Bidwell's road

"In 1863, John Bidwell and his partners ... put up $40,000 and applied to the California State Legislature for a franchise to construct a toll road between Chico and Honey Lake. ... In 1864, they incorporated as the Chico and Humboldt Wagon Road and completed road construction." Horse-drawn wagons looked like the future of transportation, and the gold rich states of California, Nevada and Idaho fueled the future.

The story of a humble roadway that eventually morphed into Highway 32 is told through a series of hundreds of black and white photographs in "The Humboldt Wagon Road" ($21.99 in paperback from Arcadia Publishing) by Marti Leicester and David Nopel.

According to an authors' note, Leicester, a retired National Park Service ranger, "lives on the Humboldt Wagon Road and sees remnants of it each time she drives to Chico and Butte Meadows." Nopel is "a descendant of pioneer families who settled along the road. ... Over 50 years, John Nopel, David's father and a noted Butte County historian, painstakingly collected thousands of historical photographs that inspired this book."

Lyon Books in Chico will be hosting the authors at a book signing this afternoon at 2:00 p.m. An interview with the authors, conducted by Nancy Wiegman for Nancy's Bookshelf on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM) is available at kchofm.podbean.com.

The book, part of Arcadia's "Images of America" series, traces the development of the roadway within three centuries, and introduces native peoples and pioneer families along the way, including Lady Mary Pullisa, a Maidu who survived the forced march from Chico "to a reservation in the Coast Range Mountains" in 1863.

Stories from pioneer descendants enrich many of the detailed captions. "The Humboldt Road summit was more than 6,000 feet in elevation between Jonesville and the Summit Hotel. Drivers would attach a log behind their wagons to provide friction and slow the descent from the summit. Several people interviewed for this book reported their mothers made them walk coming up or down the steep slope for fear the stagecoach would go off the edge of the road."

Butte Meadows hid a store's slot machine in the 1940s from the prying eyes of the law. The new road was a gamble for Bidwell, too, and the coming of the railroad changed the dream forever.

Premier guide to Table Mountain

"Table Mountain," write Albin Bills and Samantha Mackey, "is one of the premier wildflower locations in all of California. ... Drifts and swaths of yellow, blue, and orange, mixed with pinks and whites swirl over the landscape, like a huge Impressionist painting come to life."

Bills, who taught biology for many years at Butte College, and Mackey, a consulting botanist with expertise on rare and endangered plants, have written an indispensable companion for those who want to explore the area. "Wildflowers of Table Mountain: A Naturalist's Guide" ($17.95 in paperback, part of the Chico State University Herbarium series, www.csuchico.edu/herbarium), is the second edition of a work first published in 2004. Retaining the original line drawings of Larry Jansen, the book now features full-color photographs throughout and, like Table Mountain itself, is a delight to the eye.

Lyon Books in Chico is hosting a book signing this Thursday, Feb. 23 at 7:00 p.m. Look for a forthcoming interview with Albin Bills on Nancy's Bookshelf from KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM). Archives can be found at kchofm.podbean.com.

The craft of designers Carole Montgomery and Elizabeth Quivey is evident throughout. The center section presents color groups of some seventy "of the most common, showy wildflower species that occur on Table Mountain during late winter through spring"; scientific names are given in the index; and a bloom-time calendar also aids in identification.

The first part of the book mixes practical advice on how best to approach Table Mountain with narratives about its formation, the wildflower patterns, waterfalls, and more. The last section, drawing on the work of Jim Jokerst, lists all known vascular plants on "North Table Mountain." There's also an illustrated guide to common animals in the area, with pride of place going to the California Newt, Bills' special interest for many years.

The wildflower catalog is more than a bare list; each plant has a story to tell. For the grass-pink (wild carnation), "a new solitary flower is produced every day, replacing the one that came before it." The California goldfields "form vast sheets and showy rings of rich yellow color that encircle many of the rock outcrops."

The Guide, novice-friendly but detailed enough for the serious explorer, is simply superb, a colorful array blooming now at your bookstore.

Poetic meditations on Ishi

"Ishi," writes Scott Ezell, "moved from hunting and gathering to a modern industrial existence when in 1911 he emerged alone, the last of his tribe, from the westward drainages of Mount Lassen. ..." Now, a century later, Ezell has gathered a series of poems inspired by Ishi as he recalls "Karl Kroeber's assertion about Ishi's ability to live without self-pity or a sense of victimhood: 'I do not see how we can speak of his life as anything but tragic, yet I have come to feel that he himself did not so regard it.'"

"Songs From A Yahi Bow: A Series Of Poems On Ishi" ($13.95 in paperback from Pleasure Boat Studio; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book format) brings together the work of Ezell, whose cover painting is called "Two Worlds," Yusef Komunyakaa and Mike O'Connor. Throughout the book paintings by Seattle-based artist Jeff Hengst remind this reader of a window slowly being opened, a shadowy figure just discernible. Ezell includes a short essay on Ishi by Trappist monk Thomas Merton, reflections on genocide written during the Vietnam conflict.

In "Quatrains For Ishi," Komunyakaa writes: "When they swoop on you hobbled there / almost naked, encircled by barking dogs / at daybreak beside a slaughterhouse / in Oroville, outside Paradise, // California, draped in a canvas scrap / matted with dung & grass seed, slack-jawed men aim rifles / at your groin. Wild Man // hums through telegraph wires, / as women from miles around / try to tame your tongue / by cooking family recipes. ..."

Ezell, a California native who lives in Seattle and Hanoi, invokes Ishi's spirit amidst the harsh industrial-sexual realities of the poet's two worlds: "photographic visions / washed in a stop bath of departure, // die at home wherever you may be."

O'Connor, in "Down from the Hills," takes Ishi's voice: "Long ago I left off hiding. / Twelve of us were a nation; / five of us were a nation-- / I alone am nothing left." The poet imagines "Ishi and the Braves": "The multimillionaire slugger / pulls a high fastball screaming / toward the left-field stands / right at Ishi, / and the hunter-gatherer of Yuna Creek, / surprised, shoots up his arm / and nails it on the fly."

A Chico family lives the reality of war

When Daniel Sagastume graduated from Marine Corps boot camp, he was not yet nineteen. Then came the unthinkable. "Four days after my son's graduation," his mother writes, "when the Towers crumbled, so did my world."

"We Also Serve: A Family Goes To War" ($17.95 in paperback from iUniverse; available in Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and Google e-book formats) is Nanette Sagastume's riveting story. A retired nurse practitioner and founder of what is now called the Military Family Support Group, Sagastume lays bare the emotions she and her husband Mario experienced even as Mario, a Vietnam War veteran, is dealing with PTSD.

"Daniel began to seek ways to be reassigned to the same infantry unit his father had served with, the Second Battalion, First Marine Regiment of the First Marine Division (known familiarly as 2/1). More specifically, he wanted to get assigned to the same company, Fox Company, and eventually the same platoon."

She writes: "With one percent of Americans volunteering to serve, there is a gap in awareness--even a 'disconnect'--about the military family's experience. ... I did not enlist; my service is involuntary. That is not to say that Mario and I oppose Daniel's decision; rather, we had no choice in the matter. Our role was to accept his life choice, adapt to it, and support him. When we military families offer our love and emotional support--waiting and worrying while our loved ones fulfill their duties--we also are in service to our country."

Labor Day, 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq, a suicide attack. Normally Daniel rode in the first truck of a convoy; that day he was assigned the second. It saved his life; seven of his comrades died. The experience changed Daniel forever.

"Often overlooked," says Sagastume, a recent guest at Lyon Books in Chico, "is the effect on the family that has loved, suffered, and endured with him both during his combat tour as well as the aftermath of adjustment. Indeed, I feel that families are uniquely vulnerable--more than at any time in history. With instant communication and the availability of live satellite television transmission, families often are witnesses to some of the very same events their warrior has experienced. Families also serve in today's virtual war."

The mystery of William H. Warner

Some things are known about William H. Warner (though not whether the "H" stands for "Henry" or "Horace"). Born in New York on May 8, 1812, he graduated from West Point; became a Army topographical engineer; helped lay out the city of Sacramento in 1847; and, on September 26, 1849, was "killed at age 37 by nine arrows fired by California Indians while exploring Northeastern California mountain passes." He was looking "for a railroad route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast."

In 1987 the Association for Northern California Records and Research (ANCRR), in supporting the Special Collections department at Chico State University's Meriam Library, published "In Search of Captain Warner." Authored by Alturas-area resident Patricia Barry, the slim paperback presented what was then known about Warner. Now, a quarter century later, the renamed Association for Northern California Historical Research (ANCHR) has reissued the book "with new contributions by Philip D. Warner," William's cousin.

The book, edited by Jim Jessee and Barbara C. Mahler, is available in paperback for $20 from www.csuchico.edu/anchr. Philip Warner's additions make for lively reading. He and his wife, Liv, have crossed the country in search of Captain Warner's story. In 2006, one of the libraries connected with the University of Rochester put sections of Warner's diary on the Internet. Philip and Liv visited there. "What a surprise!" he writes. "As a rather unemotional, nerdy engineer, I was not ready for what happened when I picked up William's leather-bound diary. Holding the book in my hand (where his hand must have been many times) was like a handshake. I was overcome by emotion."

Philip's research is presented in a series of letters to his cousin. Among the observations: "I live in retirement in Polk County, Florida, near where you were stationed during the Florida Indian Wars, 1836 to 1838." Captain Warner's diary is laconic; the new book contains excerpts from the "long-lost journal" (along with helpful commentary) but questions abound. What was his relationship to younger Susan Moggoffin, who mentions him eleven times in her own diary? Perhaps his uniform impressed her.

Barry had called Warner "the formless, faceless man" (the only known photograph of him graces the book's cover). Now, with Philip Warner's help, some of the shadows have been dispersed.

Eerie novel of an alternate Alturas

Modesto writer Clive Riddle founded a health care business information company and the work he does is decidedly non-fiction. He grew up in Alturas, in northeastern California, and attended Shasta College for a time (his son went to Chico State University). What a setting to create a story weaving memories of a small-town boyhood with half-whispered legends, mixing in a murder mystery with hints of the supernatural.

"Dorris Bridge" ($19.95 in paperback from HealthQuest Publishers; also available for the Amazon Kindle and in formats compatible with Barnes and Noble Nook and most other e-readers) is the name of a small and dying town near Alturas in fictional Paiute County. The author explains on his website (www.dorrisbridge.com) that there was a real Dorris Bridge, renamed Alturas in 1876, but that the Dorris Bridge of the novel is not the real Alturas (since characters in the story often refer to Alturas as well as to Chico and Redding).

The aptly-named Riddle will sort things out when he is interviewed by Nancy Wiegman on Nancy's Bookshelf this Friday, January 27 at 10:00 a.m. on KCHO in Chico (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM).

The moral center of the tale is Randall Burgess, Chief of Police of Dorris Bridge. One of his sons, Kyle, is about to graduate from Paiute High School. A good kid for the most part, he is not averse to drinking with his buddies (Riddle calls it the "national pastime" in Dorris Bridge) and his practical jokes are constantly landing him in trouble. It's the mid-Seventies, and the author revels in mixing in contemporary movie and music references. To capture some of the mindset of the times, there's even sheet music for an original (off-color) song.

Then there are the Lights. An aging Paiute, Toronto Highsmith (Tornado for short) is convinced that he sees strange Lights during his benders. A sober Kyle sees them, too, but mostly from a distance. And they seem to be associated with a series of hit-and-run murders that take place near the homestead of the most powerful man in the county.

Add the mysterious disappearance of a Japanese-American decades earlier, a group of fundamentalist Mormons and Basque wanderers, season with a surprise ending, and what one has is definitely not Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

Paradise writer recalls life on a carrier

"I approached the gangway of the slumbering attack carrier, adjusted my cumbersome olive-drab sea bag, and trudged upward to salute the colors." Richard Clark, who had just turned 21, was now aboard CVA-20, the U.S.S. Bennington. It was June 17, 1953 at the New York Naval Shipyard in Brooklyn. Clark's two year stint would turn into quite a ride.

Quoting from his letters home as well as historical sources and the official Big Benn newspaper, the Jet Blast, Clark presents a series of vignettes focused on the carrier's "Mediterranean cruise" in 1953-1954. "Back to the Bennington: Tales in the Wake" ($18.95 in paperback from Merriam Press, merriam-press.com) contains dozens of black and white photographs, many from the author. There are also reminiscences from other crew members and an overview of Bennington history.

Clark will talk about his service aboard the Bennington on Tuesday, January 17 at 4:00 p.m. at the Butte County Public Library, 1820 Mitchell Avenue in Oroville. Also presenting is Ralph Clark, (no relation), the current national vice-president of the Bennington Association who also served on Big Benn (1962-1964). The public is invited.

Commissioned in 1944, the Bennington served in World War II, the Cold War and Vietnam (see www.uss-bennington.org) and only in 1994 was sold for scrap. When Richard Clark joined the crew, the carrier was on its way to the Arctic Circle to participate with NATO forces in "Operation Mariner" exercises. Then it was on to Europe for something of a goodwill tour. For the crew (Big Benn was designed for 3400) it meant only two words: "Shore leave."

Clark worked on the arresting gear crew, responsible for the cables that approaching jets had to hook onto in order to land. Sometimes pilots didn't even get a chance. "We lost a jet and a pilot yesterday," he wrote at the end of 1953. "For some reason the plane crashed while he was circling the carrier. They never did find him."

A boiler explosion took eleven lives months before Clark joined the Bennington, and soon after his tour with the carrier ended, early in 1954, a horrendous fire broke out below decks, killing 103. "It was one of the Navy's worst peacetime tragedies."

Those who gather to honor their ship will never forget.

"Book in Common": Katrina's aftermath

For novelist David Eggers, the story of Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun was compelling. New Orleans residents, they had survived Hurricane Katrina, which struck in late August of 2005, but that was almost beside the point. What happened in Katrina's wake, the indignities visited upon Kathy's husband, a successful painting contractor in the city, raised disturbing questions, about due process, about the treatment of Muslim citizens, about how people respond when things fall apart.

"Zeitoun" ($15.95 in paperback from Vintage; also in Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Google eBook formats) is told from the couple's perspective. Eggers wisely focuses on one story--how a scrupulously honest and hard-working Syrian American could be suspected of being a thief and terrorist and made to suffer for those false beliefs.

Perhaps Zeitoun (pronounced "Zay-toon") had hoped for too much. "The country he had left thirty years ago had been a realistic place. There were political realities there, then and now, that precluded blind faith, that discouraged one from thinking that everything, always, would work out fairly and equitably. But he had come to believe such things in the United States.... But now nothing worked. Or rather, every piece of machinery--the police, the military, the prisons--that was meant to protect people like him was devouring anyone who got close."

"Zeitoun" is the Book in Common for 2011-2012, celebrated by Butte College, Chico State University, Enloe Hospital, and other organizations. Eggers is scheduled to speak at the university's Laxson Auditorium on Thursday, April 12, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 Premium, $17 Adult, $15 Senior and $10 Student/Child; call (530) 898-6333.

Zeitoun (he is known by his last name) stayed behind as Katrina approached. Kathy and their four children moved in uneasily with relatives in Baton Rouge (and would later spend time with friends out of state). Windows started to break in Zeitoun's two-story house. "There were unknown thumps everything. The bones of the house seemed to be moaning under the strain of it all. The house was under assault."

The neighborhood was covered in nine feet of water. Zeitoun paddled his aluminum canoe from house to house giving assistance, enlisting the aid of others. But soon another assault would come, and the lives of the Zeitouns would forever change.

Finding the right man in the new year

Relationship educator Denise Culley of Paradise has been there. In her search for "Mr. Right" she filtered possible mates by outward appearance and "chemistry." The search proved futile and the pile of failed relationships grew. Over time she found a better way and now has published a workbook and coordinated website based on a key insight for the female:

"Accept your role as 'Man Whisperer.' A Man Whisperer is a woman who knows that her role is to guide a man to success as a partner, by cleverly teaching him what he needs to know. Assuming he knows how to be a great partner to you or expecting him to 'read your mind' in your relationship is living on fantasy island and will eventually blow up one day."

The "SoulMate Map: 10 Steps To Picking A Better Mate" ($19.97 in paperback and popular e-book formats, published by Relationships 123, found on SoulMate Plan's website, http://soulmateplan.com) "is for women who are either stuck, need inspiration, trying to let go, or ready to finally have great love in their life!"

The first step to success is, paradoxically, to stop dating, or at least dating seriously. During that respite Culley urges her readers to complete a series of lists contained in the workbook which are designed to focus on the attributes the reader is really looking for in a man. Culley shows how to combine the lists (which include what the reader admires in others as well as self-assessments) into a "SoulMate Map." "Sometimes," she writes, "we ourselves can't see when a man isn't good for us because we are blinded by love, or what we think is love."

The idea is to create a new lens through which to see men. Culley finally found her soulmate, but at first she thought he was kind of a "dork" and wasn't really attracted to him. They became friends and long conversations together began to reveal his deeper qualities, the very qualities she really wanted in her life.

Bottom line: "A man in love will demonstrate a powerful ambition to discover your happiness and deliver it to you. That passion for your happiness is the most reliable cue you could hope for." If you don't know what makes you happy, how can you tell him?

New Testament scholar on the meaning of Jesus

"Mary treasured all these words," Luke's Gospel says, "and pondered them in her heart." There is much to think about. For N.T. Wright, Chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, Jesus was born into a "perfect storm" in the Middle East.

The "gale of Rome" heralded Caesar as "Lord"; the high-pressure national hopes of Israel told of God's people triumphing over their oppressors; and the "hurricane of God" "cut clean against the national narrative": "God called Israel, so that through Israel he might redeem the world; but Israel itself needs redeeming as well."

Wright tells the story of these storm systems colliding in the life of Jesus Christ. In lucid, though-provoking chapters, he ponders the meaning of the Gospel narratives of his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. "Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters" ($24.99 in hardcover from HarperOne; digital editions for Amazon Kindle; Barnes and Noble Nook; and from Google e-books) focuses on what Wright calls the "New Exodus."

If the Exodus story told of the liberation of the children of Israel from a tyrant and a new vocation of being a blessing to all the nations (though that didn't quite work out), the New Exodus is about Jesus himself completing God's project.

"The presence of Israel’s God would be the presence of Jesus himself, coming to Jerusalem as the embodiment of Israel’s returning God, the fulfillment of Isaiah 40 and 52. This, Jesus believed, is what it would look like when Israel’s God came back to Zion. It would not be ... the pillar of cloud and fire ... but a young man on a donkey, in tears, announcing God’s judgment on the city and Temple that stood on the cosmic fault lines, establishing his own still incomprehending followers as its surprising replacement, and then going off to take upon himself the full weight of evil, the concentrated calamity of the cosmos, so that its force would be annulled and the new world would be born" in the resurrection.

Our human vocation, says Wright, is what Luke means by "witness": “tell someone else that Jesus is the world’s true Lord.”

Go tell it on the mountain.

If cars could talk: A fictional memoir from a Chico State University grad

Michael L. Oliver lives in the Napa valley with his wife, Barbara, where he grows wine grapes in his retirement. He has deep ties to Chico State University as well as with a succession of cars which seemed to mark phases in his life. What if those vehicles could talk and give their own perspective? In Oliver's new book, seventeen of them do.

"Through the Headlights: An Auto-Biography" ($20 in paperback from Henway Publishing, www.HenwayPublishing.com) is an inventive romp through the minds of an AMC Rambler, a Porsche Carrera 2 Cabriolet, a VW Bug, and fourteen others, all owned by the central character, "Leroy." Coincidentally, Oliver's first car, and Leroy's first car, were both 1931 Model A Fords. Cars, Oliver writes in a Foreword, all have their own "personalities, quirks and needs which they make known to us." Listen to you car.

The Model A found itself in Chester in 1956, having first been purchased back in Oklahoma for $750. But after a succession of owners, the car came into the possession of young teenager named Leroy, not legally old enough to drive, but who's counting? Leroy was a delivery boy, but one frosty day the Model A took a spin right into a snowbank. No one was hurt, but, writes Model A, "One of many flaws with teenage boys is that they tend to worry about their consarned image when they ought to be worried about their mortality." Leroy will meet Model A again many years later.

Then, in 1960, came the 1955 VW sedan. In Chico, at the frat house parking lot filled with cars, the sedan writes, "I was the only German car around. A few of them made fun of my accent, and pretty much all of them thought I was odd looking. I could sense it. And when they learned that I had only 36 horsepower it caused a few headlights to rise."

Cars follow Leroy throughout his life. In an Epilogue, Leroy is lying sedated in the hospital, the victim of a heart attack. All of his cars return and there is deep conversation about life, purpose, and, mostly, death.

One can learn a lot from a car if one doesn't blow a gasket.

Local history professor delivers a compelling work of scholarship

Laird Easton, Chair of the Chico State University History Department, has completed the monumental task of editing and translating a long-lost portion of one of the greatest diaries ever written. (Samuel Pepys, step aside.) "Journey To The Abyss: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler, 1880-1918" ($45 from Knopf; also in digital formats for Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and from Google eBooks) is the compelling story, in his own words, of a cosmopolitan German free spirit who became a secret agent.

Easton will be giving a book talk on Kessler at 1078 Gallery (820 Broadway in Chico) tonight at 6:00 p.m. during a reception in his honor (5:00 - 8:00 p.m.).

Kessler's journal, which he added to over fifty-six years, opens up a "life led at the center of European art, literature, and politics during the greatest cultural and political transformations in modern history." But, as Easton notes, the section of his diary Kessler began in 1880, when he was twelve, through the First World War, was lost until 1983 when it was found in a safe on the island of Mallorca. Easton's work is the first English translation which, at 900 printed pages, is only a quarter of what Kessler produced during those years.

He was ambivalent, says Easton, about his homosexuality; even in his journal "he tiptoes around the subject of his own sexual feelings. ..." His father was a banker but Kessler was drawn to the avant-garde, influenced by Nietzsche (whose death mask he made), working with Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Diaghilev, Vaslav Nijinsky, Auguste Rodin, and lunching with George Bernard Shaw.

In San Francisco, 1892: "On the way through Golden Gate Park; wide boulevards shaded by pines, colorful flowers, tropical plants. I would have enjoyed their beauty more without the signs with endless Latin names stuck between them." Berlin, 1897: "Unfortunately I am once again drawn more and more into social life. Result, work = zero." Bern, Oct. 5, 1918: "The blackest day of the world war. ... The war is lost by our own confession."

Kessler survived (he died in 1937). Easton's work will survive, too; it is scholarly yet grandly accessible, inviting one to lose oneself in the "Belle Époque," that grand time before the abyss.

Holiday cheer - Aylworth is here!

Roger Aylworth is the contact-wearing, keen-of-hearing, direction-challenged, sentimental, long-time ER reporter married four decades to the saintly Susan. For many years his weekly humor column, filled with family foibles and gentle wit, has graced this paper, and now, for the holidays, there's a new collection of favorites.

"Senior Showers" ($16.95 in paperback from Delphi Books) gathers 99 columns, most from mid-2006 to mid-2010, arranged in broad categories like "on growing older," "computers and other mechanical carnage," "on being, or being with, Roger," and "widgets and grandwidgets." Here are true tales of the couple's seven children, their spouses, and most especially the grandkids on visits to Casa Aylworth (here's looking at you, 2-year-old Caleb!).

Aylworth will be reading from and signing copies of his new collection at Lyon Books in Chico this Thursday, December 8 at 7:00 p.m.

The book starts with the title essay, and Aylworth explains that he's not "advocating a group lathering" but rather something akin to wedding showers only on the other end of life. "I can see the invitation that would summon those who love me to my senior shower: 'Roger has registered at the "Golden Years Adult Care facility" where you can sign up to cover as many months of residency as you wish. An account has also been set up at Dr. Krutch Walker's hip replacement clinic for gifts of any size!'"

More practically, Aylworth details the effort required to put together the clan gathering called Aylapalooza III. It's expensive to find housing for nearly three dozen family members. "While as a group we might have filet mignon tastes," he notes, "we tend to have a Spam budget." Speaking of kids, Aylworth provides some helpful suggestions on creating "homegrown mythology": "My dear bride, the saintly Susan, and I told our seven widgets that the belly button was the place where the screw went in that holds on your posterior."

Here are manly-man stories (don't mess with "MAH TRUCK"!), the death of a washing machine ("It toils not," says Susan, "neither does it spin"), and sage advice: "Best way to plan for golden years: Ask kids for gold." And "Roger's words of wisdom" at the end includes an observation from son Paul: "There is always one more idiot than you planned for."

Paradise artist helps kids understand Parkinson's Disease

Alison Paolini is what she calls a "Parkinsonian." Diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 1999, she has remained a "creatively active" artist and poet, teaching for many years at the Paradise Art Center and lending her illustrator's talent to a new children's book.

"Carson And His Shaky Paws Grampa" ($15.95 in hardcover from Innovo Publishing; also available in digital formats for the Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook) is by Kirk Hall, a fellow Parkinsonian in Colorado. Diagnosed with a movement disorder called Essential Tremor in 1991, and Parkinson's in 2008, Hall wanted a way to talk to younger family members about what was happening.

The simple story is told by Hall's seven-year-old grandson, Carson. "When I was really little," he says, "Granma and Grampa Hall lived in a log cabin with lots of trees and a big fireplace." Later his grandparents move closer to the family, and Carson notices the tremor in Grampa's hands. "I asked him what was wrong. He told us not to worry and that he just had 'shaky paws.' 'Besides,' he said, 'I can stir my coffee without even trying!'"

As the condition worsens, Grampa tells Carson that "he was very excited because his doctor was going to help with his shaky paws. He said he would be going to the hospital three times for a special procedure that would take away his shakiness." The procedure works for Grampa Hall, and he is able to have more fun with Carson. The story ends at Easter dinner, with Grampa "giving thanks for his special procedure. He got choked up and couldn't finish. It seemed like he needed a hug," Carson adds, "so I gave him one."

A "note to parents and grandparents" at the end of the book provides a wealth of resources, including information on "deep brain stimulation" surgery which helped the author. It's "described as a 'pacemaker for the brain,'" and though it's not a cure, "it should effectively eliminate my shakiness for years to come. By the time Carson is older, other symptoms may become noticeable. At that time, I will share more with him."

Paolini's colorful sketches will help allay children's fears, giving adults an opportunity to explain something about Parkinson's or Essential Tremor in an age-appropriate fashion.

Fifty diaries, illuminated by a Chico visitor

The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley houses special collections, among them a trove of personal diaries. "In acid-free boxes," writes Bancroft librarian and researcher Susan Snyder, "arranged on shelves in temperature-controlled darkness, they have come as donations, tag-alongs, bequests, purchases, or hotly contested auction lots." They "supply humor, pathos, grime, existential angst, and vision to the entirety of the human record."

Now, from the Bancroft and other sources, Snyder has assembled an extraordinary book. "Beyond Words: 200 Years of Illustrated Diaries" ($45 in hardcover from Heyday Books) gathers excerpts from fifty journals, written by the famous and the unknown, between 1776 and 1981. Snyder, a guest yesterday at Lyon Books in Chico, presents stunning color photographs of key diary pages. She also provides historical context for each diary as well as representative quotations and period illustrations.

Mark Twain is represented here, as is John Muir and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. But so is a man named William E. Voigt. The two pages of his journal (at least it's attributed to him, but no one really knows who wrote it or why) are part of a large, "well-thumbed compendium" "containing the secrets to 575 feats of magic." The entry for Thursday, October 7, 1943, shows how to palm a coin.

From 1917, Snyder writes, "bits of plant fluff, grass stalks, a lock of mountain sheep hair jubilantly found in a crack in the rock face she was climbing, fern fronds, and feathers of all sort illustrate the many field diaries of Florence Merriam Bailey." Adds Snyder: Bailey was "at the forefront of the movement to use binoculars rather than shotguns to observe birds."

In 1878, 14-year-old Caroline Eaton LeConte chronicled her camping trip with her parents and best friend Nona Dibble "in Yosemite Valley and the Calaveras Grove of giant sequoias." Others were along, too, including student Charlie Butters and one Lt. Greenough. One entry: "'Come now,' said Mr. Butters with beaming eyes, ladling out the milk as fast as he could, 'don't let's let all this fine milk go to waste.' 'Don't be afraid,' returned the Lieutenant with a sort of choking gurgle in this throat, 'it'll all go to waist anyhow.'"

We are thankful for the writers who dared turn over a new leaf.

How a Chico high schooler saves the universe

"In the year 2098," novelist Blair Palmerlee writes, "everything and everyone in the city of Chico seemed to be a well-adjusted part of the well-oiled machine, which began life each day. This, however, was not the case for a young boy named Malcolm Thomas. For Malcolm the day would begin the same way it would end: Not soon enough." This particular day Malcolm is not quite late to his favorite high school class, quantum mechanics, taught by Professor Manuel Clarick. Good thing, too. This day Clarick shows off his experiment, and Malcolm has to save the universe.

In "The Universe of Malcolm: The Biggest, Small Problem" ($12 in paperback from CreateSpace) Palmerlee has crafted a wildly inventive sci-fi tale for 'tweens and young adults about a nerdy kid who discovers the meaning of courage. Palmerlee, a recent guest at Lyon Books in Chico, grew up on a farm near Bangor, attended Chico High School (the name of Malcolm's school is never mentioned), and is now studying psychology. His plot keeps pages turning as space battles alternate with deadpan humor.

That fateful morning Malcolm had zapped his hand with his Neutron Razor, and now his hand is beginning to disappear. As his science teacher explains, "You see, the razor works by breaking the electron barrier on the atoms in hair, absorbing the remaining neutralized particles, and recycling their energy for smaller tasks like nostril grooming." But something has gone wrong. Buried in Malcolm's disappearing hand are galaxies and nebula but--surprise!--"a huge war-like spaceship, emerging from what looked like a strange green worm hole. 'Houston,' said Prof. Clarick, as he stared at the pictures. 'We have a problem.'"

Clarick's experiment is not something you or I can understand, but it enables Malcolm to descend into the universe of his own hand so he can put things right and, if everything goes according to plan, emerge before he went in. So in he goes.

There is war in space. The Order, headed by a long-eared Dorexian name Kail, is desperately trying to stop the evil Fults, who will stop at nothing to take the ancient power of Moltor and so rule the universe. Malcolm, who is the universe, must stop him.

No wonder he misses Chico.

Willows writer remembers combat service in Vietnam

In 1989 Dan Roach was showing scouts from Sacramento and from Willows Troop 57 the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC. One of the vets standing vigil at the Wall asked the scouts if any of their fathers who served in Vietnam talked about their experiences. The reply was a resounding "no!" "At that," Roach writes, "my eyes welled up and tears rolled down my cheeks." He determined to give a voice to his own memories.

An "infantryman in the South Pacific during World War II saw about 40 days of combat in four years," he writes. "The average infantryman in Vietnam saw about 240 days of combat in one year thanks to the mobility of the helicopter. I saw 210 days."

Roach's memoir is called "Gifts of War: Once Upon A Rice Paddy" ($50.48 in paperback from AuthorHouse, www.authorhouse.com). Included are dozens of color photographs that transport the reader back through the mist of decades. "These stories are all true as I experienced them and written to the best of my recollection." They "aren't any more significant than any other soldier's; they are just mine and I own them." He also chronicles the trip to Vietnam in 2007 made by his son, Shane, to the places he had operated. It is a moving account.

First Lieutenant Roach "reported to Vietnam in March of '68 as a replacement officer" and became a "platoon leader for the 3rd platoon of Delta Company, 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division; the original U.S. Airborne unit." Later, before his assignment ended the next year, he became Delta's XO (Executive Officer).

In his assignments Roach witnessed the ugliness of war first hand, the terrible mistakes that can be made in the midst of combat, and the "gift" war provides as a kind of desperate laboratory for leadership development. Roach learned the dangers of complacency; that sometimes "when a serious mistake is made, often times living through it is sufficient punishment"; and to "maintain an honorable vision."

There was another gift as well. A Bay Area radio station in 1968 encouraged listeners to write to the troops, and a Christmas card sent to Roach by one woman changed his life forever. "It was a match made in Vietnam."

First-hand account of a haunted Chico apartment

"I moved to 125 Parmac Road in Chico, California, in the year 2000," writes Jodi Foster (not the actress). "Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined the terror and confusion I was about the experience: lights flashing, the hands of a clock turning, and my three-year-old daughter's toy--a 'Sing and Snore Ernie' doll--mysteriously relocated in the center of my living room, screaming, 'I feel great! I feel great! I feel great!' ... And this was just the first night I moved in."

The story links to the case of Cameron Hooker of Red Bluff, who, with the complicity of his wife, Janice, abducted Colleen Stan for use as a sex slave for seven years. As a friend of Foster's told her, "I believe there was another young woman living in Chico who went missing and was never found or heard from again." Janice eventually told Red Bluff police that in 1976, before Stan's abduction, the couple had visited Chico and Cameron had tortured and murdered 19-year-old Marie Elizabeth Spannhake after she returned to her apartment--at 125 Parmac Road.

Foster's account is given in "Forgotten Burial: A Restless Spirit's Plea For Justice" ($17.95 in paperback from iUniverse; also available in e-reader formats for Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and from Google ebookstore). Learning about the Hookers on Halloween, 2000, she began putting the pieces together, attempting to make sense of her psychic experiences (which she reports having since childhood).

Foster will be signing copies of her book at Lyon Books in Chico on Thursday, November 10 at 7:00 p.m.

The story she tells is also about her own spiritual journey. Fearful, given to panic attacks, plagued by nightmares which seemed to fit what she later learned of the Hookers, Foster years later writes of a new perspective. "I had been tortured by the mystery for years and, at one point in my life, having paranormal experiences and clairvoyant abilities had been scary. Now it was intriguing--an adventure full of possibilities."

Her story is one of odd coincidences and visitations from the spirit world, all within the context of ordinary life in Chico. Foster seems convinced that Spannhake wants to be found, but so far the case has not been resolved.

Chico visitor on the treatment of native remains

"In the summer of 2006," Tony Platt writes, "my forty-year-old son died. Daniel left a clear written message that he wanted a funeral at Big Lagoon, the northwestern California village on the coast where we have a vacation cabin. We honored his request, sending his ashy remains off into the lagoon. Some eighteen months later I discovered that the Yurok who lived in this area 'since time immemorial' had been buried a few hundred yards away from my cabin."

Only in the last few years has Platt, a CSU Sacramento emeritus professor, come to realize that that area in Humboldt County, called O-pyúweg by the Yurok, was the scene not only of bloody violence but of plundered native remains. His scholarly research--and passion--are on display in "Grave Matters: Excavating California's Buried Past" ($18.95 in paperback from Heyday Books).

"Many local 'Indian relics' preserved in university labs, museum display cases, private collections, and tourist attractions," he writes, "were taken from inside graves; and that often collectors also removed skulls and bones to show off to their friends or ship off to anthropologists in Berkeley." Those acts are illegal now in California, "but until the 1970s digging up native burial sites for pleasure, science, or profit was for the most part authorized and popular, despite longstanding and persistent native protests."

Platt will be speaking in Chico Wednesday night at 6:00 p.m. at Barnes and Noble; and Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books (which will also feature Heyday Books founder Malcolm Margolin).

"'We bury our individuals with the trappings of their life,' says the Yurok tribal historic preservation officer, 'in order to show their status in the afterlife. To separate the dead from their artifacts is to separate them from their identity.'" The story of desecration and repatriation is a complex one, involving anthropologist Alfred Kroeber (associated with Ishi) and a host of others.

For Platt, what happened to native populations in California amounts to genocide, making us "pay attention to the magnitude of a decade of butchery, and invites us to consider 'family resemblances' between California in the 1850s and 1860s, Turkey in 1915, Germany in the 1930s, and Rwanda in 1994." It is a horrendous story, one told with nuance and compassion.

Finding love in all the wrong places

Recent Chico visitor Ethlie Ann Vare, screenwriter, humorist, and a woman with a past, is now, thankfully, a woman with a future. The Hollywood resident spoke last month at Lyon Books about what she calls "affection deficit disorder." Her cravings almost got the best of her. She graduated with high honors from UC Santa Barbara and was busted and jailed for drug possession. But that was not the half of it.

"By twenty-two," she writes, "I was twice married, once divorced, once annulled, and had a felony record. I had slept with seventy-five men (yes, I counted), a remarkable feat considering I didn't start until I was eighteen and had been locked away for a year." She tells her story, with clarity, wit and unblushing language, in "Love Addict: Sex, Romance and Other Dangerous Drugs" ($14.95 in paperback from Health Communications, Inc.; also available in e-book formats for Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook).

Love addicts come in three overlapping categories. "The infatuation addict flits from one romance to the next, rarely getting into a long-term relationship because ... novelty is the great aphrodisiac." "A relationship junkie is the gal with the black eye who insists it was her fault for making him jealous." "The sexaholic's life revolves around--you guessed it--sex; ... being thought of as a bombshell or a stud is paramount." The bottom line? "Love addiction is a chronic, relapsing, and potentially fatal condition. Left untreated, it can kill you."

So "Love Addict" also offers a treatment, but a realistic one. Vare has done her research on the part neurotransmitters might play in the seduction-withdrawal downward spiral, the compulsive craving for dangerous relationships followed by the intense need to escape. But, she says, one can't blame one's situation on chemicals, nor can one think one's way out of love addiction (rationalizations, anyone?). "Addiction," she writes, "is a disease of loneliness. Recovery is a process of community."

The author present several case studies of men and women who faced their "love addiction" and brings in insights from a number of therapists. She commends a 12-step approach, though while it's clear one must say no to alcohol, how does one say no to love?

Vare's answers are a journey toward hope, not hype.