Mid-Shore Life

Library and Shore Regional Breast Center team up for Breast Cancer Awareness Month – October 28th

          The St. Michaels branch of the Talbot County Free Library and Shore Regional Breast Center of Shore Health system will present a program at the St. Michaels Library on Thursday Oct 28^th from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

          Shore Breast Center will open the program with a presentation of services provided by the Center in their work with local groups and people dealing with Breast Cancer. 

          Bob Musser, the local author of The P.I.N.K. Primer will speak about his experience as a partner of someone dealing with cancer. A lifelong world traveler and executive with Shell Oil Company for thirty-two years, Bob found himself ill-prepared to support his wife Ann when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Determined that no other male should feel as frustrated and alone at such a critical time, he wrote The P.I.N.K. Primer as a practical aid to men who want to be MVPs of breast cancer support. Told with humility, frankness and side-splitting personal anecdotes, Bob provides a fearless rallying cry for men to “drop the remote, suit up, and get in the game.”

          All library programs are free and open to the public. For more information about this event you may call the library at (410) 745-5877 or Shore Regional Breast Center at  (410) 820-9400 or http://www.shorehealth.org/services/breastcenter/.

by Cyndi Paxton Johnson

I stumbled upon a fantastic book last week – a single thread by Marie Boswick.  The novel gets my Quick Read Recommendation based on the following points:

1. It doesn’t make me work.  I read a LOT of non-fiction for work. For pleasure, I prefer to quickly lose myself in the pages.

2. I identify with the characters.  No gun-toting, psychotic  gals living to ride on the back of some guy’s Harley and get revenge on the cheerleader that dissed her a million years ago.

3. The main character is a woman at a cross-road who decides to risk all and follow her dream.

4. Emphasizes the complexity and beauty of female friendship.

5. Talks about real issues, such as breast cancer.

6. Has a touch of romance – without bodice ripping or millionaires who save the day.

7. Teaches me something new – in this book I learn about quilt making!

8. The book inspires me to try something new, to follow my dreams and to value the people in my life!

It's another rainy day on the shore - will it ever end?

Great day for the children's book "Have you Ever seen a Duck in a Raincoat" which teaches children about animals by relating to human behavior. (but really - I was sold at the title!)

The Mid-Shore counties are under flash flood warnings AND coastal flood warnings - so drive carefully! Be especially cautious when driving into water-covered roads - you don't know how deep the water may be!

Stay safe! And keep on treading water - the sunshine should return by the end of the week!

There are many different ways to approach spelling. It's possible I've tried them all. The most popular are grade-appropriate spelling lists; unrelated words the child spells, defines, and memorizes. Except one of my children doesn't. She cannot memorize spelling words - even with games, physical movement, rewards, and so on. She gets very, very upset that her younger sibling can easily memorize and repeat the words.

I abandoned spelling lists a year ago - just because it seemed like I was setting her up for constant failure. I still BOUGHT spelling curricula, mind you - I just didn't use it. I kept hoping that by spelling out the words she asked for - she would eventually learn to spell. Except it didn't work. She can't spell. 

Last week, in desperation, I pulled out my brand new copy of "Sequential Spelling 1". I had ordered it last year, but after discovering the book primarily consisted of pages of word lists - and nothing else except a few "what to say" pages at the beginning - I put it away in disgust. But desperation does strange things to a homeschooling mother.

by Erin Mawn

One of the first books that I remember loving- not just liking, but loving- is Wait Till Helen Comes. This book was so wonderfully frightening that it fueled my young imagination to create and write my own ghost stories. They were, of course, very crudely written because I was only eight years old at the time. I was just beginning to learn how libraries work, and so I went to the same shelf to see if I could find any more scary stories by the author. There was another book, which I read an enjoyed but it was not a ghost story, so I went to the librarian and promptly asked for her help. Being an elementary school librarian, she probably expected me to describe the story or the cover art on the book, but when she asked if I remembered the author’s name so she could look it up in the card catalog, I promptly answered “Mary Downing Hahn.”

(She was impressed that I remembered the author’s entire name.)

Ever since then, that name has stood out to me as I browse books. In bookstores, library book sales, tag sales, and even online, I could never resist scooping up a book by Hahn because I knew it was guaranteed to be a good read. Even now, twenty years later, I continue to read and collect these books.

The Eastern Shore Writers’ Association recently announced the winners of the 2010 Bay to Ocean Writing Contest at the Bay to Ocean Writers Conference held February 20, 2010 at Chesapeake College.  The contest, sponsored by the Eastern Shore Writers’ Association, honored first-rate writing in three categories--short fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry. There were 124 submissions. The contest was open to all writers, regardless of their location or genre.   The three first-place winners received $100 cash awards and free admission to the 13th annual Bay to Ocean Writers Conference. 

The winning prose and poetry will be published in a special section of the 2010 issue of The Delmarva Review, as an exceptional event, based on the recommendations of the three judges.  The winners of this year’s contest were:  Poetry – Amanda Newell of Henderson, MD, for her poem, "Stillborn;"  Creative Nonfiction – Marjorie Weber of Lewes, DE, for "Amy’s Shoes;" and Short Fiction - Douglas C. Jackson of Roanoke, VA, for "Loblollies."

"We were delighted with the number of fine entries submitted this year and pleased to have them reviewed by such outstanding judges," said Wilson Wyatt, coordinator of the Bay to Ocean Writers Conference.

Women of the Chesapeake star in Terry L. White’s Historical Fiction.

CAMBRIDGE –Terry L. White’s Chesapeake Heritage Series is fiction, but the four-book set based on the history of the Eastern Shore from colonization until the end of the Civil War seems totally real. Each of the four novels in the series stands alone, and each features strong women who live on the plantation known as Baron’s Hope.

In Chesapeake Harvest, Mary Charles arrives in the New World as an indentured servant freed from a London jail. Life in the colony means unceasing work under difficult conditions. Death and disease stalk the colony, and it is not long until Mary ends up wed to the man who purchased her indenture. While she does not love William Baron, Mary understands that his goodwill is essential to her survival. Eventually, Mary finds true love and establishes a family who carry her legacy of courage into the coming centuries.

Terry L. White's sweeping tale, Chesapake Harvest, brings us the touching story of Mary Charles. White relates the tragedies and triumphs of Mary's life with heart and authority, but without sentimentality At the same time she illuminates indentured servitude, a harsh and often overlooked institution endured by many of our ancestors. In this page-turner of an historical novel, Mary personifies all the women who nurtured a new way of life in a rugged New World and helped their men establish our country. A. M. Foley Having My Say: Conversations With Chesapake Waterman Wylie "Gator" Abbott and Elliott's Island: The Land That Time Forgot

By Dwayne Eutsey

With all the snow we’ve had to dig out from lately, it’s easy to forget that February is Black History Month. http://www.history.com/content/blackhistory

This observance originally began as Negro History Week in 1926 when historian Carter G. Woodson, the largely self-educated son of former slaves who went on to receive a PhD from Harvard, wanted to establish a time for remembering and celebrating the significant contributions African Americans have made to our national history.

Woodson initially set this observance during the second week in February because two major figures in African American history were born during that week: Frederick Douglass, the former slave and outspoken abolitionist who escaped from Talbot County, was born on February 14; Abraham Lincoln, the president who signed the Emancipation Proclamation ending chattel slavery in the United States, was born February 12.

The week became a month-long observance in 1976 and is also known as African American Heritage Month. In addition to Frederick Douglass, the Eastern Shore has made a few other noteworthy contributions to that heritage.

There is Harriet Tubman, of course. Growing up in Dorchester County back in the ‘70s, I remember learning a lot about how she bravely helped hundreds of slaves escape from the Shore through the Underground Railroad. http://www.midshorelife.com/content/harriet-tubman%E2%80%99s-legacy-lives

However, one piece of history I didn’t learn much about when I was school kid on the Shore was the important role Cambridge played in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Maybe that history was too recent and too raw for teachers to make sense of and to teach at the time, but I don’t remember learning anything about it in school. I did overhear, occasionally, vague references adults made about that time, and I even remember when I was almost 4 years old that my grandfather made me scrunch down in the backseat of his car as he drove me and my mom through a riot-torn section of Cambridge.

Anthropologist Gail Benjamin to Speak at St. Michaels Library

On Monday, March 1st, at noon, in the St. Michaels branch of the Talbot County Free Library, Gail Benjamin, an anthropologist who has done research in Japan on sociolinguistics and education will speak about “Lessons at Lunch”, a study of the cultural messages conveyed by the lunchtime rituals in Japanese kindergartens and elementary schools. She has taught in Japan, Israel and the United States. Her book, Japanese Lessons (NYU Press, 1997) is based in part on her observations as a mother of elementary school students in Japan as well as her own children’s experiences in a Japanese school. Patrons are invited to bring their lunch and enjoy coffee and sweets provided by the library. All library programs are free and open to the public.  Patrons do not need to pre-register for this program.  For more information, call the library at 410-745-5877, or visit www.tcfl.org