I'm reading a great book right now by my all time favorite author, Bill Bryson. It's called The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, a Memoir. I fell in love with him when I read A Walk in the Woods and then Notes from a Small Island. My adoration became complete when I listened to the audio books In a Sunburned Country and A Short History of Nearly Everything. He has such a soothing yet quietly funny accent. It's like just from listening to his voice you can tell that he has a constant grin on his face. He seems to love life and find enjoyment in the everyday things.

Anyway, he was born in 1951 in Des Moines, Iowa and this new book is a memoir of his childhood. He's a bit older than me but there are still so many similarities that I could relate to, being raised in the Midwest in the middle of the 20th century. It's hysterical and just what I needed!

[ 11-03-2006, 04:24 PM: Message edited by: CrewChief ]

I am sooo ready for these elections to be over. I work for our town & am an Election Official here...this has been a crazy week. Tuesday will be a 6:30am-11:30pm+ day, with no breaks. Not to mention, I am REALLY interested in our Gubenetorial(sp?) race. Since I am an election official, I have no official/public opinion of candidates, but let's just say I am ready.
Did anyone else get a call from Barbara Bush reminding them to vote? Gotta love those recordings!

[ 11-03-2006, 02:09 PM: Message edited by: Lucella ]

This is a heavy conversation. Thank goodness elections are right around the corner and we can all show up to make a difference.
Our family is very much into genealogy and we have copies of Mayflower signatures from our relatives ... kind of cool.
For as much as I dislike the drain on funding etc. I have had the opportunity to live in a strong immigrant area and have found them all to be wonderfully friendly and caring of their communities (granted not all are the same) & deeply devoted to family which included my family when one afternoon a stranger (immigrant) saved me from being mugged (from a young decently dress white male) with my 2 very small children in a parking lot. I couldn’t understand anything he was yelling at my suspected attacker to chase him off but when we looked into each others eyes I knew that he cared. Not so many of our fellow Americans would have stepped up to help as he did – most would just mind their own business. To this day every time conversations get heated I remember the situation and also think about how my family (German, Polish and Irish) struggled. I am not sure what the middle ground can be or if there will be one any time soon but I am hoping that Americans & Immigrants can learn from the situation, remember the past and compromise for the good of our country.

I guess I will always respect what being President means. I think that's why so many people were mad at the Dixie Chicks. In all honesty, I really got frustrated with Clinton (scandals, stealing, etc) and it made it hard not to question anyone in that position and what they could get away with. As for GW, the strong republican upbringing in me will always defend him, but, just like the rest of us, he isn't always right. I don't think I would have been confident through 9/11 with Gore in office and, well, I've met Kerry and he just gives me the creeps and that's one of those gut feelings I trust.
As for political calls, this week Jim Ryun, Sam Brownback and John McCain (who I adore) have called me and 6 surveys about who I'm voting for.
Shawn, you have said what most of us think about issues with your school. Taxing cigs just makes the smokers poorer. At some point, our district had a discussion about not letting anyone enroll in school that didn't have a social security card. I know Kansas isn't nearly as overloaded and Cali but we have a couple of food plants that help people stay (work) here illegally and at least 2 stops in our city where people are being bused in. Appearantly they have the right to visit. They just don't ever leave. My neighboorhood is loaded down with single family homes housing 10-15 people who play music all night, leave their bottles in the street for us to run over or pickup, let their small children run in the busy streets totally unsupervised, drive around without insurance on their vehicles, and have no clue how to be decent, respectful neighbors. Why is it our responsibility to take them in? Most of us our immigrants who came here legally. My husband's great grandparents came from Italy-legally, my great grandparents came from Germany-legally. They didn't expect anything and they learned the language and lived productively without draining the economy. Our biggest battle between congressional candidates is whether or we should offer amnesty to those illegals already here. How much worse off will we be if that happens? We are already buying school supplies to meet the needs of those we can't afford them. Are we going to have to buy them clothes next or will PTO's have to start paying school utility bills? The thing that frustrates me is that we have worked really hard to have what little we have and I feel that people who have no reason to be here get rewarded and better taken care of for being here illegally and not working. It's enough to make you just want to scream most days.

We always do something for Memorial Day with the boys...attend a service at a National Cemetary or a memorial service of some type. Well one year I took them all up to Arlington. Stayed up the night before memorizing details about the place. Had them chatting about the number of supreme court judges, presidents, astronauts etc there. Well we got on a bus that took us to an ampitheater and we just followed the crowd. Turns out the President, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, VP and Rumsfeld were all coming to speak. These 2 little boys (I left 2 home, too young) sat there for an hour waiting and then another hour listening to these folks. I am not personally a GW fan, but there is that Office that I swore to defend for so many years. Not the man in the office but the office itself....it was a terrific moment for the boys and I. They will forget about it I'm sure but I will remind them that they had a brush with a President one day.
Bless their hearts [img]smile.gif[/img] ....d

Well, look at that! My posts # went over 1000 and now I'm in the PTO Hall of Fame.... Seems like there should have been confetti or something?!?! On to The Land of JHB!