dual personalities

So did you read about the brouhaha over Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic Little House on the Prairie series?

A division of the American Library Association voted unanimously last week to strip Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from a major children’s literature award over concerns about how the author referred to Native Americans and blacks. Funnily enough, I bought a hardback copy of Little House on the Prairie at an estate sale last Saturday. I started reading it on Sunday and I have to say I was impressed with the beauty and simplicity of the writing.

“In the West the land was level, and there were no trees. The grass grew thick and high. There the wild animals wandered and fed as though they were in a pasture that stretched much farther than a man could see, and there were no settlers. Only Indians lived there.”

Haven’t these PC-obsessed librarians ever heard of context?

I say, “Phooey!” to the American Library Association.

It may be time to road trip down to Mansfield, Missouri to see the “House on Rocky Ridge Farm”–where Laura Ingalls Wilder and her husband Almanzo lived and where she wrote her books.

There is a museum there as well. Mansfield is located in the Ozarks on the south edge of the Salem Plateau. It is a 3.5 hour drive from St. Louis. Branson–which is not on my bucket list–is a little over an hour from there.

On the movie front the OM and I watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) last week when it was on TCM and I thoroughly enjoyed it. That dance sequence at the barn-raising is superb, as is the subsequent fight-dance. It is so appropriately athletic. All that stomping!

Wow. Sure looks like fun.

Anyway, you might want to check it out.

And speaking of drama, thunder storms here lately have been quite theatrical. This was how the sky looked as I drove home yesterday.

I was reminded of the night of June 28, 1969 when a severe storm with winds of near tornadic force struck the St. Louis riverfront. The riverboat restaurant Becky Thatcher,

with her barge and a replica of the Santa Maria (not kidding) alongside, broke loose and drifted several miles downstream, safely clearing two bridges, before crashing into the Monsanto dock on the Illinois side. One hundred restaurant patrons were aboard at the time and all were rescued by the towboat Larrayne Andress and taken back to St. Louis, where they were safely landed at the Streckfus wharfboat. The Santa Maria, we are told, sunk like a tub.

Quelle flyover weather drama.

Well, try to take time to smell the flowers and enjoy the week. Read something controversial–like Little House on the Prairie!