Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

This was my summer read for 2011 and I really enjoyed this book. It is a memoir of Frank McCourt’s childhood which has so much hunger and hardship at times you may wonder if it is all true. When they say that life is more interesting than fiction this book is a case in point. Throughout the book I kept hoping that his father would do the right thing and bring home the money so they could eat, but no, the pint had a stronger pull and “Mam” couldn’t control him or get to his paycheck before he spent it all at the pubs. The sadness of death, the rituals of the Catholic religion, the quiet people who do good, the loud people who do bad, the shame of being a cut below your neighbors, the anger at parents who were doing things you didn’t want them to do. This book pulled me in from so many directions that I truly did not want to put it down.

A BARN IN NEW ENGLAND by Joseph Monninger and other Barn Thoughts

Every now and then I read a book that draws me in deep. A Barn in New England has done just that. It put me right at the location and the experiences that author Joseph Monninger writes about. From the very first moment he and Wendy view the barn in the dead of a snowy winter day, where I could smell the cold, to the longer summer days and nights of installing a fence, planting gardens and renovating the barn with insulation, new beams, and a new kitchen I felt as if I was right there, helping with all of these tasks. To be honest the reason it was so easy for me to relate to this story is because Lauren and I have been talking and dreaming about doing something quite similar in nearby Maine. We’ve looked at a number of houses over the past two years with barns and haven’t quite figured out how to make it all work but we are still trying. Lauren gave this book to me as a Father’s Day gift and it has proved to be one of my all time favorites.

Being in an old Post and Beam Barn to me is perhaps what many feel when they step into a church. It’s a spiritual experience, Nirvana. One of my first experiences as a 7 to 10 year old was visiting the horse barn of the Ames Estate in North Easton, MA where I would bring my bike to the caretaker Paul Simmons who would fix my broken chain or flat tire. I can still conjure up the smell of the hay, the wood and the leather from the tack shop. It was so quiet and peaceful. With the nearby tall mature shade trees it was also nice and cool on a hot summer day.

A few years later my family moved to Lakeville, MA and I was lucky enough to get a job during the summer as a 12 to 13 year old working on Wilkes Dairy Farm earning $1.30 an hour. My job was to weed the vegetable garden and sometimes feed the cows in the barn when they came in for milking but my favorite job was haying. Picking up bales of hay in the field which weighed probably between 40 and 80 pounds depending on moisture content and where they were cut and throwing them up to another person on a flatbed truck as it rolled slowly up and down the field. The higher the stack of hay got on the truck the higher I would have to throw that bale. Boy did I build some muscle back then. The afternoons were usually sunny, hot and humid so we would sweat hard and the chafe from the hay would stick to our sweaty arms, face, and neck. Then we had to take the truck to the barn and unload the bales in the hayloft. Like an attic the hayloft was often hot as you stagger stacked the bales so they would tie in together much like cinder blocks. At the end of an exhausting day it was down to the coolest part of the barn in the shade where we would chomp on big juicy pieces of pink watermelon where the juice would run down your chin, chest, and on to your arms. I was one sweaty, dirty, juicy and tired farmhand but it felt so…oh good.

In my late teens I rented a house near Freedom, Maine where a local neighbor raised chickens and ducks on a commercial scale. Big three story barns with a thousand chickens and lots of chicken shit and wood shavings to clean out once the chickens were hauled off to market. As you can imagine it could be considered a nasty job but with a dust mask and appropriately timed breaks to drink Old Milwaukee beer we seemed to happily get the job done in amazingly quick fashion.
So perhaps because of my fond memories of the smells and good feelings found in a good old barn I long to have one now of my very own. One I can bang a big nail in the beam and not feel like I am doing damage to anything. One where I can hang my poster of Farrah Fawcett (may you rest in peace, Farrah) that Amber and Tommie gave to me as a birthday gift a few years ago because they knew I wanted one for my barn dream. One where I can have my own workshop and build things out of wood; guitars, furniture, anything I want. One where I can invite friends and family over and drink Old Milwaukee beer. One where I can find Nirvana.

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow

What do you do when you know you’re going to die? Before your time. You have three young children, a loving wife, a good job, and you’re in the prime of your life, but without a doubt you have less than a year to live and there is no cure. In the case of Randy Pausch, who many people know his story, you make the most of each and every remaining day and you leave a message with a lesson, or many lessons. Randy Pausch who was dying of terminal pancreatic cancer left us a video and a book titled “The Last Lecture.” In his book you’ll find that he is an optimist and a goal achiever. One way or another he managed to achieve many of his childhood dreams. The best take away line from the book in talking about setbacks or roadblocks to ones goal was “The brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.” This book should make you think, cry, and appreciate what you have and what is possible while you are alive.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

I purchased this book for two reasons. First I heard a review on the radio where the critic was begging for the listener to read it and secondly, I use to live in Maine where most of my family still lives and I know there are plenty of characters around the state that would make for a good story. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout is a collection of short stories which takes place mostly in the fictional town of Crosby, Maine which one will find out is near the coast. Olive herself is a retired schoolteacher who has definite opinions about people and life and offers them in a straightforward manner. I really enjoyed many of the characters within the stories. Elizabeth Strout does a great job of detailing a description on each person so that it’s easy to picture them as real. Anyone who has spent some time or lives in the State of Maine probably will be able to connect to this cast of characters thinking; yeah… that sort of reminds me of so and so. I give it a 5 lobster pot rating. Yum!

Three Cups of Tea

This book will inspire you. If it doesn't, seek help immediately because there is something wrong. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin is a true story of a mountain climbers despair and near loss of life after failing to reach his objective, the peak of K2, the queen of mountain tops.

During his high altitude exhaustion and confusion Mortenson strays off course to be found and nutured back to health by the kindness of strangers in a remote mountain village he had never heard of, Korphe. He was the first foreigner to ever end up here. Having found "something special" in Korphe he promised them that he would return to build a school for their children after seeing that all their classes were held outside in the open and frosty mountain air with a part-time teacher and no books, pencils or paper. This promise took him along an almost unbelievable journey that at times uncertain finally met and far exceeded his goal.

The story confirms that a small amount of money (and huge amount of effort) put in the right hands under the right objective will do more for peace in the world than most of our "well laid" and expensive plans. The best part is the story hasn't ended yet and if we want we can become part of the story going forward. Please, read this book.

By the way, thanks for this Christmas gift Mom.