A Heaping, Heartland Helping of Miracle Grip

I'd never read anything by Elizabeth Berg.  But there was something about the hard copy of Night of Miracles, priced to sell at $7.97, that gripped me.  Still, it sat on my bookshelf for six months, horizontally with the other still-to-be-read titles, as is often the case with authors I don't know, stranger danger being what it is.  But last week I thought, okay, no new books until you read this.  So I did.

Night of Miracles, as it turns out, is a novel about the ordinary and extraordinary people who live in Mason, Missouri.  There's Lucille, the nearly ninety retired schoolteacher who now teaches the town to bake.  And Tiny, the enormous and kind cab driver in love with Monica, the waitress who serves him his double orders of pigs in a blanket.  And Iris, the Boston transplant trying to mend her broken heart.  And Abby, Jason, and Lincoln, the little family that moves next door to Lucille.  It's a beautiful book and reminds me of Fannie Flagg, full of small-town Missouri magic.  In fact, on the back cover Flagg herself says that "Elizabeth Berg's characters jump right off the page and into your heart."  Even this book's ode to unhealthy eating is charming, as if cakes can ward off cancer more effectively than veganism.  That's not just me being cute, but something that kind of sort of happened.  It's a real testament to the power of tasty food, no matter how artery clogging, when it's made with love.  It's like Berg is telling us to let go of the rules and enjoy life while we're living it.  Which is poignant in the way that all salt-of-the-earth, clean kind of sad stories are.

When it ended, I added the rest of Berg's books to my reading list.  Because a writer who can whip up such a miracle of a read must have a casserole of a canon.

And I very much heart casseroles.

Christmas Cardinal: Direction Connection

My cozy Christmas reading has come to an end, but the book gods saved the best for last.  I don't know how else to begin except to say that if you don't cry at the end of Fannie Flagg's A Redbird Christmas, then you've got a real Tin Man situation.  

Fifty-two-year-old Oswald T. Campbell has gone through life as an orphan -- and an alcoholic -- but is unprepared for the blow that he's dying of emphysema.  His doctor warns him that if he doesn't move from Chicago to someplace sunny, then this Christmas may be his last.  As nearly penniless as he is friendless, Oswald can't afford to relocate to Florida or Arizona.  So his doctor gives him an old brochure for a health resort in Lost River, Alabama.  Once Oswald learns that the price is right, he packs his few possessions and heads south.  

Lost River turns out to be the warmest place Oswald's ever been, both in climate and hospitality.  And so begins this classically poignant Flagg fable of small town strangers full of kindness (as well as calorie-laden, home-cooked meals that save instead of stop hearts).  Oswald makes fast friends in Lost River.  What's more, he's struck by the town's quiet beauty, discovering a love of nature that calms him even as it sparks his soul.  Soon he begins to feel better; his cough subsides, and he's no longer tempted to drink.  Yet despite its healing power, Lost River harbors tragedy.  There's Roy, the lovelorn shopkeeper, and his broken-winged pet redbird, Jack.  And Patsy, the disabled six-year-old from an abusive family who trusts animals but not people.  Flagg weaves the threads of this deceptively simple story to reveal that Roy, Jack, and Patsy are lost yet connected and that Oswald has come to Lost River, unbeknownst to him, to find them -- as well as himself.  What transpires will make you believe in magic, at Christmas and always.    

Now, if I'd stumbled upon A Redbird Christmas as recently as even last week, then I would've saved my cardinal bush for this post.  But as luck would have it, I have another set of bird ornaments (this time from Hallmark), and one of them just happens to be a cardinal -- or as they say in Lost River -- a redbird.

I also have this barn ornament (from Kohl's), which doesn't have much to do with anything except that 1) it's folksy and red and 2) I made a barn barrette when I blogged about another Flagg favorite, The Whole Town's Talking.  See?  Everything is connected!

Easter may have dibs on rebirth, but A Redbird Christmas shows that anyone can become whole again and that there's no better time for it than Christmas.  Because the blue bird of happiness may get all the glory (and the Disney credits), but it's the redbird of redemption that makes life worth all the worms.  Okay, bad analogy; birds love worms.  But I don't, so I'm sticking with it.

That said, merry Christmas Eve.  Of all the nights of the year, this one glows with the most anticipation (yes, even more than you, New Year's Eve; no one wants your tired tiaras).  I hope that yours is happy and that at least one thing you wish for takes flight. 

Sky High: Altitude Attitude

Ballroom Butterfly Necklace 

Dress: Zulily

Top: Kohl's

Shoes: Chase & Chloe, Zulily

Bag: City Streets, J. C. Penney's

Belt: Belt is Cool, Amazon

Mustard bracelet: Cloud 9

Lavender bangle: Don't Ask, Zulily

Sunglasses: Target

"Butterfly in the sky, I can fly twice as high," is a song that every '80s kid knows.  Ah, LeVar Burton, "Reading Rainbow," and the wonder of books: good times and good memories!  That said, this post is about 1) a butterfly necklace (which, it seems, is a rainbow connection I've made before) and 2) a book about high-flying women.  For yes, we have lift-off with Fannie Flagg's The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion.  

"Huh?" you may be thinking.  "What does a gas station have to do with lady pilots?"  I know, I know, the title is misleading.  When I first read it, I imagined a nostalgia-fueled saga about a close-knit group of grease monkey gal pals reliving their glory days.  (By the way, when I was a toddler, I told my parents that I wanted to be a gas station attendant.  These days I won't even pump my own gas.  So much for dreams.)  But this novel isn't that.  Although it is super nostalgic.  It turns out that these gas pump-wielding women are sisters and WASPs.  No, not bees or White Anglo Saxon Protestants, but Women Airforce Service Pilots, an entity I never even knew existed until I cracked this book.  During World War II, these brave broads flew planes to "ferry" them to flight schools and deliver military supplies all over the United States.  They went through the same rigorous training as the male combat pilots but faced ridicule and discrimination.  As if this wasn't bad enough, flying was dangerous work, and some of them lost their lives.  Unfortunately, unlike their male counterparts, the WASPs received no recognition for their heroism, nor veteran benefits for their families.  In fact, they were forced to disband when male flight instructors convinced Congress that they were stealing their jobs.  Now, I have no desire to conquer the cockpit.  But the women who did deserved the chance to do so fairly.  Flagg does them justice, deftly and sensitively serving this slice of American history through the trials and tribulations of the Jurdabralinski sisters.  When their father becomes ill and their brother goes to war, they take over their family's filling station.  Then, they take to the skies.  The ringleader, Fritzi, gets her start as an airplane wing dancer.  As someone who's not too keen on flying in the first place, I find this mind-boggling.  How did she not fall off?!  

Still, this book isn't all life and death drama.  There's another side to the story.  And that's the side where it starts, in present-dayish, small town Alabama where housewife Sookie Poole lives.  When we meet Sookie, she's recovering from throwing four weddings as well as dealing with the everyday antics of her larger-than-life mother, Lenore.  A paradox of die-hard propriety and madcap rebellion, Lenore is a southern belle gone batty (although not in the clinical sense, unlike her loony bin-dwelling relatives).  Sookie is as cautious as her mother is brazen.  She worries about everyone's feelings and welfare, including that of the little birds in her yard whose food is usurped by blue jays.  A gentle soul to the core, she leads a quiet life.  This is why it comes as such a shock when she finds out that she's adopted.  And I do mean shock -- a southern lady through and through, Sookie faints upon reading the news in, of all things, a piece of mail.  Yet with the help of her husband and a kindly therapist, she puts aside her fears and decides to search for her birth mother.  And she discovers that she just may have the DNA of a WASP, showing her -- and us -- that women past and present are capable of all kinds of courage.  

Funny and poignant, The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion is a real page-turner, delivering all the warm-hearted and introspective feels that Flagg fans love.  It's these qualities that make the WASPs pop, humanizing an unsung and scary chapter in America's story.  That said, it's not surprising that The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion is also about family -- and protecting the people you love.  I think that's one of the things that most draws me to Flagg's books -- they offer a benevolent worldview and almost everyone in them is good, just like the Luke Bryan song says.  They remind you that the world can be kind and that happiness is possible. 

I was sad when this one ended.

Red Barn Yarn: Sevens to Betsey and Then Some

Dress: Xhilaration, Target
Shoes: Chase & Chloe, Zulily
Bag: Fred Flare
Purse Charm: Carole, JCPenney
Belt: Belt is Cool, Amazon
Sunglasses: Relic, Kohl's

 Fabulous Felt Red Barn Barrette

In general, I'm not big on big brand names.  But I do love a good Betsey bag.  By bargain hunting and being lucky enough to receive many as gifts over the years, I've amassed quite a collection.  Now I have, not seven, but twenty-two (even if one is a lunch bag).  So, I thought it'd be fun to round them all up for a photo shoot.  (My apologies to the shoe montages of yore; I know it's tough, but try not to be jelly.  Unless, of course, you are jellies, in which case, get out here, I've been looking for you!)  

It's hard to say which bag is my favorite, but if pressed, then I'd have to go with the (smaller) rainbow, followed by the roller skate and mushroom.  Curiously, I get the most use out of the pretzel.  The brown makes for a nice neutral.

But we're not spending this entire post in handbag heaven.  Instead, we're floating on over to another kind of great hereafter with Fannie Flagg's The Whole Town's Talking.

The Whole Town's Talking is the last in Flagg's Elmwood Springs series.  Set in a fictional small town in Missouri, the Springs stories are folksy and familiar and center around ordinary people who learn extraordinary things.  Flagg begins her narrative in the late 1800s when dairy farmer Lordor Nordstrom founds the then fledgling Swede Town.  Although Lordor is an innovator, he's shy and self-deprecating, and the new settlement doesn't offer many options in the way of a wife.  So he takes out an ad in the paper and meets the beautiful and gentle Katrina.  The two engage in a short courtship and, after a few sweet rom com-worthy mishaps, become man and wife.  Flagg goes on to chronicle the growth of the Nordstroms' dairy, the metamorphosis from Swede Town into Elmwood Springs, and the lives of the Nordstroms' descendants as well as the descendants of their neighbors.  The most endearing character is Aunt Elner.  A woman who doesn't worry about anything, she spreads hospitality like sunshine -- and keeps a can of pet worms on her coffee table.  (For the record, I'm no Aunt Elner.  I'm more like her neurotic niece Norma.  And not just because I'm skeeved out by worms, but because I worry about everything.)  Flagg shows us how Elmwood Springs reaches its heyday in the 1950s only to surrender to the sprawl of suburbia like so many other towns by 2020.

Yet the one thing that links Elmwood Springs and its inhabitants from generation to generation is its cemetery.  As people pass away, we get to see where they go when they die.  I know, I know.  It sounds morbid.  And it is.  At least a little.  In this way, it sort of reminds me of "Our Town," which is my favorite play.  But, like "Our Town," it's not just bittersweet -- it's thought provoking.  Because no matter what your own ideas about the afterlife, you can't help but compare them to Flagg's version and wonder who's got it right.  Which is a little comforting and a little scary.  When I said as much to the husband, he said, "Oh Tracy, it's just a story, one person's interpretation of things."  Which is true.  But it still sort of puts it all out there, opening a Pandora's box of possibilities -- and questions.

That said, The Whole Town's Talking is also warm and funny, a real crazy quilt of heartland characters.  (And yes, I know that I've used the crazy quilt metaphor before, but like all quilts, I like it, as its fluff keeps me and my prose cozy.)  There are several mentions of barns in it, too, which struck my fancy and led me to make this Fabulous Felt Red Barn Barrette.  I like barns because they remind me of Red Door perfume, which reminds me of my late grandmother, who wore it and called it Barn Door.  Now I wear it too, and I always save the pretty glass bottles.

My grandmother is on my mind more than usual because her birthday is this week.  Here's a picture of her when she was young:

Isn't she beautiful?  I especially love her hat.

Before I leave you, here's a shot of a dew-dappled elephant ear.

Because if the whole town's talking, then there'd better be someone -- or something -- down here listening.