I’d like to share a couple more interesting books I’ve read these past two weeks (book consumption greatly sped up by an 8 hour power outage the other day).

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake

At the beginning of World War II, while London was being bombed, and the United States had yet to join the war, this story connects the divergent realities of a small town on Cape Cod with the terrors  of the London Blitz and the voices of fleeing refugees across Europe.  For the most part this is not a page turner thriller – it’s a quiet thoughtful book told through the eyes of three different women whose paths come together in the ripples of a war.

Buy The Postmistress now at Amazon.com

The Faculty Club by Danny Tobey

A very different choice than the book above – The Faculty Club was a book I could not put down.  Do be warned though that the need to suspend disbelief takes a quantum leap about 2/3 of the way through.  If that sort of leap does not bother you, then I think you’ll find this a real page turner.  Sort of a Dan Brown Lite type of book.  Although I agree with some of the criticism of the book that it seems to borrow from everthing from Da Vinci Code to Harry Potter, for a light fun read I thoroughly enjoyed it as a guilty pleasure.

Buy The Faculty Club: A Thriller from Amazon.com now.

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I’d like to suggest this as the new Twitter theme song and artist

http://tinyurl.com/ykkxz2v

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My friend Thom and I were riding around Bailey Island last Saturday when we came out to the end of a road looking over the bay.  (All right, almost every road on Bailey Island ends at the bay!)  Far out I could just make out a strange looking obviously man made … lighthouse?  monument?  Middle Earth wizard summer home?    Luckily Thom knew the answer – It is the Little Mark Island Monument. A 50′  granite tower built as a daymarker in 1827, it has a large square room in the base that originally provided shelter to sailors who shipwrecked during storms.

At some point light was added to aid navigation.  My photo is quite fuzzy both because of the distance, my weak camera, and the fact that chill factor was probably below zero the day I took it.  For a much closer, really good picture of the Little Mark Island tower click here.

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This morning I’m watching a segment on CBS Sunday Morning about health  care reform.  It’s something I’ve been giving a lot of thought to, but not enough research.   I’m not alone.  The very fact that access to health care is such a scary subject to almost everyone speaks to the need for reform.  When I worked at that big catalog company up in Freeport, I was aware that should my job go away I could fall back on Cobra.  Although pricey, it would assure available insurance.  Now that I work at a small company, I’m very aware that we fall below the minimum number of employees, and if my job should go away I would immediately be without insurance. That’s pretty scary for me even though I expect to keep my job.

Although I can be emotional (there is that Christmas coffee commercial about the son coming home unexpectedly -it  still makes me tear up), I also recognize that when too much emotion enters the picture, logical thinking quickly escapes out the back door.  I think insurance company execs and other special interests know this too well. An exceptional job has been done  in playing on the emotion of fear to quickly build walls of resistance to a reform that would affect their agendas.  I also think we can’t believe everything we hear on the other side.

This post is not about which side I back in this debate.  It’s about everyone learning enough facts and taking a step back to set aside emotion and do their own research before making a decision.  For this purpose, I would suggest a visit to FactCheck.org, an objective view that tries to provide an independant look at many subjects.

I don’t know how all this will turn out.  I do know I believe in the need for reform.  I don’t know for sure whether I will vote for Obama next time around.  I do know that I admire him for being brave enough to take this on.  Many politicians would fear more for their next election and temper their proposals with that agenda in mind.  Obama put out his wish list, is taking the heat, and is pushing for what he thinks is right.

Gloria Maher
Let’s all take a breath and do our decision making research.

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As I write this, I’m watching CBS Sunday Morning and the coverage they have on Walter Cronkite, who left this earth on Friday, July 17th.  What immediately struck me was that news of the death of Michael Jackson hit Twitter almost the moment it happened, but here it is Sunday and I haven’t yet seen any mention of Walter Cronkite on Twitter.

I suppose this is understandable given the recent birth of Twitter, and the fact that Walter Cronkite was already a very seasoned newsman when we baby boomers were still kids.  Nevertheless, I added a comment to Twitter in recognition of his passing out of respect for the integrity of the man and his honesty in news presentation (before news was part of entertainment).

What I remember the most, I remember because it was shown as part of other stories over the years – his reporting and reaction when President Kennedy was murdered, his excitement over the moon landing. (An event my mother made me watch because she knew once I grew up I would want to say I had watched it.)

As a preteen, I wasn’t really very aware of the news or what was going on in the world back then.  My strongest memory of the Vietnam war was sitting in the front room with a bunch of family and friends watching the lottery that was to decide who’s sons and brothers would be sent to war, based on their date of birth being drawn out of a virtual hat.  I had not remembered that Walter Cronkite influenced the end of the Vietnam war through his reporting, and his stating his opinion (a rare event back in the days where news was reported for the facts rather than the spin) that it was time to end our involvement. Apparently when President Johnson heard this he stated ”If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” and a few days later announced he would not run for another term.

Another item that was news to me was that the first American interview and introduction of the Beatles to America was not Ed Sullivan, but on a Walter Cronkite interview.  Ed then called Walter to find out more about them and set them up for his show.

It is natural for younger generations to not be terribly interested in someone so long retired from the airwaves.  Personally, even though I was still quite young when he retired 28 years ago, I think of him as the icon of credible news.  Now I find I question all news, wondering what influence has been brought to bear on spinning it either with personal agendas or corporate agendas.  When Walter reported the news, it was believed that it was, truly “And that’s the way it is”.

If you would like to learn more about Walter Cronkite, Esquire has re-posted an article done a few years ago that you may enjoy.

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I was having a quiet July 4^th at home, getting some things done and puttering around.  I stepped out the door for a minute and when I came back in I noticed that my cat Spike was quite excited about something in back of the washer.  I figured a spider maybe, but in the back of my mind I admit to being a bit worried that maybe a mouse had gotten into the house.  So I pulled a few things out of the laundry closet so he’d have better access.

About 10 minutes later I saw a flash of gray fur and heard some very heavy pawsteps race across my living room rug.  It was so fast I really wasn’t sure what I had seen, so got up and looked at the patio door where Spike was now crouched in full panther mode.  I thought omg there’s a mouse.  Then, OMG that’s not a mouse it’s a chipmunk!!!!  The chipmunk went racing up the screen door and now he’s at eye level with me.  I quickly pushed the screen door open so that chippy was now squeezed in between the sliding screen door and the glass, and closed the glass sliding door.

Poor little chippy is now at the top of the screen, (with a very tiny stream of water coming from him down the screen) and I can see his little heart beating out of his furry white chest.  And there he stayed for the next 10 minutes.  He may have eventually found his way out, but my combination of empathy and selfishness (it was hot and I wanted to open the screen door again) won out.  I stepped out on the patio and shut the door so he wouldn’t get back in and race around the house. Again at eye level with him on the other side of the screen (have you seen that youtube video of the guinea pig that gives the wild look?) I grabbed both sides of the screen and jiggled it off the track, dropping it to the patio.  Little chippy dropped to the deck as well and raced around my enclosed patio.  Now he and I are stuck together on the patio, I don’t dare open the door, and he is still terrorized and racing for an escape.  He finally found the slight gap where the fence is attached to the wall and like the cartoon Theodore the Chipmunk he squeezed through, with his fat little butt stuck on one side, and then pop, he was gone.

There is no moral to this story, other than that I have a cat that is very happy and pleased with himself, and he’s wondering when mom is going to play with him and the fun new toy again!

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Fourth of July, like Thanksgiving, is one of those wonderful holidays that invokes images of family gathering for a good meal and good time – relaxed, without a commercial gift buying focus.

When I was a kid, and my dad was still alive (he passed when I was 6 years old) we often would have a picnic at Dorothea Dix State Park in Hampden, Maine.  At that time, and on limited resources, a picnic in the park was a very big deal.  Passing under the stone entry arch was entering into a special place of fun.  The grills were metal boxes on a pole with a wire style top.  Put the charcoal in the open front of the box, hamburgers and hot dogs on top once the coals were glowing red and gray.  Add some Kool Aid, Humpty Dumpty chips, and mum’s potato salad with lots of green olives in it (she knew not to skimp on the olives) and seven of us around a 6 person picnic table.

Lunch was sometimes followed by various strangers all picnicking in the park coming together in the small softball field for a game after lunch.  Pack it all back in the car and head for home, with sparklers in the evening creating our own form of sky writing right in front of our eyes.

I hope you and your families have lots of sparklers and fun today.  Happy 4^th of July!

Gloria
Baby Boomer Memories

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In our workplace at flyte new media we are blessed with an extraordinary group of co-workers – one of the best (and funniest) designers around; a web guru whose expertise continues to save me from the leap out the window; good natured, sunny, funny and very smart co-workers.

One of my co-workers closed on her first home today.  By her own admission she is 22 going on 40.  Another is mid-twenties and last year she got married and purchased their first home.  Why am I writing about these two in particular today?  Because of how impressed I am with them and how they break the stereotype of Generation Y.  They are two very pretty, young blonds; and if you believed the Generation Y hype you would expect them to come and go as they please, have an entitled attitude, and expect to be promoted by the end of their first month.  But this is not at all the experience of working with these individuals.  Yes, they are the young pretty blonds that so many of us  middle aged women would like to dislike – but they are also very smart, very dedicated, forward looking, budget planning, high work ethic, responsible and focused on improving the company.

In doing a quick bit of research to check on my use of  “Generation Y” in this post, I came across this CBS 60 Minutes article from a couple years ago.  I found that by half way through the article I was actually embarrassed that at that time I would have swallowed it all hook, line and sinker (and I have definitely worked with some of the types outlined in the article).  But, as has always been the case, forget the stereotype – we are working and interacting with the individual, and should manage expectations accordingly.

Lindsay and Nicki, I can only wish I had had your focus, planning and decision making ability back in my early twenties.  Congrats to both of you!   And if someone out there reading this has co-workers you respect and admire – tell them so – even the non-Generation Y folks like to have a pat on the back.

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