What are you reading?

[charliechaplinfan]

You won't be dissappointed Fernando, he has an interesting childhood, it's a story in itself even before he got to Hollywood.

[charliechaplinfan]

I'm amazed by the story of Dana Andrews early years, I know we went into it in detail when we had the guest author but reading it over again. A hundred years ago but another lifetime, his poor mother was a continual baby machine, as many were, one baby after another, so far she's been childbearing for 20 years with no let up and has countless children that have survived and others that perished and a husband that was far from reliable. Ordinary stories like this always strike me, we don't know how good we have it these days, it's difficult to imagine what it could have been like. Thanks to dana's biographer, I'm getting a feel for it.

[JackFavell]

When I start feeling sorry for myself, I'll refer back to your post!

[charliechaplinfan]

That's what I feel like, having only 2 kids causes chaos in our house, I can't imagine anymore without breaking out in a cold sweat.

[JackFavell]

I'm always breaking out in a cold sweat and I only have one.

[charliechaplinfan]

I know that feeling, I have one at a sleepover tonight, not at ours and it's double trouble trying to occupy the other.

[JackFavell]

That's tough. We celebrate when there's sleepover at someone else's house!

Alice's dance recital is today at 2, so we are getting ready, I get yelled at for making sure we have every piece of the costume and shoes and all the other stuff they have to take with them. If I never hear, "YES mom I KNOW" again in will be too soon.

[moira finnie]

I agree, Alison & Wendy--you can't help but feel for her. In Carl Rollyson's book, there is a line that "Mother was made of iron," as her son Wilton is quoted as recalling the incredible woman who mothered so many children. He even remembered his mother being eight months pregnant, deathly ill with double pneumonia and declared a hopeless case by the doctor! (She lived and thrived, which makes it seem that the Andrews kids must have inherited a miraculously sound constitution).

I remember thinking "why did this have to go on for so long" while reading about Dana Andrews' mother, but then I remembered that Annis Speed had received her first marriage proposal at the age of eleven!!!!! This was not unheard of in the South at the time, and in rural areas where I've lived in the North, people do mate early sometimes (not much else to do, many think), though nowadays, it is usually without benefit of clergy or the parents consent.

in those days huge families were often the norm given the death rate of kids from everything under the sun that is treatable with antibiotics today. While few families can afford or want that many children now, while growing up I knew at least four families with more than 12 children (yes, Irish Catholic). Also, in the time of CF and Annis Andrews' marriage, it was not just looked on as outre to refuse your wifely duty, it was treated as a breach of contract and the husband had the right to assert his connubial rights, esp. among the poor.

[charliechaplinfan]

She was of sound constitution to have pneumonia and be 8 months pregnant, I didn't know God made women that strong, he was certainly on her side that's for sure. It never ceases to amaze me how childbirth affects women differently, it takes no account of background or health to date, I've known a sickly woman thrive and have multiple pregnancies and I've known women who are never still completely poleaxed by it. However blessed a women is in her pregnancies it must still take a terrible toll on the woman and so many of these women died young (I don't know about Annis yet, so don't tell ). God bless those women who kept house and weren't allowed refusal of conjugal rights.

[CineMaven]

Breach o' contract??! Whew! What a deal breaker.

[RedRiver]

Just got another legal thriller. At least, I think so. I haven't started it yet. It's by William Landay, who wrote another book I liked a lot. Sometimes that logic pays off. Sometimes it doesn't. Some authors really find their voice with one book, and one book only. At least at the library, the price is right! In fact, the more I focus on computers and videos, the more I forget the true purpose of a library. "Oh, wait. They have books here!"

[Professional Tourist]

After years of loving the movie adaptation to bits and pieces, I'm finally going to read Richard Llewellyn's How Green was my Valley. Picked up a copy of the 1967 mass market paperback for a buck.

To my father and the land of my fathers

[RedRiver]

Lord, I bet that's good!

[JackFavell]

Anything is good if you only spent a buck on it!

[RedRiver]

MacDonald's ice cream is only 73 cents. It's not the best in town. But 73 cents!