Library Notes
January 17, 2004
By Pansy Hundley, Librarian.
Ladies, the Age of Chivalry is dead. The Knight in Shining Armor is a thing of the past.
Last week, when it was raining, finally, the frogs were strangling, and the streets were running curb-full and more, I was forced to get out in it to go to a couple of establishments in town.
I managed at one place to struggle out of my car, umbrella in one hand the other full of "stuff". There in front of me, as I approached the building, was a rushing torrent of water. I tried tippie-toeing through it, walking carefully. And, I still managed to get one shoe completely submerged, shall we say, in that deluge.
I slopped and sloshed on in, and inquired in a loud voice, as I entered, "Is there a man in here who will put his jacket over that stream of water out there, so that I can get across it when I leave without getting my shoe full again?" There was silence for a minute and then this voice, a man’s voice, naturally, said "You gotta’ be kiddin’!"
Well, I knew right away that Prince Charming did not live, reside or work there. I told said voice when I left that I was very disillusioned. I also told him that he had no romance in his soul. He said it left when he got married, to which I replied that it should just have really started then. But, don’t get me started on that subject! Don’t let me on my soap box!
I returned to the drenched, outside, world, umbrella in one hand and "stuff" still in the other. I attempted to find a more shallow place to cross the creek. Hah! I again submerged the same shoe, with the same foot in it, in the flowing water – and there was no jacket laying across it!
If a dragon had come charging down McKinney Street at that time, roaring and breathing fire out three feet in front of his own self, I would probably have had to grab a sword and slay him myself. Then I’d have had to go git that feller out from behind the counter, where he was hiding. I tell you, it’s nearly enough to make a girl quit reading romance books.
I went back to the library, took paper towels and dried, as best I could, my shoe and my wet foot and gave up that dream of Prince Charming. OR, perhaps I really haven’t come across him yet. Well----dreams die hard!
Richard North Patterson is no Prince Charming either, I suspect, but he is a writer of books. This new one, that I took out of a box the other day, is entitled "Balance of Power". Let’s read it.
"President Kerry Kilcannon and his fiancee, television journalist Lara Costello, have at last decided to marry. But their wedding is followed by a massacre of innocents in a lethal burst of gunfire, challenging their marriage and his presidency in ways so shattering and indelibly personal that Kilcannon vows to eradicate gun violence and crush the most powerful lobby in Washington – the Sons of the Second Amendment (SSA).
Allied with the President’s most determined rival, the resourceful and relentless Senate Majority Leader Frank Fasano, the SSA declares all-out war on Kerry Kilcannon, deploying its arsenal of money, intimidation, and secret dealings to eviscerate Kilcannon’s crusade – and, it hopes, destroy his presidency. This ignites a high-stakes game of politics and legal maneuvering in the Senate, the courtroom, and across the country, which the charismatic but untested young President is determined to win at any cost. But in the incendiary clash over gun violence and gun rights, the cost to both Kilcannons may be even higher than he imagined. And others in the crossfire may also pay the price: the idealistic lawyer who has taken on the gun industry; the embattled CEO of America’s leading gun maker; the war-hero senator caught between conflicting ambitions; the female senator whose career is at risk; and the grief-stricken young woman fighting to emerge from the shadow of her sister, the First Lady."