There are many things I like about my job, and one of my favorite things is that I get to meet new people every day.  Sometimes just for a few minutes, long enough to take payment, and sometimes I’ll be working with a customer for 20 minutes or so.

Each time, I always try to make it personal to them, make it memorable, and pleasant. 

I probably don’t always succeed at that last one, but I do try.

And I always try to take something away from the moment in time.

Recently, a customer came in with his daughter who was making a purchase.  While going through the paperwork required, we chatted.  I do that, paperwork is about as boring as anything I can come UP with, so I try to make it interesting. 

I usually ask things like “What kind of work do you do?”, or something along those lines.

The Dad in this situation, after the daughter told me she was in the Navy, spoke UP and said, “I’m a writer.”

My ears perked UP.

He proceeded to tell me about his book.

The book is called, We’re All Ice Cream, and it’s a children’s book.

The story is about an Ice Cream Cone on his way to the Great Ice Cream Convention.  He meets new friends along the way, discovers differences, and finds out that we’re all the same after all.

It’s a great childrens’ book and is beautifully illustrated by Martinez Garcias.

The author, Eric Simmons, resides in Lawrenceville, GA, and is the father of of three children.

He’s been married – OMG to the same woman – for  26 years.  He’s a tennis player, photographer, and computer devotee.

Originally from Los Angeles California, he moved with his family to Georgia in 1993.  It was one of the worst Winters on record. 

Eric is even “more almost famous” than I am.  He’s been on TV!  He got to play basketball with one of the LA Lakers and was coached for 15 minutes by Pat Riley.  He says his claim to fame is that he’s been on 5 TV Games Show and 1 Home Make-Over show (While You Were Out).

I say his claim to fame is We’re All Ice Cream.

You can “like” it on Facebook if you want, and you can purchase the book by clicking here.  And frankly, I hope you do.  I can’t imagine a kid on the planet who wouldn’t love it, and doesn’t need it!

Oh, yeah, I was on TV once.  My Journalism class went to see Phil Donohue in Dayton, and I got to ask Agnes Moorehead a question.  So, maybe I’m almost famous too!

Check the book out!  You’ll love it.

* I am NOT being compensated for this post.

…once said to me, “Sometimes you just have to forgive people even when they don’t know they need to be forgiven.”

I don’t hold grudges.  Some might not agree with that, but really, I eventually get over just about every thing.

Ok, so I’m still a little miffed at my first grade teacher for telling me my name was spelled wrong, when I knew it was right, just because I used all caps!

And, Ok, I’m still annoyed, just a tad, at my third grade teacher for being just about the meanest teacher ever. 

But, my being mad at them never bothered them, and since they are both long in the grave, I’m sure they have other things to ponder.

Forgiving is proabably one of the keys to happiness.

Well, that and a winning Power-Ball ticket.

Years ago, when my family had gone through a really tough time with a group of ingrates, I had a hard time letting go.

It wasn’t bothering them, but it was killing me.

Hate and grudges are self-debilitating emotions.  They eat at you and they do nothing to the person or persons with whom you hold said grudge.

There are some things, ok, most things, that you just need to let go.

Some therapy might be required, and some serious reflection, but you have to let it go.

One of the things that helped me was a book by Dr. Charles Stanley.  Yes, I know, he’s a TV preacher, and I frankly don’t watch TV preachers.  Most of them are annoying, and some are fake, but let’s face it, how much “reality” is on TV.  At any rate, Dr. Stanley’s book did help me to think about why and whom I needed to forgive.

It’s a place to start.

What ever route you take, take a right on Forgiveness, it will do you good.

And, to the very wise woman who said that to me, and you know who you are…Thanks, it did me a world of good.

That’s one of those things Mother used to say, even though she was pretty good at sizing people UP on sight!

I will have to admit, I do.

Judge books by their covers, that is.

I’ve bought several books just because I thought the title would look good on the book shelf.  Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady and The Secret Life of Eva Hathaway come to mind.  They are both funny, funny books, and always start a conversation when someone sees them.

So, while on my last trip to Border’s, again darn that kindle, I saw a book that had a tacky, tacky cover.  I didn’t like to title, I assumed it was a romance novel, and I walked on by.  But, as luck would have it, I came back that way and realized that it was written by Robert Hicks.  Hicks wrote The Widow of The South, a great read about the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee in the War Between The States, and the woman who buried over a thousand soldiers in her front yard after the battle.

Hicks is a “tad” obsessed with Confederate General John Bell Hood.  And he’d have to be to write this well about him.  Hood was known as “the butcher of Franklin” and was a rush to judgement kind of guy, so he’d probably be ok with my not picking the book UP the first time around. 

Hicks’ new book, A Separate County is surprisingly good.  The sophomore work of a writer is generally a big let down, but A Separate County may actually be better than the first book.

It’s sort of a sequel, but you don’t have to read the first one to get the second one.  So, I guess it’s really not a sequel, just some of the characters are the same.

A Separate Country is about Hood’s life after “The War”.  He moved to New Orleans hoping to blend in, be an unknown, and make a new life for himself.  Well, he had to settle for one out of three. 

He had a new life.  Battered and maimed from “The War”, (he lost the use of his left arm at Gettysburg, and, at the Battle of Chickamauga, his right leg was amputated. )  he marries a young white creole named Anna Marie Hennen and they proceed to go forth and multiply.  Eleven kids in ten years, three sets of twins, and I’m guessin’ he was making UP for lost time during the war.

The book is written from three points of view.  Eli Griffin, the main narator is given a charge by the dying Hood, and sets off to do for the man what he could never do for himself.  The rest of the book is from the writings of Hood and his wife.  Hood’s are diaries, Anna Marie’s are letters to her oldest daughter. 

There were nights when I could not stop reading, and as the action progressed, I found myself not wanting it to end.  The characters are great, seedy, merciless, complicated and conflicted.  There’s even a dwarf!  And who doesn’t love a dwarf?

So, don’t let the tacky Belva Plain cover fool you, the Miami Herald reviewer said it was “marvelous”, and they were right!  It’s on my list of “re-reads”.

You can find out more about Robert Hicks and his work at www.robert-hicks.com

Not this one…

…but, this one…

I’ve seen the movie Giant, I’ve seen the movie So Big, I’ve seen Showboat, Cimmaron, Dinner At Eight, and Ice Palace, but I never paid attention to Edna Ferber.

What a miss!

After re-watching Giant for the umpty-umpth time the weekend after Elizabeth Taylor died, I thought, “Hey, you like to read, why don’t you read some Edna Ferber?”

So I did.

I bought SoBig and Giant.

And I’m glad I did.

Ferber, an American literary giant, was part of the Algonquin Round Table and helped to shape American Literature in the early part of the 20th Century.

The first book won Ms. Ferber the Pulitizer Prize.  On the surface, it’s about a Dutch High Pararie family and community out side of Chicago, and the cultured young woman who comes to teach their children, falls in love with a big lug of a farmer, and becomes part of their community.  But, really it’s about her and how she reared her son after becoming a widow.  And how she taught him to become the man he was supposed to be in spite of himself.

It’s a great book, a good read, and I highly recommend it.

It has a message, it’s literature, but it isn’t preachy.

Giant, though it didn’t win a Pulitzer, is an even better book.  Texas:  big and bold at it’s best.

I’m glad I saw the movie first, for even though it follows the story closely, Hollywood changed a few facts, cast people who look nothing like the book’s description of them (except Taylor’s part as Leslie Benedict), and made Jett Rink far far more sympathetic than he was in the book.

It was James Dean’s final film, and one of Rock and Elizabeth’s best.  Mercedes McCambridge plays Bick’s sister and was nominated for an Academy award.  She’s mean and hateful, and you love to hate her!

Giant and SoBig are both great reads, and Ferber’s descriptions of places, people, and events bring you to them.  She knew her craft, knew her characters, and new her challenge. 

They are “must reads” as far as I’m concerned.

I’m sure your local libray has them.  If they don’t, it’s not a real library!!