Library Notes
August 6, 2004
By Pansy Hundley, Librarian.
I happened to think of something the other day that I forgot to remember while we were in Greece. The fact that we saw such few small children on the streets and around the town, had not dawned on us until our guide mentioned it.
Wages are so low, and rent and other expenses are so high, most families in Greece do not have children. They simply cannot afford them. Our guide’s husband had died one month before we were there. She had no children. She was probably in her middle to late 30’s. Something she said one day indicated that she sure did wish she could have had children, that feeling probably being very strong since her husband had just died. That is sad, but not as sad as when people do have the children, can’t afford to take care of them as they need to be and suffer for it all of their life. It seems to speak of unselfishness to me, to consider the unborn children, rather than themselves.
Now that this little matter is remembered and taken care of, let us return to Italy and pizza. Yep, I said pizza. Can one say that pizza was invented or someone stumbled upon it or perhaps Mama-Mia concocted it one night when she couldn’t think of a single thing to cook?
However it came about, it’s beginning was there, in Italy. Their pizza is quite different from American pizza, however. It consists of a thin crust, with just a little cheese on top, not thick, and soft and gooey like ours is. Theirs’ is almost a cheese-colored piece of crust, with maybe a little meat of your choice sprinkled over the top.
My room mate, June, and I set out late in the afternoon to find a place to sample some real, authentic, Italian pizza. We had returned from Florence late in the afternoon and out hotel was not providing dinner that night. We were on our own. And, you know we could not got to Italy and eat some authentic Italian pizza.
We had spotted a pizza place a block or so down the street from our hotel earlier in the day. Thinking we would stroll down and check it out, we started in that direction. About half a dozen doors down from our hotel, we discovered another pizza specialty place. Their menu was displayed there on the front of the place on a large board, with sizes and prices shown. We stopped to see if we might just eat there and were debating it, when out pranced this little ole’ Italian feller, with a cute little mustache and that black hair. He proceeded to talk to those recognizable tourists about what they might like in the way of pizza. Turned out he was the waiter and had waltzed out to lure tourists off the sidewalk and in to eat. He assured us that we could get the small pizza we wanted, at a price that did leave us gasping. He wrote our order, standing out there on the sidewalk, while I laughed at such service and such industrious enthusiasm for his job, or perhaps it was the tip he anticipated. (That tip he added to our ticket, when he brought it later and it made my room mate, June, so mad that he had done that.)
As we were escorted into the open door of the restaurant to our table, there sat a husband and a wife from our group, having their dinner. In talking with them, we learned that our suave waiter had literally taken hold of the wife, who had long blond hair, "drug" her in to eat, and husband got to tag along behind them. (Do you think the blond hair had anything to do with it?) Husband is a good ‘ole boy, with a great sense of humor, so he thought it was funny. I asked him about three times if he wasn’t from Oklahoma or Texas. But he kept assuring me he was born in California. He looked like an Okie, talked like an Okie, walked like an Okie, and I surmise that his parents must have migrated to California from Oklahoma during the Depression years when about half of Oklahoma loaded up all their belongings and set out for California, fleeing the Dust Bowl. Pity the poor waiter if he gets hold of a husband with no sense of humor, as he drags the wife away.
Back to the pizza: when it came, it was not our usual fat pizza with everything, including some left overs, on top of it. There was our flat crust, turned orangey, with some cheese flavor, and a few, very few, pieces of ham scattered about. Made me want to come home, get one of those Digorno Deep Dish Supreme fellers and eat it all!
"Nough said now. Must get on with the literary business at hand. These women, with their trusty little list of new books in hand, the ones they cut out of the magazine, are looking for the very newest book, hot off the presses (and sometimes not even off the presses yet). I keep telling ‘em to quit looking at those lists. They rush me before the book is even here. I had a list of about six breathless women the other day, wanting one book I hadn’t even received yet. Spoiled readers! Wonder who did that???
James Patterson has pulled another fast one on us. Instead of his usual fast-paced murder novel, he’s come out with another of those little books that he came out with about a year ago, "Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas". It was good, but did not seem like James Patterson, because we are used to the murder mysteries. The name of the present "not-like-Patterson" book is entitled "Sam’s Letters to Jennifer" Now you’ll have to read it, just out of curiosity.
"Have you ever gotten a letter that changed your life completely? (Says James Patterson in the introduction.)
It happened to me once. I can still feel the urgency that overtook me as I opened the envelope and the hunger I felt for whatever that letter would say. It seemed as if my entire life hung in the balance as I read.
"Sam’s Letters to Jennifer" is a novel about that kind of drama. In it, a woman is summoned back to the town where she grew up. And in the house where she spent her most magical years she finds a series of letters addressed to her. Each of those letters is a piece of a story that will completely upend the world she thought she knew – and throw her into a love more powerful than she ever imagined could be possible. Two extraordinary love stories are entwined here, full of hope and pain and emotions that never die down.
It hope you’ll enjoy this novel as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. It’s not often that you get a letter that changes your life. But it should happen to everyone at least once."
So says James Patterson, and now you really will have to read it?