve and reminisce.
Quite literally, I grew up on the grounds. My mother, Saint Joan, was almost as involved as The Old Man. She cleaned, did laundry, filled in at the office whenever they needed her to. She also was heavily involved in the Ladies' Auxilliary. Wherever the parentals were, I was.
And there was always something going on.
During the club's heyday, the ballroom was packed every Saturday night. The Old Man helped bring in a roster of pretty impressive talent for a lot of years: Johnny Mercer, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Duke Ellington and more. The acoustics in the cozy ballroom were superb. Lionel Hampton loved playing there so much he insisted my father take his private phone number, saying, "Man, anytime you got an opening, you call me. I'll be here."
The clubhouse was huge, and I knew every nook and cranny. I lived at the pool all summer as a kid. Every sunny day I'd walk down the road with my lunch and change for the phone and some penny candy. The folks were seldom with me, but I never stepped out of line ... I knew they'd find out if I did.
Of course, the older I got, the more involved I, too, became. I helped wherever I was needed, from cleaning or helping set the ballroom to manning game or food stands at the Member's Day or Labor Day picnics, which drew hundreds of people in the 1970s and '80s. And as my older sister waitressed in the dining room in high school and college, so I spent four summers sweating my butt off at the poolside concession stand. I was grill jockey, sandwich board wench, counter help, bartender ... you name it. We worked hard, but we had a lot of fun.
And, of course, my wedding reception was held at GVCC. My sister's, too. Incredible parties, both, even though they fell 28 years apart. My sister's made smashingly good use of the original front porch for cocktail hour. Sadly, the porch has long since been closed in. As for mine, we shut the whole facility to outside traffic for the day. With more than 225 people, we had doings in the dining room, ballroom and both bars. Of course, I think it turned out so well because the manager at the time was deathly afraid of my mother hurting him if the slightest thing went wrong.
Sure, there will still be a restaurant on the property. Families will continue to sun themselves poolside and buy GV Burgers and penny candy (or is it quarter candy now? ... inflation, you know) from the concession stand. My logical mind knows the place has been trickling toward this outcome for a long time now. But the finality of it somehow still feels jarring.
In my childhood, I'd look at the darkened dance floor and imagine dancers swirling about as faint music echoed off the walls. Then I'd see my parents and their friends sitting around the bar or the picnic grove, young and real and vibrant ... laughing, coming together as a community. It felt like a home. And that's how I'll forever see it.
Rest in peace, old girl.
I called to check in with my parents on Friday, and The Old Man was quite upset. Green Valley Country Club, he said, had finally been torn asunder, fractured for good. If you were well and truly a devotee of "American Bandstand"or The Band, you'll get the parallel. Honestly, I feel as though a giant chunk of my childhood has just vanished forever.
 |
| Green Valley Country Club |
My mother and father built their house in 1960, and The Old Man began moonlighting as a bartender at the club not terribly long afterward. He was as involved as involved could be, and ultimately served decades on the board of directors, including a good chunk of time as president.
Over the years, though, as membership declined, little pieces got stripped away. The bungalows were torn down. A large parcel got sold to the local school district for new elementary and middle schools. And now, as of a special meeting in the middle of this week, officially all that's left is the swim club. GVCC is down to six acres of outdoor facilities surrounding its two swimming pools. The clubhouse and remaining land were sold outright to a local restauranteur, who apparently already has begun remodeling.
I can only hope he'll have some sort of nod to the old place's history somewhere.
In the meantime, I feel a need to grieve and reminisce.
Quite literally, I grew up on the grounds. My mother, Saint Joan, was almost as involved as The Old Man. She cleaned, did laundry, filled in at the office whenever they needed her to. She also was heavily involved in the Ladies' Auxilliary. Wherever the parentals were, I was.
And there was always something going on.
During the club's heyday, the ballroom was packed every Saturday night. The Old Man helped bring in a roster of pretty impressive talent for a lot of years: Johnny Mercer, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Duke Ellington and more. The acoustics in the cozy ballroom were superb. Lionel Hampton loved playing there so much he insisted my father take his private phone number, saying, "Man, anytime you got an opening, you call me. I'll be here."
The clubhouse was huge, and I knew every nook and cranny. I lived at the pool all summer as a kid. Every sunny day I'd walk down the road with my lunch and change for the phone and some penny candy. The folks were seldom with me, but I never stepped out of line ... I knew they'd find out if I did.
 |
| The back patio of the concession stand. I've personally tended bar out that window and cleaned off those tables. |
And, of course, my wedding reception was held at GVCC. My sister's, too. Incredible parties, both, even though they fell 28 years apart. My sister's made smashingly good use of the original front porch for cocktail hour. Sadly, the porch has long since been closed in. As for mine, we shut the whole facility to outside traffic for the day. With more than 225 people, we had doings in the dining room, ballroom and both bars. Of course, I think it turned out so well because the manager at the time was deathly afraid of my mother hurting him if the slightest thing went wrong.
Sure, there will still be a restaurant on the property. Families will continue to sun themselves poolside and buy GV Burgers and penny candy (or is it quarter candy now? ... inflation, you know) from the concession stand. My logical mind knows the place has been trickling toward this outcome for a long time now. But the finality of it somehow still feels jarring.
In my childhood, I'd look at the darkened dance floor and imagine dancers swirling about as faint music echoed off the walls. Then I'd see my parents and their friends sitting around the bar or the picnic grove, young and real and vibrant ... laughing, coming together as a community. It felt like a home. And that's how I'll forever see it.
Rest in peace, old girl.
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