My Life and Hard Times

By James Thurber

1933

 

I like reading memoirs and autobiographies, usually either of well-known entrepreneurs and leaders, or average people who have gone through an extraordinary event.  When I recently picked up Thurber’s My Life and Hard Times, I had no idea what to expect.  Would I be inspired by the life story of someone who has endured unusual hardships and overcome obstacles?  Would I hear a tale of a man who became a great leader – a mover and shaker?  I didn’t get either of those.  What I got was a really good laugh.  Fortunately, I was reading it in the privacy of my own home.  Otherwise, I would have gotten strange looks from my uncontrollable giggling. 

Thurber tells a few stories of his life growing up in Columbus, Ohio.  He has a way of making fun of himself and his family members in a way that is still respectful.  I can tell he really cares for his family, but he doesn’t hesitate to talk about some of the ridiculous things that they have done.  

Reading this book is like being at one of my crazy family’s parties.  There, the same mishaps and adventures from previous years are told over and over again, but they still provoke as much laughter.  I will always laugh when we recount the adult jelly bean hunt from several Easters ago.  My sister fell down (or was she pushed?) so hard that she ended up in the emergency room with stitches in her head.  The best part about it is that she lay on the floor bleeding and the rest of us kept right on looking for jellybeans.  She was still conscious after all.  The competition can't stop for a little blood.

What makes up a life?  It’s not just the goals met, hardships overcome, or awards won.  It’s the collection of little moments – little stories – that bring smiles to our faces.   

The Mother Market (formerly The Mummy Market)

By Nancy Brelis

Copyright 1966

 

If you had asked me, when I was in about third through sixth grades, what one of my favorite books was, I would have mentioned The Mother Market.  I bought it one summer at the bookstore in the mall with some of my birthday money ($1.50) and proceeded to read it countless times over the next several years.  

 

Three children, Elizabeth, Jenny, and Harry were in an unfortunate situation.  They didn’t have a mother - not that they remembered anyway.  Instead, they had an awful housekeeper they called The Gloom.  During a visit to their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Cavour, they learned of the Mother Market where they would be able to choose a mother to replace The Gloom.   

The children followed Mrs. Cavour’s directions to the market where they found rows of booths, each with a mother they could interview and choose to take home, if they wish. Each woman has props and decorations in her booth, advertising the type of mother she would be. 

The children make a couple of mistakes at first, choosing first a too sweet, too cautious mother; then a too tough, too competitive mother.  Eventually, when they finally decide to talk to the lonely looking woman sitting in a plain booth, they have found their match – their real mother.

I remember my own mother asking me one time why I liked the book so much.  At the time I wasn’t sure.  I certainly never longed to try out a different mother!  Looking back, I think the reason is the idea that children could have so much control over their life that they could make such huge decisions on their own.  

I recently re-read this book for the first time as an adult.  I found some humor in it that I didn’t catch as a child.  When speaking to the boy at the information booth during their first trip to the Mother Market, the children find out that there is also a Daddy Market.  They are warned, however, to just pick one.  

“You can go there instead,” said the boy, “but our most important rule is that no one can go to both at once.  It’s always disastrous.”

That went completely over my head as a child and now it makes me laugh out loud!

I happen to still have my childhood copy of The Mother Market, but out of curiosity, I researched used copies online.   They seem to be going for no less than $60.  In my research, I came across a 1994 movie based on this book that I was able to watch for free on Hulu.  So, if you’d like to know more about this charming story and don’t want to spend $60.00 on the book, try watching the movie Trading Mom.  

Nature’s Secrets

Edited by G. Clyde Fisher

1927

Today was a day that I had to set aside my “to do” list and sit for a while by the garden.  I can just see the lettuce and spinach sprouting up through the soil.  The trees and bushes are budding.  The mourning dove is up in her nest with her two newly hatched babies.  Since I live in the suburbs, I can hear a train in the distance, cars on the street, and a plane overhead.  In my garden, though, I can also hear the birds talking to each other.  I am a naturalist at heart, though not in mind.  I love the outdoors, but have little knowledge of bird names and calls.  Walking in the woods is one of my favorite things to do, although there are just a handful of trees I can name.

 

Perhaps this book I found recently can help me grow more knowledgeable in these areas.  Nature’s Secrets is a wonderfully illustrated comprehensive gathering of information on many areas of nature, both flora and fauna, with each section written by a specialist in the field.  Besides written information, there are over 700 illustrations to aid in identification.  

 

I brought Nature's Secrets outside with me today as I took in the finally warm, fresh air.   As I was paging through the book, I came across this little pressed specimen. It looks to me like a four-leaf clover!  I wonder how long it has been pressed between these pages.  I wish I knew who put it there.  This is what I love about old books.  The year is 2013, and I’m reading and enjoying a book published almost ninety years ago.  Many years ago, another nature lover browsed the pages of this book.  I wonder if that person felt the same way as I do about the opening quote by John Burroughs, 

To understand nature is to gain one of the greatest resources of life.

The Little Prince

By Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Copyright 1943

It was either in seventh or eighth grade that my homeroom teacher read this book to our class.  We all looked forward to the end of the day when we could set aside our school work and listen to a story.  I don’t really remember how much I learned from the book at that time, other than the fact that one never outgrows the ability to enjoy being read to.  For some time, I’ve had the French version of the book, but that didn’t do me much good.  Yes, I took three years of French in high school.  But no, I’m not capable of understanding a children’s book written in French.  Fortunately, last week I came across an English version in a used book store.

 

The Little Prince has come from a very, very small asteroid.  So small that by moving his chair around one day, he saw forty-four sunsets.  On a trip around the galaxy, the little prince visits other small asteroids, remarking on the strangeness of the adult inhabitants he meets.  Eventually coming to earth, he meets the narrator of the story, a pilot who has crashed his airplane in the desert and is worried about dying of thirst.  As the little prince tells the story of his adventures, both he and the pilot learn many life lessons.  

So much can be taken from The Little Prince.  What affected me when I read it this week?  

The Little Prince notices that he loves the singular rose on his planet more than men on earth love the thousands of roses on their bushes.

“The men where you live,” said the little prince, “raise five thousand roses in the same garden—and they do not find in it what they are looking for.”

“They do not find it,” I replied.

“And yet what they are looking for could be found in one single rose, or in a little water.”

“Yes, that is true,” I said.

And the little prince added:

“But the eyes are blind.  One must look with the heart..”

The little prince has learned what many adults never learn.  Love is something that is felt with the heart, not seen with the eyes or held in the hands.  One can appreciate a few simple belongings much more than a whole house overflowing with possessions. More is not usually better.