What I'm Reading: Lee Smith

Occasionally people ask me what I'm reading because they generously attribute me with good taste in literature. Thank you, people, and here's a recommendation. I just finished On Agate Hill by Lee Smith. This was the third novel I've read by Ms. Smith, and I highly recommend her as an author. Smith was an author that I discovered on my own, and it's always such a nice surprise to be blown away by a novel when you have no expectations from publisher's hype, word-of-mouth, Oprah, or bestseller lists. The last time that happened for me was when I stumbled across Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale.

This time my happy discovery was Fair and Tender Ladies (1989) by Lee Smith. I was looking for a novel set in the Appalachians because I was missing my grandmother. She was a spirited, sad, funny firecracker, born and raised in the Eastern tip of Tennessee, and her family's roots in that area are centuries old. I was delighted to recognize little pieces of my grandmother in the main character: a point of view or turn of phrase, her disappointments, rebellions, her restlessness, and her deep love for the beauty of the Appalachian mountains.

Ladies is a lifetime of letters from its heroine, Ivy Rowe, to her family and friends. (That makes it an epistolary novel, if you're into learning new words or checking my credentials.) The writing, all in Ivy's semi-educated voice, is so smooth you don't even notice your eyes are translating text; you hear this novel more than read it. The story is moving, surprising and fulfilling, and Ivy is a character you will not soon forget. The last, broken sentence of the novel echoed in my head for days. I've also read and enjoyed Oral History and now On Agate Hill, but for me Fair and Tender Ladies is her best. Give one a try.

Northwest Arkansas Crime Report 3/9/07

Our local newspaper prints a Crime Report in each edition that consists not only of arrests and court appearances, but also police calls. Oh, how I love the redneck police calls, so trashy and delicious. The Crime Report is my favorite part of the paper, right up there with the baby names (Des'Tinee RaeAwnah, born to Phil and Lisa Brown) and marriage licenses (Bobby Wayne Jarvis, 38 and Loretta Jane Fink, 16 - that's legal as long as she's pregnant).

Enjoy these selections from last Friday and wonder along with me why COPS hasn't filmed here yet:

9: 57 a. m. A man at Auto Connections of NWA, 1805 S. Pleasant St., reported a large freezer, buckets of paint and other items placed in front of the business door so he couldn’t get in this morning.

10: 28 a. m. A man with the power company at 100 W. Oaklawn reported an elderly man threatened to get his Smith and Wesson if they trimmed a tree.

4: 18 p. m. A man on Henryetta Street. reported his wife’s vehicle window broken out sometime after he had to pepper-spray a Chihuahua that was trying to bite him.

11: 38 p. m. A caller at 2608 Stagecoach Drive reported a man pushed another man off the porch.

This being Arkansas, it is perfectly safe to assume that at least three of these four calls were made by or about men who were not wearing shirts.

TS is not contagious

As it gets warmer, my family unit is getting sicker. Paolo has a lingering runny nose, I'm recovering from a cold, and Sam came down with god-knows-what yesterday. He tried to pin it on me, but his symptoms are nothing like mine. For instance, I can get off the couch without sweating or blacking out. Last night Sam was hypothesizing about what illness he may have contracted. As every woman knows, when a man is sick, there has never been another human being sicker than he in the history of the world.

Sam: I think I have Lyme disease.
Me: You haven't been in the woods.
Sam: Maybe it's West Nile.
Me: or SARS
Sam: Oh, dude, I totally have SARS. (pause to blow nose) What did Terry Schiavo have?
Me: What??
Sam: I think I have Terry Schiavo.

As if it's not bad enough that he set himself on the fast-track to Hell with that depraved comment, I laughed so hard I ran out of air, so I'm for sure right behind him.

The Fez

Sam dropped me off at work yesterday and noticed a new business had opened in the building.

Sam: The Fez - Hookah Lounge and Cafe. No way!

Me: I give it six months.

Sam: Are you crazy? How cool would it be to sit around puffing on a hookah all night?

Me: I have no idea, and neither do you.

Sam: Do you even know what a hookah is?

Me: Duh. I've seen Alice in Wonderland.

Sam: ....

Me: Okay, see you at 5:00.

Remarkable Discovery: New Treatment for ADD

Saturday morning after breakfast and cartoons, I headed Paolo upstairs to get dressed. He ran right back downstairs when I popped into the office to talk to Sam, who was vesting himself in multiple layers of Lycra to go for a cold bike ride. Paolo was gone for all of two minutes, when he came tearing up the stairs and burst into the office waving a Pez dispenser. An empty Pez dispenser. The Pez dispenser that was full two minutes ago and stored safely out of reach in the snack cabinet. In case we hadn't yet grasped the enormity of what had transpired, Paolo filled us in on the details while sprinting madly around the room and laughing between sentences:

"I had a snack! I had a big snack. It was really long and my belly is really full. It was really good. I ate them all. There was a lot and they were pink. I had a pink snack. It took a long time to eat them all and, look, my belly is long now."

Sam and I stared at each other with horror that we couldn't keep from turning into amusement as Paolo whipped himself into a frenzy jumping and spinning and gloating about the greatest snack ever. And, boy howdy, there was a LOT of it. I must say my amusement faded quickly when I realized that Sam wasn't about to change his plans to leave the house. I implored him not to leave me alone with our small child who was practically foaming at the mouth having just ingested twenty nuggets of highly concentrated sugar. Sam argued that Paolo was only experiencing the level of blood sugar that most kids reach on an average day. Then he pedaled away with nary a look back.

Here's where it gets really weird. I pulled out a big piece of foam board and invited Paolo to decorate it with stickers. That's a pretty calm activity for someone who just snorted battery acid, but he was totally into it. He stayed on the floor working on his sticker board serenely, sweetly, making up stories as he went along FOR TWO HOURS. I have never seen Paolo exhibit such focus and stick-to-it-iveness in his young life. So, all you parents who dump money into medicating your children for behaving like, well, children, here's some good news! Obscene amounts of Pez may have the same effect on your child as Ritalin, with fewer side effects.

Disclaimer: I'm no doctor, but I did conduct a clinical trial in my living room. Try the pink ones, and forget about junior taking a nap.