FAMILY AFFAIRS

Family Album
by Penelope Lively

Bland and quite shallow. Written by an English author set in England with some interesting family members. Although, I think the author attempted to paint a lovely picture of this large families personalities, I found it all far too shallow in characterization. Much like the entertainment of watching a movie. When I read a book I desire to delve into the intimacies of the lives in the book. With many pages to achieve intimacies, this book just reported the story lives of the characters. A dull endeavor in reading and a failing for my time. The children of an English family having six children, with unusual parents and a nanny, could have been more enlightening if it were written so with depth and more sensitivity.

STORMY WEATHER

Stormy Weather
by Paulette Jiles

Very interesting new author for me. The book seemed at times rather epic and long, but quite enthralling while delving into the depth of the main character. It was of a young woman's struggles during the great depression with her family of two sisters and her mother, and a gambling father in the wild west of the 1930's on. After reading about Mc Donald's cheap trash hamburgers and then reading about what these people ate during the Great Depression, I feel privileged I can eat beans at times. How soon do we Americans forget what real poverty is and the strength it can build in us as individuals. I admired this woman for her willingness to keep going forward and being true to her self by not marrying right away. She wanted to be self-sufficient and work hard a hard land. She endured her father's and then her mother's gambling, and her sister's illness and playing around and she continued to help support them. She remained true to herself and created what she wanted as well as a descent and loving man in due time. I know it seemed to me that women were not independent before the Woman's Liberation Movement, but I was just ignorant to not fully realize that our country continued to thrive during rough times because of women's back bones. They always have and always will give the family and towns it's true strength as long as the continue their feminine endurance.

NAPA SOCIALITES

PASSING AWAY IN PROSPERITY

It was Howard who passed away. A client and friend for years. During my time of knowing Howard, he went on some strange kinds of diets and ate rich foods. He told me shortly before he died that he used to play tennis. I was surprised, because I have never seen him away from the dining room table. He told me he quit playing about 15 years ago. Then I said, that is when you started having health problems. He said, yes in amazement.

When I turned 50, I cut out eating so much meat and rich foods. I used to eat duck liver, my favorite, once a month, now I eat it once a year. Yet I see my cousins or friends my age , still eat rich foods. My cousins tell me that their high blood pressure and high cholesterol is because of their genes. But I have the same genes.

So my righteous opinion; "why are we worrying about what a heart attack feels like, why not prevent one in the first place?"

I was very sad to see Howard wither away so quickly and die and I was angry at the doctors that gave him all the pills and at Howard himself for going to them. He was staying for the last year near me so I got to see him a few times. He was brilliant and alert till they gave him morphine for the pain of a leg infection. A bacteria leg infection that amputated one leg and then was attacking the other leg. An infection that was resistant to antibiotics, a bacteria he got in the hospital.

Of course Howard was 86 years old, some say it was his time. But I ran into one of his friends the same day who is 90, that was taking out the trash on his farm. He was complaining about the food industry and the food people eat and the pills that they take. At 90, he still worked his land but would no longer get up on his horses. He told me, "I am 90, I am too old to ride those horses!" I see this old guy walk every day near me, on the other side of the highway from Howard's retirement home where Howard just sat.

The retirement home, where if you walk down through the halls you will see the names on the doors as the Who's Who of the Napa Wine Country. You can see all the famous names, the affluent names of those in the wine region on these doors in this retirement hospital. Then I see the bodies waiting in ... ?

I guess I am not aging gracefully. This is a hot button that irks me so; eating to kill oneself...

CHEW ON THIS

Children of the "Great Depression."

Children of the "Big Depression."

Chew On This, Everything You Don't Want To Know About Fast Food
by Eric Schlosser & Charles Wilson

This book was listed on Amazon.com as a book for the youth. It was easy reading and clearly written. I should read more elementary - Youth books, I can understand them more easily with out thinking too hard in the early mornings when I read.

My eyes were filled with tears while reading this book for the abuse we wage upon our children of this country in the food we feed them. We are in a financial depression right now and obesity from fast foods are rampant. What happened to eating beans and rice or a baked potatoes as my parents did during the "Great Depression?" I guess we should call our modern day depression the "Big Depression." Imagine how healthy and fertile our country would be if we ate 'real' food and most importantly respected the animals and the people who bring us our food. The banks have stolen and mismanaged our monies and then the food industry is raping our health by feeding us trash and we keep voting for the selling of this food by buying it.

Never the less, these stories and other facts in the book are very sad. Schlosser writes how fast-food supports our school systems with money in exchange for installing vending machines and fast food booths on school campuses. How Ray Kroc of McDonald's scopes out locations for his restaurants by going up in a helicopter to see where all community schools are. The reporting author also highlights other such tragedies as the shipping of Coke to a remote Alaskan community of Kasigluk, We ship them coke, not water, which is scarce there, not a dentist, or even toothpaste, we ship them COKE! The once healthy Alaskans, now have rotten teeth by the age of 5 and they keep airlifting the Coke because Coke is profiting.

Why are we so obsessed with our cars gasoline and not with the fuel in our bodies? Why do we have to have the best auto and finest finger nail manicure? Then because we run out of time, we rush to a fast food corner (after the manicure)?

The feeding of millions of Americans do not have to be in the production of fast-junk-food. As long a we Americans have to eat several hamburgers a day we will keep casting that vote by that purchase for the cruel practices on animals and filling our bodies subsequently with empty harmful calories.

Quotes:

• One out of every hundred people die within thirty days of having gastric bypass surgery in America.

• A study recently found that one out of every five American toddlers eats French fries every day.

• The farmers in Idaho who grow the potatoes haven't done nearly as well. There used to be hundreds of small companies that bought potatoes, and farmers were able to wait and see who would offer the best price. But the fast-food chains (and their desire for huge amounts of fries that taste exactly the same) have made a handful of fry companies extremely powerful. The small companies have either gone out of business or been bought out. Today three companies control about 80 percent of the American market for frozen French fries. And if potato farmers don't like the price being offered by those three companies, then they're out of luck.

• The new system is good for fast-food chains. They can buy frozen fries for about thirty cents a pound and then sell them to customers for about six dollars a pound. 
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