Helping students, but not without controversy

Former Chico State University President Manuel Esteban characterizes business professor Curt DeBerg as “a nonconformist, irrepressible, blunt, and undeterred by bureaucratic hurdles.” Those qualities are very much in evidence in Professor DeBerg’s detailed account, “How High Is Up? The Rise, Fall, and Redemption Of A Sam M. Walton SIFE Fellow” ($24.95 in paperback from Memoir Books; also for Amazon Kindle).

Esteban encouraged Professor DeBerg’s efforts establishing a chapter of Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) on the Chico State campus. SIFE, writes DeBerg, is “one of Wal-Mart’s favorite nonprofit organizations,” a way for the corporation and its business sponsors to help college students practice free enterprise in their local communities, and also a way to train a future generation of leaders.

DeBerg advocated “service learning” which emphasized community support projects. That seemed a good fit with SIFE, and so DeBerg became a Sam Walton Fellow, named after the legendary founder of Wal-Mart.

His book details his adventures during his dozen or so years as a SIFE leader (Chico State teams became national champions and a force to be reckoned with), but DeBerg grew increasingly at odds with the organization, wanting it to be more accountable (the Fellows had little say), less Christian (and more inclusive) and less politically right-wing. As DeBerg explored his idea of SIFE teams helping less privileged high school students become entrepreneurs, there was a clash of goals, and egos, and he was kicked out.

Yet what DeBerg learned in SIFE helped him start Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship (SAGE), focusing on high schools. SIFE itself changed its name to “Enactus” and instituted some of the reforms DeBerg advocated. It’s a tangled tale, more “prickly” than this review would suggest, but ultimately a vision for what DeBerg calls “humanitarian capitalism.”

The author will be discussing his book at Lyon Books in Chico on Monday, May 5 at 7:00 p.m., and will be interviewed by Nancy Wiegman on Nancy’s Bookshelf Friday, May 9 at 10:00 a.m. on KCHO, Northstate Public Radio (91.7 FM).

Local writer on the drama of Good Friday

“The vigil of Good Friday,” writes Peter Hansen, “moves us all in a way no other observance does during the Christian year. We weep quietly; we mourn the tragedy of sin and its evil and destructive fruit.” Yet “those mere words in Scripture, ‘he was crucified,’ simply do not have the impact on twenty-first-century Christians that they had on first-century citizens of a Roman world, people who had witnessed these brutal executions in person and had no need for a description of such events in detail. But we do.”

What would it have been like for those involved in the scourging and execution of Jesus of Nazareth? How would those who loved him, including his mother, make sense of what was happening?

"I Was There: Eyewitnesses At The Foot Of The Cross" ($15 in paperback from WestBow Press; also for Amazon Kindle) by Peter Falconer Hansen is “my attempt to capture eyewitness experiences of people at hand—what I imagine they saw and heard, how they felt and acted, and the realizations they made through the unfolding drama. … Through the eyes of people we know were there, we share the experience of that world-changing day.”

The book can be obtained locally at Lyon Books in Chico. Signed copies are available from Father Hansen at St. Augustine of Canterbury Anglican Church, 228 Salem in Chico; call (530) 894-7409.

The author’s dramatic inspiration comes in part from his father, Peter Franklin Hansen, who “enjoyed a fifty-year career as an actor. …; his best known character was as Lee Baldwin in the daytime drama General Hospital.” He and fellow actors would serve churches in Los Angeles by portraying various Biblical characters in a Christmas drama.

In Good Friday, darkness prevails; where is the promise of “good tidings”? In 19 personal encounters, told by the likes of Peter the disciple, Caiaphas the High Priest, Barabbas, Judas, Lazarus (the friend Jesus raised from the dead), and Mary, the promise deepens, yearning for resurrection.

And now, in Easter, “he is risen indeed!”

Local poet charts a family breakup and a tentative hope

Lisa Anina Berman received her M.A. in Creative Writing at Chico State University “as a single mother in her 40s.” Her Master’s project has now become a book, “a compilation of narrative, lyrical and form poetry that loosely follows a path of loss, recovery and redemption.” The poet’s simple words are worth pondering.

“SaltWild” ($8.99 in paperback from CreateSpace; also for Amazon Kindle) is available locally at Lyon Books and the university’s Wildcat Bookstore.

The second poem, “Deep Blues,” begins with a romantic dinner in South Lake Tahoe. “Our blue eyes danced,” the poet writes, “smiles doubled,/ in lifted glasses/ of chardonnay.” Too perfect? “In deep/ layers of blues,/ I followed a false light,// and got lost in his dark.”

It’s clear that this relationship, which blossoms into marriage and family, includes something else. An addiction. In “Tahoe Haze,” “I dumped out his pain/ pills in our driveway/ while he watched,/ and I stomped/ them, pulverized them,/ to a powdery pulp,/ the color of our panic.”

Then, later, in “Phone Call From Rehab,” “The sky was numb, grey/ as a dial tone, the day my parents came// with their pickup and trailer./ My husband, in rehab// again, had just called./ ‘I told them I don’t belong here,’// he boasted, ‘everyone’s a loser.’”

And now a new chapter, and the reader is invited to “Huge Yard Sale Today!”: “I walk up to the yard sale, the things that I left him/ when I left him, spread out on tables and the sidewalk.” The poet is coming to pick up the kids “for my week.”

But life must be lived. In “My Son’s Swagger,” the poet writes: “My son, know that I would dive/ into icy waters for you/ wrestle a bear for you, and yet,/ we have to feel the pain// of our own skinned knees,/ experience the strengths and failures/ of building our own character,/ and find the armor that suits us.”

“I wanted to see Jesus/ in my cup of coffee this morning” the poet says. “I wanted to believe that/ it’s all true.// … That He teaches,/ heals,/ forgives/ me.”

Lyon Books in Chico will be hosting a reading and book signing Tuesday, April 29 at 7:00 p.m.

A saga of young love from a Sacramento Valley novelist

The first novel from award-winning short-story writer Heather Brittain Bergstrom celebrates the tenacity of teenage love. “Steal The North” ($27.95 in hardcover from Viking; also for Amazon Kindle) tells the story of 16-year-old Emmy Nolan, sent by her mother Kate in Sacramento to eastern Washington state, there to take part in a healing ceremony for Kate’s sister.

Bethany and husband Matt are part of a fundamentalist Baptist sect; the preacher, Brother Mathias, wants the ceremony to include a young virgin. Beth has had a series of miscarriages that have ruined her health; now she is pregnant again. Kate has kept many things from Emmy, including the existence of Emmy’s aunt and uncle, but Emmy is not forthcoming either. She is no virgin.

While staying with Beth and Matt, whom she comes to love deeply, she meets a sixteen-year-old Native American named Reuben Tonasket. It’s pretty much love at first sight. In their lovemaking, Emmy and Reuben open up to each other, partly. Family secrets still abound.

Kate had grown up in the area, but her husband left her and she became a trucker’s prostitute to pay the bills. She tells Emmy that her father is dead, but that’s a lie. As Spencer, Kate’s boyfriend, puts it: “Guys like women with a little mystery. Kate had a whole sea of it inside her. I was standing on the shore.”

Each chapter is narrated by one of the main characters. In an interview Bergstrom says that “I grew up between the two largest Indian reservations in Washington State: the Colville and the Yakama reservations.” But it was a challenge to get Reuben’s narration right: “How could I possibly begin to understand what it is like to be a Native American youth? How can I possibly understand their spirituality? Their culture? Their sorrow, joy, loss, love?”

Yet Reuben, flawed human, emerges as a noble figure who must make an extraordinary sacrifice. The reader will cheer the ending, but long be haunted by the rawness of a family history laid bare and the courage of the very young.

Lyon Books in Chico will be hosting Bergstrom for a reading and book signing Thursday, April 17 at 7:00 p.m.

WordFire Creative Writing Conference coming to Butte College April 26

Sponsored by the Butte College English Department, the WordFire Creative Writing Conference is open to the public ($65 for community members and $35 for students). Registration is at buttewordfire.org or contact Butte College instructor Molly Emmons at (530) 895-2935.

Now in its third year, the conference features workshops on poetry, memoir, fiction, publishing, and more, including one on songwriting from local musician Jeremy Gerrard.

A featured presenter is local YA (Young Adult) author Zu Vincent. Her novel “The Lucky Place” ($17.95 in hardcover from Front Street; also for Amazon Kindle), first published in 2008, was hailed by School Library Journal as “a stunning fiction debut by an author to watch.”

Designed for those in grades 6 through 9, the story can be enjoyed by adults as well. It’s a heartbreaking tale told by Cassie, three years old as the story begins. She and her five-year-old brother, Jamie, have been taken to the races by their drunken father, Sikes, who calls her “Baby Doll.” It’s Sacramento (“River City” in the novel) in the late Fifties and early Sixties (is Cassie in third grade when President Kennedy is shot?).

Cassie’s attempt to understand her family’s world perfectly captures the young mind: “I wonder what a binge is. I wonder if it’s something you can ride, like a plane or a train, or maybe an elephant. I want to ask Daddy, but this time when he goes away he doesn’t come back, and that’s a secret, too.”

Mama remarries. Ellis is a cook with greater ambitions, and Cassie comes to love her New Daddy, even as her Old Daddy extracts a promise to “love me best, forever!” Cassie: “I try to keep my promise, but it’s hard. After the police take Old Daddy away, we never see him.” The family moves to Diamond Street and Mama says “the white horse that runs in the field where the shopping center will be means good luck, that we have moved to a lucky place.”

Years pass, and Cassie’s writerly voice gains confidence. When she’s twelve, Ellis is diagnosed with cancer, from which he will not recover. Cassie must discover where the “lucky place” truly is, and the reader’s tears stain almost every page.

Local researcher retraces the “Ishi expedition”

“The story begins in San Francisco with Ishi and Professor Alfred L. Kroeber.” He and his fellow anthropologists wanted “to learn how California Indians lived and survived in pre-contact times.” So, on May 13, 1914, “Ishi and his friends” depart by train to Vina where he “becomes the lead guide for a trip into the rugged and remote Yahi foothill country.”

As independent researcher Richard Burrill puts it, “they experience, in all, nineteen days of adventure, turmoil, challenges, discoveries, and some resolution. The group remains in the foothill country until the evening of May 30, 1914, when the sleeping volcano, Lassen Peak, awakens and starts erupting!”

The proceedings are recounted in a kind of narrative encyclopedia. “Ishi’s Return Home: The 1914 Anthropological Expedition Story” ($29.95 in paperback from The Anthro Company, available at ishifacts.com or locally at Lyon Books in Chico) contains 357 photographs, almost thirty maps, and numerous documents, including Ishi’s 185 Yahi place names.

The story is driven by many personalities, not least of which is Jack Apperson of Vina. He was hired “as the trip’s lead muleskinner to guide and supply saddles and pack animals.” Kroeber and colleague Thomas T. Waterman made “a calculated decision to work with … ‘One-Eyed Jack,’ as Ishi called him.” Apperson “was the one who had started it all. If truth be known, One-Eyed Jack was the local Vina rancher who led in discovering and sacking Ishi’s Yahi village in 1908.”

Then, a few days later, “Apperson informed the outside world of the wild Indians’ existence” by going to the Chico Record, which headlined the story “Camp of Wild Indians Reported Found in Deer Creek Canyon” in Eastern Tehama County. The story hit the wires and came to the attention of Kroeber and Waterman. In 1914 Apperson was arrogant and “always wanted to be in the limelight.” Waterman despised Apperson, and what must Ishi have felt toward One-Eyed Jack? As Burrill recounts it, part of the tale is one of extraordinary forgiveness.

Sections of the book take the reader to the landforms traversed by the expedition, and detail Ishi’s skills and experiences. It’s an immersive adventure.

Burrill will be speaking about Ishi on Thursday, March 27 at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books.

Visiting poet has deep roots in Chico

For Susan Rawlins, sometimes even the most genuine self-expression serves only to hide us from ourselves. In “What Is Important,” the poet observes that “My father has learned a lot/ lately and asks my opinion/ before interrupting to tell me/ the truth. …/ I have said what I have to say;/ it has made no difference.// I have spent my life putting/ words in rows in the cause of/ the small human heart, mine/ especially. The flower that/ favors me by blooming,/ a hand’s warmth, the comfort/ of lunch, of clean white sheets./ Small things my mother taught me,/ small loving things.”

The “small things” are keenly observed with wit and reverence in “Even As We Speak: Selected Poems” ($12.95 in paperback from Class Action Ink). Whether adventures with husband Stan, or the the death of their dog, Rawlins’ simple language reveals a world that’s not so simple after all. “We have given his blankets back to Goodwill,” the poet says in “Willie the Dog Incarnate.” “His dish is on the dryer, but now full of/ clean socks. Stan was never annoyed with/ his getting old and sick. …”

Rawlins attended Chico Senior High; her family, according to a news release, “has been in Chico since 1873, deeply involved in M. Oser and Company, Congregation Beth Israel, and Chico State College. …”

In “Thought on the Stairs” the poet muses, “How long can one grieve for an ice cream flavor? Shubert’s/ Sherbet Shop (since 1938) had the world’s best fresh peach/ ice cream until it didn’t. The chocolate perseveres.” The nativity pageant in “Audiences Won’t Behold” happened at Hooker Oak School in 1952. “The Angel of the Annunciation/ wondered why she,/ so dutiful,/ had one scene and eight lines/ while some nobody/ played the Virgin. …”

In “Way to Go,” “Twenty years later my middle brother played softball/ for George’s Pest and Termite Control, the team of/ Chico State’s English Department faculty. I sat/ with the wives who discussed Doris Lessing, diaper/ rash, how many days he would be depressed having/ bobbled the double play, sexism in Charlotte’s Web—/ then the sudden shriek Awright! Way to go, Pests! …”

Rawlins will be reading from and signing copies of her book Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books in Chico.

In search of Chico’s Chinese temple

Keith Johnson writes that Chico’s “‘Old Chinatown,’ located on Flume Street between East 5th and 6th Streets, was established around 1865.” Then “a second settlement, ‘New Chinatown,’ was firmly established by the early 1880s on Cherry Street between West 7th and 8th Streets. This settlement contained a Chinese temple or joss house.”

As Johnson notes, “Old Chinatown had its gambling and opium dens. … With the aid of Federal agents, the Chico Police finally succeeded in curtailing Old Chinatown’s narcotics trade in 1925. This hastened the decline of Chico’s Chinese population, which continued to drift away from the city. In 1939, the last three elderly residents of New Chinatown deeded the altars and furnishings of the temple to George Orberg, a long-time friend of the Chinese in Chico.”

Johnson, now retired from teaching anthropology at Chico State University, “came here from UCLA in 1963 and initiated the Archaeological Research Program and founded the Museum of Anthropology (now the Valene Smith Museum of Anthropology) at Chico State.”

In 1971 Johnson located many parts of the temple. His museum exhibits class “cleaned and catalogued the temple materials,” some 175 pieces, and put them together for public display at the Museum of Anthropology in 1972-73. And Johnson took many color photographs which now adorn almost every page of “Golden Altars: A Visual Tour of Chico’s Chinese Temple” ($30 in paperback, published by Johnson and The Butte County Historical Society through lulu.com).

“With few exceptions,” Johnson says, “the temple altars and associated religious objects were manufactured in Canton, China, shipped to San Francisco and brought overland to Chico,” with most pieces “produced between 1884 and 1910.” A wooden sign announced the “Temple of Many Gods” “in gold Chinese characters. Stepping inside the doorway, one would look directly at the three magnificent golden arches above the main altar at the back of the room.”

The book is a lovingly detailed and beautiful tribute. “Unlike the towns of Oroville, Marysville, and Weaverville, Chico was  unable to save its temple. The religious furniture and artifacts from the joss house still survive, however. Over the past many decades they have been scattered around town, protected by several concerned citizens of Chico … and now reside, hidden from the public, in a Chico warehouse.”

Three military pilots, one from Paradise

Paradise author B.J. Bryan tells the story of World War II with a personal touch in “Escape With A Silent Roar: A Trilogy of Three World War II Pilots Including A P-38 Fighter In Combat Missions Over Europe” ($19.99 in paperback from Xlibris; also Amazon Kindle format).

The first chapter, “Thunder From The South,” is the story of Col. Richard E. Clark whom the author met in Paradise. “He brought with him a cassette tape of something he wanted me to hear. He requested that I not listen to it or write his story until he had passed on. I agreed.”

Bryan writes that “the tape was about his experiences flying his plane over Northern Italy.” It was late in 1944; “I was in the 20th Bomb Squadron of the 2nd Battle Group, 15th Air Force,” Clark’s voice says. He made it out in one piece, but loud noises still made him shake. “He received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Silver Star.”

“My Adventures In Greece” is a first-person account by Edward W. Smythe which makes up most of the book. His target was an installation about 20 miles north of Athens, “well protected by concentrations of both mobile and stationary anti-aircraft batteries.”

What’s it like to be hit? “There was a shattering explosion just below my feet. I was afraid to look down at them. When I did, I saw the rudder pedals twisted at an odd angle. … ‘Navigator-to-pilot! Bombardier hit bad. He’s—he’s—Flak! Big hole in— … Pilot-to-crew! Abandon ship. Bail out! We are afire!” And that’s only the start of the story, which involves escape and, on January 30, 1944, rescue.

Finally, William “Bill” Burns tells the story of “A P-38 Fighter Combat Mission Over Europe,” a gripping first-hand account. We must not forget, Bryan writes: “History does repeat itself.”

The author will be signing copies of the book at the VFW Craft Fair this Saturday, March 8 from 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. and Sunday from 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. at the Paradise Veterans Hall. A book event will also be held at Lyon Books in Chico March 31 at 7:30 p.m.

Laughter on the Pacific Crest Trail

“I’ve always been into writing, nature, and some form of carpentry,” writes Ashland, Oregon-based John Riha. Wooden you know, he saw trees aplenty when he and one of his sons, 17-year-old Nick, spent several days hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in the Trinity Alps Wilderness of Northern California.

They turned out to be “Rookies In The Wild” ($6.99 in paperback from RT3 Media; also for Amazon Kindle) as they confronted, as the subtitle puts it, “Fear and Gloaming On The Pacific Crest Trail.”

“Gloaming” means “dusk,” and the pair—well, mostly John—were pretty much in the dark on the trek, John convincing himself they would be lost forever, mauled by bears or eaten by cougars or devoured by mosquitoes or fall off a cliff or twist their legs. John managed to do the leg twist while Nick remained laconic most of the time, but in a father-son bonding sort of way.

The first third of the book is the story of the hike’s preparation. It’s a hilarious romp through sporting goods stores as John buys up enough equipment to hike the entire 2650-mile PCT. A compulsive worrier, he buys the finest, whether it’s bear spray or backpacks. After all, he’s 56, “past the warranty period. I was wearing out, and my time horizon shortening.”

Fear of big cats drives him on. He even fishes out the old Buck hunting knife purchased long ago. “Basically unused for two decades, I had kept it around partly out of nostalgia and partly on the premise it might come in handy if intruders should enter the house in search of mismatched pieces of furniture, which we had in abundance.”

Losing his job as a journalist actually left John with more time to buy more stuff, like tents and trekking poles, and so one fine day he and Nick drove the rented Ford Explorer up Forest Highway 93 to where it crosses the PCT. The adventure had begun.

There are serious sections, like chapters on Douglas-fir and another couple’s cougar encounter, but self-deprecation runs amok (along with a raft of good-natured expletives) to make for a laugh-out-loud tale. Riha’s a talented writer, and his hiking days are not yet over.

Chico author’s fantasy romp

Let’s say you’re kind of an over-the-hill old guy, something of a grouch potato, who one day reaches down for a fallen remote only to discover he has found a leprechaun instead, and that the old guy, Robert Pendleton, has been pretty much picked to save the wee folk. That’s the setup of a new tale from the prolific Dan O’Brien (thedanobrienproject.blogspot.com), a story aimed at the kid in all of us.

“Conspirators Of The Lost Sock Army And The Loose Change Collection Agency” ($7.95 in paperback, self-published, also in Amazon Kindle format) is profusely illustrated by Steve Ferchaud, who in a succession of wonderful drawings turns a sourpuss Robert into an adventure hero.

The leprechaun is not just any leprechaun. “I be from another world just outside the one you know, a place of magic and wonder.” Robert can hardly keep from laughing because it must be the wildest of dreams. Or maybe not.

“I be much more than a mere common leprechaun, ye oversized oaf. I be Colin McMasters, director of the L.C.C.A. And that be nothin’ to laugh at.” The organization turns out to be the Loose Change Collection Agency, supporting leprechauns all over the world as they raid couch cushions in order “to be fundin’ our pots-o-gold.”

But the leprechaun world has been invaded by the Scourge, a diminutive but fearsome gremlin who has put together an army made up of (as the book’s title says) all those lost socks we can’t seem to find. Robert is stupefied: “You want me to believe that there is a conspiracy involving a gremlin that steals socks from random dryers in order to build an army to destroy all of the leprechauns.” Yep. And don’t forget, adds Colin McMasters, “steal our pots-o-gold.”

Just how Robert enters the leprechaun sprite-world is best left to the story itself, but until the very end Robert is convinced that it’s “just an elaborate dream … it would be best just to enjoy it.” That’s what readers can do as well. The Scourge is pretty mean (and utters one darn cuss word) but it’s clear that the old man has quite the fight left as he socks it to ‘em.

Former Oroville resident remembers war in the Philippines

"My father was a Filipino," writes Helen Madamba Mossman, "and my mother an American. I was born in the Philippines in 1933 and lived there until I was twelve years old." Her family, including her younger brother, "spent World War II in hiding from the Japanese on the island of Negros." Helen's father, Jorge, "was a second lieutenant in the United States Army Reserve as well as a member of the Philippine defense force."

His actions in sheltering his family and directing the bands of "guerrilleros" on the island were heroic, but, when the family came to the US in 1945, Helen "abandoned my father emotionally when the war ended." Only with the passage of time has she come to make sense of her estrangement and embrace not only her mother's strength but her father's intelligence.

The story is called "A Letter To My Father: Growing Up Filipina and American" ($24.95 in hardcover from University of Oklahoma Press). Jorge attended Oklahoma A&M College where he met Iva Harrison. The two married in 1927. Jorge returned to Negros while his wife finished college and joined him in 1932.

Central chapters of the book recount four years of war. "In January 1942," she writes, "Japanese bombers sank a US Navy munitions ship that was hiding out during daylight hours in Miracalum Bay. My brother and I were building sand forts along the lagoon behind our house that morning. . ... We saw the propellers whirring and felt the vibration of their engines on the sand beneath us. The red circles on their wings left no doubt what country they represented. ... The planes buzzed low over our beach, then flew over the ridge in Miracalum and we heard the booms of exploding bombs."

The Philippines surrendered that year; "my father was one of the last officers in his unit to leave the northern Negros cadre. With many of his men, Dad took to the hills." Mossman's story of survival is harrowing. Much later, after living in Oroville during the Vietnam War, she came to terms with the memory of her father after "nearly a lifetime of locking him away behind an emotional door down a long-forgotten hallway of my mind." She could finally say, "Thank you, Dad."

A Paradise Olympian

The Wikipedia article on Jack Yerman notes that the retired high school teacher, who lives in Paradise, "played football for Berkeley in the Rose Bowl." An extraordinary achievement, considering his origins. "When Jack was born on February 5, 1939, his father ... sat behind the bars of the Butte County Jail--the family guesses it was a fight, or maybe he was drunk, or maybe he owed someone money, or maybe it was everything. The hospital clerk in Oroville wrote 'Common Laborer' on the birth certificate."

His mother, Irene, divorced him soon after. Jack grew up in Woodland. "Mom and Gram had pooled their resources to purchase a small, one bedroom home for $500" and that was home to Irene, Jack and his sister. "Jack never heard the words I love you in his home. He did not know that other mothers cradled their children and read to them before bed." Yet Jack wanted something more, and the dream became clear. He wanted to run. "Something inside said, Your time will come."

Just what happened is told by one of his sons, Bruce Hamilton Yerman, in "Your Time Will Come: Jack Yerman And His Incredible Journey to The 1960 Olympics" ($11.99 in paperback from Lulu.com; also available in ePub digital format--for details, visit bhyerman.wix.com/books).

Bruce Yerman has done readers a great favor in setting his father's story (including his courtship of Margo) into historical context. The book contains an extensive bibliography and a selection of photographs. Jack Yerman made news not just as a football player but as a runner. The story of the preparation for the 1960 Olympics in Rome comes from interviews with Jack, and it was clear that the U.S., locked in heated rivalry with the Soviet Union, did not do well by the American athletes.

Nevertheless, in spite of having to fly to Rome in a prop plane (officials took jets) and attacks of dysentery because of the water, a weakened Jack Yerman pulled it off. He and teammates took home the gold medal in the 1600-meter relay. During his running career Jack set world records in the mile and two-mile relays, indoor 400-meter short track, and more.

For those high schoolers who wanted to know whether the stories Jack told were true, they are.

Local novelist's major debut

Young Jeremiah Wakefield joins the Union Army from New York farming country in 1862. His new wife, eighteen-year-old Rosetta, "independent as a hog on ice," follows him into the 97th New York State Volunteers, Company H, dressed as "Ross Stone." That's not what Jeremiah planned; he envisioned a quick end to the Civil War and the pay he would receive enough to buy a farm when he returned to Rosetta.

But she would never be a simple housekeeper. Once Jeremiah's shock of recognition subsides as Stone is introduced into the company, he offers a place in his tent to the new recruit. Some of their friends from Flat Creek are there as well, but soon lighthearted jibes and days of tedium give way to battle. Narrated by Rosetta, "I Shall Be Near To You" ($24 in hardcover from Crown; also for Amazon Kindle) by Erin Lindsay McCabe marks the debut of a compelling talent.

McCabe earned a teaching credential at Chico State University and has taught composition at Butte College. In an author's note she says that "the fictional Rosetta's experience as a soldier is an amalgamation of the experiences of the more than two hundred women who are known to have enlisted. ... Many women joined up to be with fiances, husbands, brothers, fathers. Not only did these women manage to pass the Army's physical exam (often just a handshake), some of these women even managed to conceal their identity until the very moment they delivered their babies in the ranks. ..."

McCabe's story is shattering, bringing the reader into the midst of war, confusion reigning, the smells of dying, the sights, even the taste, but most especially the sounds. The sounds of Rosetta's own thoughts, the din of battle, the screams of pain. "Sergeant bellows, 'Fire at will!' through the noise, but all I can do is keep low. ... I don't know where any of my boys are, but I have got to do this thing. I get to my knees and then it is time it is time it is time to make my run across moldering logs and branches and dead leaves and men." Heartbreaking and unforgettable.

McCabe will be signing copies of her book Thursday at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books in Chico.

Helping kids understand Parkinson's

Paradise artist Alison Paolini, a member of the Parkinson's Association of Northern California, has teamed with Denver-based writer Kirk Hall to tell about his life as a PWP ("person with Parkinson's") from a child's perspective. The "grampa" of his earlier book, "Carson And His Shaky Paws Grampa" (also illustrated by Paolini), Hall's new story focuses on his wife, Linda, the caregiver, and is more explicitly about Parkinson's Disease.

"Carina And Her Care Partner Gramma" ($15.95 in paperback from Innovo Publishing, in Amazon Kindle format and available from Hall's website at shakypawsgrampa.blogspot.com) situates Parkinson's within a family context. As Hall says in a "note to readers," the book "emphasizes the importance of care partners. Care partners are most often women (since the majority of PWPs are men), but there are also women, family members, or friends in this difficult and demanding role."

"My name is Carina," the story begins, "and I am six and one-half years old." She and her younger brother have moved to China with their parents, who are teachers. She fondly remembers her grandparents, especially Gramma. "The summer before we moved to China, the whole family went to a park to walk with Gramma and Grampa and a bunch of other people. Some walked very slowly, some were in special chairs with wheels, and some were shaky like Grampa used to be. We walked a really long way to help raise money for something called Parkinson's. Gramma told us that is what caused Grampa's 'shaky paws' and make him tired."

Carina says her grandparents speak to others about Parkinson's, and her Gramma tells how she helps Grampa. "Like telling him to take a nap when he gets grouchy or taking a long walk with him. They told them about his special procedure and how much better he feels."

That procedure, Hall explains in a note, is called "deep-brain stimulation therapy," "a pacemaker for the brain," which he had in 2011. The book also includes a resource page for care partners and those with Parkinson's. Paolini's large, colorful illustrations are friendly and inviting.

"I would like to be a doctor," Corina tells her teacher, "so I can take care of people like how Gramma takes care of Grampa. ... I know she will do a good job because she loves him so much!"

A Chicoan's adventures building houses for the poor

In 2009 the Evangelical Free Church of Chico teamed with long-time missions partner Amor (amor.org) "to build Amor experimental homes in South Africa." It fell to church member Dan Irving to organize the trip, recounted in "Don't Expect Luggage To Arrive" ($15 in paperback from Memoir Books; also for Amazon Kindle). It's available locally at Lyon Books in Chico.

The story also reaches back into Irving's growing up years and the intertwining of the work of another missions organization through a friend of a friend who knew the British Queen Mother. Irving's story is one of God's working in mysterious ways, of seeming coincidences and even setbacks that strengthened his own faith.

"Amor Ministries," he writes, "was founded by Scott and Gayla Congdon who fell in love when they started building an orphanage in Mexico in 1980." Amor, based in San Diego, "has grown from building the orphanage into building homes for the poor, which helps keep families together in Mexico, South Africa, and on an Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona."

In 2005 he was in Mexico with his son, David, and a team of volunteers to build seven houses through Amor. "We had three-and-a-half days ... from start to finish. Three-and-a-half days with lots of helping young hands, many who have never held a hammer, pounded a nail, cut a piece of wood, mixed or poured concrete; helping hands who were willing and soon would be able." In the end, all seven houses were completed despite "sleet, rain, heat, and hurricane force winds!"

Amor houses go to the poorest of the poor. Instead of living in "shelters" ("constructed of discarded scrap metal, corrugated iron, shredded pieces of plywood, tires, rocks, broken pieces of cement, hubcaps, and cardboard"), children are united with their families.

In expanding the work of Amor to South Africa for the first time, Irving assembled a Chico group of 26, including EV Free pastor Lou Diaz, Irving's family, students, medical and fire personnel, and even "the chairman of the board of Lundberg Farms."

Flying Delta, the volunteers arrived in Johannesburg but their 52 pieces of luggage? They went missing. (So the first letters of the book's title spell "Delta.") What happened next, though, is part of the story of God's grace.

Dan Irving will be the interview guest on Nancy’s Bookshelf, with Nancy Wiegman, Friday, January 24, from 10:00 – 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time, on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio), 91.7 FM. There’s a link to interview archives on this blog.

Will the family farm survive?

Gary Romano, his wife, Kim and son, Joey, own and operate Sierra Valley Farms (sierravalleyfarms.com) in Beckwourth, on the Middle Fork of the Feather River, in Plumas County. Certified organic, the 65-acre family farm, according to its Website, "hosts the only on-farm Certified Farmers Market in California." Innovations also include the summer "dinner in the barn series" and a CSA ("community-supported agriculture") program for restaurants.

But family farming is a struggle, and though Romano himself comes from generations of farmers, fewer and fewer Americans count farming as a family heritage. Romano argues that the US farm system is allied against small farmers, making a spirited case in "Why I Farm: Risking It All For A Life On The Land" ($15 in paperback from Bona Fide Books; also for Amazon Kindle). At times raucus (pretty raw emotions, and there's cussing), the book mixes family memoir with a plea for change (cultural, financial, legal) to help the small farmer survive.

What shines through is Romano's passion for the soil, and for honoring the family farmer. "So as we positively change our image," he writes, "how are we going to get people to like dirt? This is a hard one. The American public is so paranoid about germs. They are all about sanitizing everything! People need to go back to the earth, where all life begins and ends. Don't fight it! A little dirt under the fingernails is just fine. I don't know anyone who has died from eating a mouthful of organic soil."

Romano's book is a compelling read, tell-it-like-it-is honest about his own struggles to sustain a farm. "The old-timers say, 'All you have in Sierra Valley is July and winter.'" So, for Romano, diversification is in order, and even a little humor creeps in in his "Farmercise" suggestion, "fresh air exercise clubs" where "you can work your biceps and your quads by moving irrigation pipes...." An Appendix lists ten ways to "sustain the family farm in the twenty-first century."

Why does Romano farm? "I've worked a lot of jobs in my life," says the Chico State University grad, "from sales to a garbage man, a park ranger, and a cushy park superintendent job in Lake Tahoe. I must say that in the end I was born to farm."

Chico's troublemaker

"He was a little worried that he was sometimes more naughty than he should be, but his heart was nice. Surely Santa wouldn't punish him for his love of adventure." Thus the thinking of a rather rambunctious young man named Theodore Tribble (better known as "Terrible Tribble Ted"). He may not actually live in Chico, but his creator, Chico orthodontist Greg Tribble, certainly does. And therein lies a tale. Several, in fact.

The Fall 2013 issue of Chico Statements (produced by Chico State University) notes that Tribble's adult children remembered the stories he told about Terrible Tribble Ted and suggested a book. So, "Tribble approached journalism and public relations chair Susan Wiesinger with the rough stories in 2011, and they began working together on their development. In 2013, communication design faculty Carole Montgomery and recent communication design graduate Ashley Lee joined the project. Together, they created a book appropriate for fourth through sixth graders."

The nine stories in "The Adventures of Terrible Tribble Ted" ($7.99 in paperback from Tribble T Press, available locally including Lyon Books in Chico or from the author at gregtribble@yahoo.com) emphasize kids playing outside. As Wiesinger noted in an email to me, you won't find video games or texting, though there is one tech mention when Terrible Tribble Ted hears his mom: "'Theodore Tribble! Get home NOW!' she hollered. Other kids had cell phones that would ring or buzz when it was time to come home, but Ted's mom preferred to yell."

Chapters in the book suggest that young Ted's life is not without its challenges, so for example: "Problems from Playing with Keys" (we're talking keys to a moving van); "Complications with the Clown Car" (when Ted tries to sneak into the circus without buying a ticket); "Trouble with Tractors" (they can run over bicycles if driven by a kid named Terrible Tribble Ted); and "Perils with Being a Popper Pirate" (mixing Halloween and fireworks).

Most chapters end the same way: "Terrible Tribble Ted was exhausted and went straight to bed. His terrific sense of adventure had again gotten him in trouble." The whimsical line drawings add just the right flavor. These are growing-up hijinks, and Ted one day will become an adult. Still with a twinkle in his eye, he might even become an orthodontist.

A small-town Christmas

Darien Gee, who lives with her family in the fiftieth state, is a novelist who also has a weekly column on writing in North Hawaii News (archives available at dariengee.com/other-work-writers-corner). Her husband, Darrin, grew up in Chico and attended Pleasant Valley High School (class of 1985); his parents have lived in Chico since 1977.

Darien has been inviting readers, in a series of novels, to visit the small town of Avalon, Illinois (population 4200, more or less). In tracing the lives of some of the residents she mingles a contemporary focus on women in business while evoking, or awakening, a sense of how neighbors helped neighbors in the good old days. And what breaks down barriers is food--delicious treats and substantial meals that make a human connection.

Now, after "Friendship Bread" and "The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society" comes "An Avalon Christmas," a set of twelve intertwined stories that begins and ends with the residents of Harmony Homes, a care facility in Avalon. These are tales of quiet transformation in the lives of those "of a certain age," and others, who are lonely or ill or just disgusted with people (especially ex-spouses).

"An Avalon Christmas" ($5.99 in Amazon Kindle format from Gee & Co.) also has a companion audio version from Audible.com, beautifully read by Carin Gilfry.

Food is lovingly described in the stories. In "And We're Wassailing," "Bartholomew Solomon slips on his worn oven mitts, then cracks the oven door and take a peek. The breadcrumbs are crisp and golden. Underneath the crust Bartholomew knows the thyme, garlic and cloves have mingled with juicy red tomatoes, bacon, kielbasa sausages, pork and white beans resulting in a scent so enticing that Bartholomew has to resist grabbing a spoon and taking a bite right there." (A half dozen recipes are included at the end of the book, including the one for Bartholomew's cassoulet.)

In "Room At The Tea Salon," there are "cranberry orange Amish Friendship Bread scones," and in "Cookie Exchange" "lemon icebox cookies, chocolate-dipped shortbread, candied stained-glass wreath cookies"--you get the idea. Along the way we meet a young woman who helps save a failing bookstore, a mysterious stranger who insists on gift-wrapping in the snow, and a surprise Santa. Welcome to Avalon!

A literary taste of Chico and beyond

Dan O'Brien bills himself as a "Northern California independent author and literary consultant," and his Amalgam Publishing (thedanobrienproject.blogspot.com) is a small press that has begun publishing a series of regional anthologies of fiction, poetry and nonfiction.

The first offering is "The Northern California Perspective" ($12.95 in paperback from Amalgam; also in Amazon Kindle format), available locally at Lyon Books in Chico. Intended as a quarterly literary journal, the debut issue contains a good amount of reprinted material with some new pieces as well. The goal, O'Brien wrote in an email, is to focus on original submissions for future issues.

Deeply affecting short stories from Chico State University creative writing and American literature professor Rob Davidson bookend the journal's other pieces, with an additional story in the middle, all from Davidson's "The Farther Shore" collection. "What You Don't Know" begins simply enough: "Beau's house was one of my first sales in Chico, a crucial early commission that gave this new realtor ground to stand on." That ground begins to slip away soon enough, and perhaps that's one of the subtle themes pervading many of the pieces by the 19 authors represented. Something lost in the small towns of Northern California, and maybe something to be found, as in Butte College writing instructor Joe Abbott's contribution, "Burl Cutters (Spring 1979)."

"Disrobing Chico" is an excerpt from Timothy O'Neill's memoir of a Chico long past, and a boyhood long outgrown. "If you kept your sight low so as not to see the hills of the Sierras rising golden to the east of town, glanced left where the brick Presbyterian Church bell tower closed the horizon ... , and if you then quickly turned to the right where Broadway curled before the band of huge chestnut ... then you would think you were in some eastern college town--maybe Williams or Princeton."

Poetry abounds, too. Lara Gularte writes of "Living Above Paradise": "I have come to live here,/ neighbor with skunk, bear,/ mountains with discerning faces. ..." In "The Great Free State of Northern California," by Alec Binyon, the poet writes: "We are children of the West,/ sons of restless madness and daughters of/ destitute dreamers,/ born from the survivors of faithful mountain crossings. ..." Much to be savored here.

A Chico writer's autistic preschooler

When Ian was just three, he was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. What that meant in reality is told in "Strangers Together: How My Son's Autism Changed My Life" ($5.95 in paperback from CreateSpace; also in Amazon Kindle format and available locally at Lyon Books in Chico) by Joan Goodreau (autismwritehere.wordpress.com). It's an account of the year following Ian's diagnosis by a single mom trying to raise Ian, Monica (seven) and Jennifer (ten). It's a poignant, laugh-out-loud tragi-comedy that begins with an expletive from mom (the first word Ian learns to repeat, of course) and ends with a birthday candle (and Ian putting on his pajamas, all by himself).

In between those events Goodreau charts her own journey. She is living in Canada, and few people understand Ian's outbursts on shopping trips (which are few) or his penchant for pouring things on the floor (like wine or flour) when the family is invited to visit friends (and the friends become fewer). She tries to fend for herself, and yet is amazed at what Ian's Special Education preschool teacher is able to do. Attending a parents' meeting, watching a video of the children, she wonders: "Who is this kid? I didn't know my son could sign and follow directions."

In fact, "he looks like a different boy than the Ian we live with at home. We are strangers who live together. We look at each other, but he doesn't see our family. ... Silence and screams are his language, and we can't understand."

Much later, a compassionate presenter tells another assembly of parents "about the secret child we dream about when we're expecting a baby. We fasten our dreams and hopes on this baby. When our child has disabilities, we have to accept our child is different from the one we dreamed about. We need to grieve in our own ways for the child we thought we had, and for the death of our dream." And Goodreau learns that others can help.

She will be signing her book at the Rowell Family Empowerment Center, 3075 Cohasset Road in Chico, Friday, December 13, from 6:00-8:00 p.m. Call (530) 899-8801 for details. All proceeds from the book sale will go to the organization, which offers "support, education and advocacy to parents."

A provocative study of evil from a former Chico State University professor

"Moral Evil" ($32.95 in paperback from Georgetown University Press; also in Amazon Kindle format), by Andrew Michael Flescher, might seem a strange holiday topic. Yet, ultimately, while fully recognizing the sometimes horrifying nature of human existence, it is a book of measured hope.

Andy Flescher taught in the Religious Studies department at Chico State University and is now, according an author's note, "a member of the Core Faculty, Program in Public Health, associate professor of preventive medicine, and associate professor of English at Stony Brook University" in New York. But put all that aside. His probing study of moral evil (and natural evil, too, such as a devastating tsunami) is brilliantly clear and mostly jargon free, well worth pondering.

The core of the book is a description of four (sometimes overlapping) ways of looking at moral evil, each put in conversation with the others. In the last chapter Flescher moves from description to prescription, suggesting the most satisfying (and hopeful) understanding of moral evil involves combining Augustine's evil-as-privation view with Aristotle's virtue ethics view of character development.

Augustine's view sees "evil as the absence of goodness," a lack of being what we should be when we do what we shouldn't or fail to do what we ought. We are no stranger to this evil--it seems part of the human condition.

A second view of moral evil envisions it in Manichean terms, evil as a substantial opposing force "radically separate from the good." This is "evil as the presence of badness"; the battle against evil may never be won. A third view proposes a theodicy, a justification of the ways of God to man, suggesting that evil is really a kind of good if we could only understand the larger picture. It is"evil as the presence of goodness." Finally, evil is only in the eye of the beholder, just a label some people slap on the actions of those they don't like. It is "evil as the absence of badness."

For Flescher, evil is a privation; in response we must "introduce goodness" with "actions that reveal a commitment to the building and rebuilding of human community and connection" and "go out of our way to choose the good." There is Hope.

Boozy 90s remembrances of Chico State University

"I have so many fond memories of attending Chico State," writes Michele Schlueter "Shleets" Smith. "From sorority socials, to road trips, to hanging out a Riley's and deciding if I wanted a burrito or piece of pizza at 2 a.m. when the bars closed. The only responsibility I had was to get my butt to class--I did however work part-time, volunteer and ended up being President of my romper room sorority. Not exactly the real world, especially when you can schedule your classes around Days of our Lives and the bars (Tuesday nights were 'Buck Nights' at Riley's and Thursdays were beer specials at the Bear)."

Smith and eight other sorority sisters contributed anonymous chapters to a new book she edited, "One Too Many: College Secrets As Told By Many Anonymous Past Chico State Sorority Girls" (from mcompublishing.com, the Website address of Smith's independent publishing company). The writers, says the publisher, have produced "a funny, raunchy, enlightening and nostalgic book for those who have walked the walk."

Eleven chapters look back at Chico State University in its party-school heyday, full of a host of embarrassing moments, crazy roommates, and frat boys too full of themselves. Along the way there is some "I was there" advice, about "Boys, Bong Loads and Booze" (Chapter 1) and "Sleeping with a Stripper is Never a Good Idea" (Chapter 9).

Several activities show up throughout the chapters, including "barf" (5 times), "throw up" (twice) and "puke" (once), thanks mostly to beverage overindulgence. There's also a lot of hot sex, and even a few short-lived marriages out of the deal, but mostly sex is mentioned but not pursued. It's the girl bonding that takes the limelight here, and frat boys are mostly bad news.

"Attending Chico State," one contributor says, "was a moment in my life I wouldn't trade for anything. You are away from home, in the middle of nowhere and there isn't much to do except party with your friends and occasionally open a book and study. I am conflicted because as a parent, I would never, ever want my children to attend Chico. However, I really want my kids to build those memories in their young adult years at such an amazing college."

Chico author on coming to terms with the loss of a son

In her first book, "The Third Floor," Chico businesswoman Judi Loren Grace told her own heart-wrenching story, "forced to relinquish an infant as a teen mom." Her new book is about loss as well. "Dreamscape in A minor" ($19.95 in paperback from Jetstream Publishing, jetstreampublishing.com; also available in Amazon Kindle format) is the story of Jeff, "my second son, the oldest of the three children whom I had the privilege to raise. This is about a lost life, one that fell through the cracks."

The book is written to Jeff, a long letter of love from a mother who didn't understand, or wouldn't accept, the warning signs. "I'm bringing my son back to life," Loren Grace writes, "for you to get to know and love as we, his family, did. Jeff died too soon, far too young, leaving an unfinished life."

"He left no note," she continues, "but as I look back I realize that in his own way, he did say a proper goodbye. Here is the story of our family--the joy and grief, the anger and love, the frustration and pride, the comedy and tragedy, the laughs and tears, and the coincidences and memories that follow. The conflicting emotions and apparent inconsistencies in this story are the twenty-four year aftermath of living with Jeff's suicide and my father's connected death."

A section of family photographs suggests nothing amiss, adding to the poignancy of the story, recounted in sometimes searing detail as the author attempts to make sense of Jeff's death at twenty-one.

"My son," she writes, "you seemed so hostile and explosive, whether with anger or laughter, that you'd think any mother would know their child is losing their grip on sanity. Your highs and the lows began to get closer together as the rest of us went about our daily lives, expecting and waiting for you to do the same; waiting for you to snap out of it and get on with your life." It was not to be.

A presentation and book signing will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 21 at Lyon Books in Chico. There will also be a signing Saturday, December 7 at 1:00 p.m. at Satori Color and Hair Design, Broadway and 7th St. in Chico.

Doug Keister's "kidhood"

"I was born," writes Chico author and photographer Doug Keister, "in a working class neighborhood in Lincoln, Nebraska on June 14th, 1948 and remained there for the first two decades of my life." His parents had three children, all boys.

"I'm a child of the heartland. The middle kid, born in the middle of the country, in the middle of the century." Thus the title of his forty-first book: "Heart-Land: Growing Up In The Middle Of Everything" ($8.99 in paperback from Doublewide Productions; also in Amazon Kindle format).

In nearly two dozen deftly-written chapters Keister recalls his life in "kiddom." By turns witty and poignant (and embellished just a bit here and there), the book highlights young Doug's unceasing curiosity (except for girls--ugh!) and will rekindle fond memories of that long-ago time when "Father Knows Best" reigned supreme.

The TV show "featured a Midwestern household composed of Jim and Margaret Anderson and their three children with pet names: Princess, Bud and Kitten. With the possible exception of Bud, everyone in the program was PERFECT. Our parents would sit us in front of the television hoping that somehow we'd absorb at least a smidgen of the Anderson family's aura, but alas, we did not." Good thing, though; otherwise young Doug wouldn't have explored explosives with his Gilbert Chemistry Set.

To this day Keister, the self-described "effervescent eccentric," loves "the smell of gasoline" because it meant getting away. "Nebraska is one of those states that is memorable for how long it takes to get through. There are few significant changes for its entire length, unless you count the different colors of grasshoppers splattered on your windshield."

Don't forget Jell-O, "the universal solvent. Midwest mothers fabricated a number of congealed concoctions using Jell-O as the base. These creations were used to surreptitiously transport vegetables into our developing bodies."

Chapters toward the end of the book introduce a sober reality--JFK's assassination was "the end of our childhood"--but also the "obsession with weather. ... Nebraska has real weather, often two or three seasons in the same day." Doug weathered his kidhood, and his book is a delightful look back.

Keister will be signing copies of "Heart-Land," and many of his other books, this Thursday at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books in Chico.

The Book In Common: War's aftermath

An author's note says Kevin Powers "served in the U.S. Army in 2004 and 2005 in Iraq, where he was deployed as a machine gunner in Mosul and Tal Afar." A Virginia native, he was the Michener Fellow in Poetry at the University of Texas at Austin.

His novel, "The Yellow Birds" ($14.99 in paperback from Little, Brown and Company/Back Bay Books; and in Amazon Kindle format), is the searing tale of John Bartle, fighting in Northern Iraq, pledged to help his buddy Daniel Murphy, just 18. Bartle was asked by Mrs. Murphy to keep her son safe. "I promise," he said. "I promise I'll bring him home to you."

It didn't work out that way.

Part of Bartle's story is what happened in Iraq, yet afterward, what does it mean? For him, life has only "an undetermined future, no destiny, no veined hand reaching into our lives, just what happened and our watching it."

Bartle, now in his thirties, is looking back. He was a 21-year-old going to war. Bart and Murph work closely together under the watchful eye of Sergeant Sterling, also young, and for a while, it seems, all three would survive. But it doesn't work out that way.

Bartle remembers Murph as still a kid, joking around. "I remember that part of him fondly, before he was lost, before he surrendered fully to the war, twisting through the air, perhaps one beat of his heart remaining as they threw his tortured body from the window of the minaret."

The great irony for Bartle is that he is welcomed home to high-fives from his friends. His words are laconic, but his thought-life troubled. "I feel like I'm being eaten from the inside out and I can't tell anyone what's going on because everyone is so grateful to me all the time and I'll feel like I'm ungrateful or something. Or like I'll give away that I don't deserve anyone's gratitude and really they should all hate me for what I've done but everyone loves me for it and it's driving me crazy."

Butte College (butte.edu/bic) , Chico State University (csuchico.edu/bic), and various community groups are scheduling Book In Common events the next several months--discussing issues that require full measures of courage and grace.

Discovery's wonder from a local poet

Marianne Werner is a retired Butte College English instructor who writes that "I have always felt more at ease sitting under a tree (or in one) than sitting in a chair made from a tree. In nature is a world far more perfect than we humans seem able to sustain, and I am continually awed by the ingenuity of its adaptation and its beauty." Long a poet, when she took up photography she realized words and images could combine in a "thematic closeness."

Her work is on vibrant display in "Simple Images: Nature Poems and Photographs" ($16 in softcover, self-published, available from SimpleImagesBook.com or from Lyon Books in downtown Chico). The twenty poems and associated images (some taken from locations in Chico, some from Oregon, Costa Rica, Honduras, Ireland) weave together the story of a poet's delight and even astonishment at the natural world.

In "Concert of Plants," the writer is in Mexico, at the Charco del Ingenio Botanical Gardens, where "The Plasmath Lute shivers sounds, / eerily beautiful. ..." Electrodes are connected to cacti, where "plant signals translate into music, / simple chords seeping throughout / their joined familial roots. // I don't believe this, / but I see it happening."

In "Wild Lupine," "Against the mottled snow / and green hills of Lassen, / an enormous purple shawl / of wild lupine smothers // the hillside. The switchback / trail turns us through / acres of lavender--lighter, / darker, lighter blossoms // until we are in the center / of such an explosion / that we are wordless."

"In midwinter," the poet writes in "Flight," "I hear sounds / from above, sounds of wild / geese pulsing and honking / in patterns of flight. // ... I watch, incredulous, / not at their instincts pulling / toward a particular / destination--rather, / their spacing, exact // in its precision of distance, / wing tip to wing tip. ..."

Somewhere else, a heart flower opens, "its surface posed / like dappled silk-- // while I watch and marvel." Everywhere there is something to cause wonder. In "Sanctuary," "Thousands, thousands of pure / white snow geese have arrived / on this bright November day, / feather cuddling each other, / idling so far across dark lagoons / that I could walk shore to shore / upon their soft curved backs."

The images evoke wonder as well, portraits of a world the poet longs to embrace, and does.

Verbal variety from guest author

Sometimes verbs "don't get no respect," especially when it comes to headlines. These days, writes Bay Area author and critic Constance Hale, verbs are ousted from headlines in favor of search-optimized nouns, but that can lead to some interpretive problems. Take the story of spud farmers wanting to catch the ear of a hamburger giant. The Associated Press headline: "McDonald's Fries the Holy Grail for Potato Farmers."

Hale grew up speaking "proper" English at home in Oahu but used Hawaiian creole with friends at school. Maybe that stoked her passion for language; her obsession with verbs is on display in "Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing" ($16.95 in paperback from W.W. Norton; also in Amazon Kindle format).

The book is a salted-peanut delight for language lovers, dipping "into the highbrow and the lowbrow, the sacred and the profane, the eloquent and the cheesy. We'll unpack one aspect of verbs at a time, keeping things simple. We won't forget the fun."

Each chapter has four sections; the Vex part tackles language confusion and history (sometimes it's a history of confusion); Hex is there to "shatter myths and debunk shibboleths, and set you free to write with new confidence and zest." Speaking of zest, the Smash sections examine a plethora of bad examples (I scoured the index for my name--not there! Whew! I'm safe until the next edition). And Smooch? This section is for "writing that is so good you'll want to kiss its creator. These passages feature juicy words, sentences that rock, and subjects that startle." (You can find more at sinandsyntax.com.)

Chapters contain little think-piece asides and carry the reader from verb dynamics and tenses to moods, participles and "odd uses." Meaty appendices consider Chomsky, dictionaries, irregular verbs, and more.

Log on is a phrasal verb and "when we're done, we log off." We don't logon, though we may be logging on. And once you've logged on, you may read some smoochable words from Toni Morrison: "Then summer came. A summer limp with the weight of blossomed things. Heavy sunflowers weeping over fences; ... ears of corn letting their auburn hair wind down their stalks."

Lyon Books in downtown Chico is hosting a presentation and signing with Constance Hale tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m.

The business side of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.

Sierra Nevada's first brew date was November 15, 1980. Almost a quarter century and uncounted bottles of Pale Ale later, Ken Grossman, president and owner of the company, contemplated retirement. Then he read a book by "Gary Erickson, the founder of Clif Bar and Company, that chronicled his struggle with the direction of his company at a similar point in his life. His story was similar to mine, with a troubled partnership and the near sale of his company to a major industry player. He changed his mind at the absolute last minute and walked away from signing over his company and had since rededicated himself to it."

With Sierra Nevada, Grossman writes, "we built one of the best breweries in the world." Now, as he rededicated his energies, he learned the importance of a sales team, made plans to build a second operation in North Carolina, and nurtured the next generation of craft brewers. In an odd way, a Clif Bar saved the vision.

Grossman tells the story of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in "Beyond The Pale" ($24.95 in hardcover from Wiley and in Amazon Kindle format). It's a business memoir, with a color photograph section included, recounting the growth of a company that by 2010 was producing 800,000 barrels and running out of room. There were financial and personal challenges, including the tragic loss of the company's first employee, Steve Harrison. His death, Grossman writes, "was the worst thing the brewery has ever been through."

But the focus of the book is on how the business navigated the ups and downs of the craft beer revolution and how Grossman, an avowed beer purist, became a beer scientist, "shunning pasteurization" and instead focusing on "the yeast and the cleanliness of your plant." As far as the hops are concerned, "we have the one of the most sophisticated gas chromatographs available for aroma analysis." He discusses management style as well, and the use of alternative energy.

It's wisdom to tap into.

Grossman will be signing copies at Sierra Nevada's "Single, Fresh, Wet and Wild Harvest Festival" this Saturday from 1:00 - 6:00 (visit sierranevada.com/sfww for ticket information) and Lyon Books in Chico will hold a free signing event on Tuesday, Oct. 29 at 7:00 p.m.

Activist poet Brenda Hillman returns to Chico

A fiery life force runs through everything in Brenda Hillman's latest book of poetry. "Seasonal Works With Letters On Fire" ($22.95 in hardcover from Wesleyan University Press; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book format), nominated for a National Book Award, concludes a series of volumes exploring earth, air, water and, now, fire.

Perhaps it's the poet's responsibility to discover that life-fire, to give voice to it, or even to create it in the interplay of the physical "stuff" of words and letters and the meanings they evoke. Hers is not a humanist but an animist vision; yet humans can make a difference: "words are living." Hillman's book is dedicated in part "To women awake in the world / To people moaning at gas pumps, to the students / To protesting corporate violence ... To Love & the unsayable / To the fire in everything."

Most of her short poems end in a dash, as if there is unfinished business. Her work requires surrender to an artistic playfulness. In "Some Kinds Of Reading In Childhood," the poem ends: "The world has created a sickness / but the sickness is being / reversed ... Consonants / can be reasoned with, but vowels / start fires--now! breathing / twice: Now! Here come / the bandit occupiers: / silence & meaning--"

The poet attests all is not well. "When i read the word drone," Hillman writes in "The Body Politic Loses Her Hair," "my hair falls out in solidarity with old words. Stingless singless honey bees [Apis mellifera] or the music drones on & on, but now (at the top of Google), unmanned, where the 'un' in the 'unmanned' looks like little pinchers, the 'u' & the 'n' like the fingers on a throttle when one of our soldiers bombs a target's wedding while his family members are eating potatoes with tamarind, cardamom, onion, / & the target's family falls."

In "I Heard Flame-Folder Spring Bring Red," the poet observes "Women / in Kandahar make $2 a month; our people / tweet & sleep through the wars, / our soggy purses lie open, the eyes / of the dollar bills stare up from the / floor--"

Hillman will be speaking at Chico's 1078 Gallery, 820 Broadway, Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., sponsored by the Butte College Literary Committee. The event is free; donations welcome.