Rural Routes, Blog Version

‘Bearly’ there

Leaving town after a community event, I approached the curve that would take me past the elementary school. I was about a block away when I spotted a black bear rounding the curve and heading west on the street.

He/she (I wasn’t close enough to determine gender and had no wish to get closer) quickened his pace and began to run. As I approached the curve, he loped between the two end houses on the street.

He/she then stopped and stared at me briefly before heading further north.

A group of community residents were having a potluck lunch together in the local park and I stopped to warn them about the bear. Most likely, their presence would have kept the bear moving out of town.

Unless, of course, the smell of barbecued wieners was an enticement to stick around.

+++++

Evergreen no more

Manitoba Hydro is moving a power line along the local highway. The spokesman on the phone told my husband that, as a result, he needed permission to cut down some of the trees on a parcel of land my husband owned. Permission granted.

We didn’t get a phone call about the trees half a mile further north, also along the highway and also on land owned by my husband. Not that it likely would have mattered. I suspect the trees were going whether or not we agreed.

But when the machinery moved onto that second parcel, it gave us pause for thought. The trees that were being cut down there were not poplars and scrub bush. They were giant evergreens that my husband’s grandfather had planted 120 years ago.

One of the workers told us that cutting down those large trees was not an easy job.

Watching them go down was not easy for us, either.

+++++++

“Her Darling Boy” by Tom Goodman, Great Plains Publications, Winnipeg, 2016

My autographed copy of this book was purchased from its writer at a writers’ event at the Winnipeg Library last fall.

Archie Polson of Gimli was injured at Vimy Ridge in 1917. His right arm was amputated as a result and he was hospitalized in France and England for his many shrapnel injuries. Just a short time before he was scheduled to return to Canada, he succumbed to tetanus.

“Her Darling Boy” is a compilation of the letters written by and to Archie while he was overseas. It demonstrates the personal tragedy of war, while at the same time detailing the minutia of life both on the front and back in Canada.

Two of Archie’s sisters – Bonnie and Margaret – would eventually marry two Langruth, MB brothers. That makes the story personal for people like me who live in the community and who grew up knowing these women. Goodman himself is a family member; his grandmother was also a sister to Bonnie and Margaret.

Goodman was a finalist for the 2017 Manitoba Book Awards in the Most Promising Author category.

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“Blood at the Root” by Peter Robinson, William Morrow, 2016 reprint.

Have you ever purchased a book and then discovered that you have read it before?

That’s what happened to me with “Blood at the Root”, which fooled me with the 2016 printing date listed in the catalogue. It turns out that 2016 is the date of reprinting. The book was originally printed in 1997. It is one of the earlier books in the Inspector Banks series.

I like Peter Robinson; his latest (not a reprint) is in my pile of books to read. But I disagree with some of the reviewers who have commented on the series.

“The equal of P.Ð. James”, says the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I don’t think so. Robinson writes a solid police procedural. But I think his writing lacks the denseness and depth of James’.

++++

“City of Gold” by Len Deighton, Harper Collins, London, 2016 (reprint, originally published in 1971)

Another recommendation made by my husband.

Set in 1942 Egypt, the novel is basically about the search for a German spy who is passing critical Allied information to Rommel. Few of the book’s characters are what they seem, even though only one of them is the spy.

My husband was right. This is a good book, the sort you sink in to easily.

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