Chapter Seventy-one

It's March and, as usual, the weather has run the gamut from really good to really bad. Still, Spring is here  and every day gets a little longer and, hopefully, a little warmer. This month, I found something that I didn't have and revisited something that I did.

Miscellaneous

M.A.S.H -Richard Hooker ($.50/$.95. copyright 1968, 180 pages, Paperback)

I came across this in the Metuchen Library. It's the novel that gave life to Hawkeye Pierce, Trapper John, Hot Lips Houlihan, Frank Burns, Radar O'Reilly, and the rest of the gang that made the 4077th M.A.S.H. (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) what it was. Hooker gives us all of it - those martini-laced mornings and sexual escapades, and that unforgettable foray into assisted if uncompleted suicide--all of them as enjoyable now as they were before they became a part of America's culture. I loved the TV show but the movie was truer to Hooker's original version. I enjoyed it.

Off The Shelf

The Right Stuff - Tom Wolfe ( $16.00/$16.00, copyright 1979, 352 pages, Trade Paperback)

Earlier this month, Astronaut Scott Kelly returned from a record-setting stay in space. That made me want to reread this book. Wolfe starts in the late 1940's, when Chuck Yeager breaks through Mach 1 and then shifts his focus to the seven initial Mercury  astronauts. He takes it from Alan Shepard's suborbital flight  through John Glenn's complete orbit. Then he brings it full-circle  with a return to Yeager and his late-career exploits. Wolfe's style is to research a subject in-depth then fictionalize it by adding dialog. It works for me. I enjoyed it.

We just passed Easter and are coming up on my Granddaughter's First Birthday. I'm also on "Spring Break" (my daughter is a Teacher) so I've got a little over a week's break from Babysitting. I'm not sure how I'll pass the time but I'm guessing that there are books involved.

Until next month ..........

Keep reading.