Remembering What We Read

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Memory is the treasure house of our lives, unless it is a gallery of our nightmares. And sometimes it is both. The memories we carry of our lives are a substantial part of our sense of self. A visit after many years to a conference center where we worked for over twenty years for parts of every summer evoked a raft of memories as we thought about conversations in a particular cabin, speakers in the meeting house, and so many special moments with our son. Perhaps one of the best part of the week was recalling these parts of our lives, of re-membering them in the sense of infusing them with life once more. What is so difficult about memory loss is our loss of parts of our lives, whether the immediate past, or more distant parts.

For those of us who are readers, we while away hours in our books. Yet it is funny how often it is hard to remember what we have read last week or month. The Atlantic re-ran an article titled “Why We Forget Most of the Books We Read,” that captured the oddities of our forgetfulness and our memories when it comes to reading. Sometimes we remember where we bought the book or where we were when we read it or the book group we discussed it with, but precious little of what is in it.

Some of it is the reality of our lives. The article noted that we may “read” 100,000 words a day, although how much attention we give them all is a question. Much never makes it out of our short term memories. Perhaps we read too much. There are times when I’d love to set aside reading multiple books for reviews, and so much else on my news feeds, and just savor a good book, perhaps a significant book, perhaps an old friend I read many years ago, the memory of which I’d like to renew. And perhaps, the time will come when I shall.

Some of us use writing to crystallize our thoughts about our reading. This is how this blog began–originally as Goodreads posts whose main purpose was just to remember what I’d read. Others keep notebooks, jotting down significant ideas, or just keeping a list of what they’ve read. And some will debate you about whether writing undermines memory. At least for me, it allows me to capture what I want to take away from a book.

Still, this has its limits. The other day, someone commented on a review of Under Western Eyes from 2014. I barely remembered reading the book in this case and did not remember enough to reply to what was an interesting comment. It makes me wonder why I remember some books and not others. I think it has to do with the fact that there are some, that because they engaged or provoked me, I keep revisiting and sometimes re-reading. For some it is the emotional context, such as The Long Winter by Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder that we read aloud as a family during a particularly cold winter in the 1990’s.

I think it makes a difference of whether the book is in sight. Often seeing the book, even the title on the spine, reminds me of what I read. My treadmill is in front of one of my shelves, and I often recall the content of books as I wrack up the steps. I squirrelled Under Western Eyes away somewhere and probably haven’t seen the book since I read it.

Some reader friends don’t think it matters so much. It is the enjoyment of the moment. And with some books, more may not be worth it. They were just a pleasant diversion. Yet even the best of these sort are memorable. I think of Thurber’s “The Night the Bed Fell.” His stories were both a delight and memorable.

Sometimes, it is the sheer intensity of the book that makes it memorable. Every one of Kristen Hannah’s books have been like that, and more than one has had me lying awake at night, none more than The Nightingale. While not as intense, Anthony Doerr’s All The Light We Cannot See stayed with me when I closed the covers.

Still, I wish I were C.S. Lewis when it came to memory. It seems that he remembered just about everything he read, down to being able to tell you on what page you might find a particular quote or statement. But that is not my gift and won’t be.

What can I say about remembering more of what we read? At this juncture in life, the question for me seems to be as I read a book, what is worth remembering? I find myself praying that I might be attentive to what matters out of all the information, all the words, that I will inevitably forget. What is worth pondering, considering, even taking to heart? It might be a single sentence out of a book. Is it worth it? If it is a nugget of intellectual gold, absolutely! I will ponder it until it is added to my treasure house of memory.

Review: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

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The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks. New York: Touchstone, 2006 (originally published in 1985).

Summary: Brief case histories of twenty-four patients with unusual neurological conditions.

Oliver Sacks is one of those authors I discovered in recent years, beginning to read him only shortly before his death in 2015. Only now have I gotten around to what is probably his most famous work. It is organized in four sections: Losses, Excesses, Transports, and The World of the Simple. Each section is introduced by a clinical discussion followed by four to nine illustrative case histories.

The title essay is found in the first section on losses, or cognitive deficits due to disease or damage to a particular brain structure. In the case of Dr. P, a musician and teacher, while the cause remained undetermined, he could not identify the objects he was seeing. He could describe them in detail, but he did not know what he was seeing. Hence at one point, when getting dressed to go out, he grabbed the top of his wife’s head, thinking it a hat. His visual agnosia left his musical abilities untouched, and with accommodations was able to continue in this work. One of the other cases described in this section was of a woman who lost all sense of her body, a loss of what is called proprioception. She could not tell where her arms or legs were apart from seeing them and had to learn to function by sight rather than by this sense of ourselves we take for granted. Sacks also describes cases of phantom limbs, pain, of someone who could see only the right half of their world, and a man who could not remember his life after 1945.

The section on excesses covered cognitive functions that might be describe as being in hyper mode. He covers things like Tourette’s syndrome, and a fascinating instance of “Cupid’s Disease,” a case of late onset in a patient nearly 90 of symptoms from syphilis contracted when she worked in a brothel as a young woman. It made her “frisky,” symptoms which for her were actually somewhat welcome! Although treated for syphilis, the symptoms remained.

“Transports” covers instances of sensations, memories, or visions that come due to epilepsy, or sometimes drugs, as was the case of a student who suddenly had a heightened sense of smell for a three week period before reverting to normal. Perhaps the most famous case is that of Hildegard of Bingen, whose migraines were accompanied by visions rendered in drawings.

The final section, discussing subjects with profound mental deficits were some of the most touching as Sacks recognizes what they possessed rather than what they lacked, such as Rebecca, who blossomed in a theatre program despite an IQ of 60, or twins who spoke to each other in prime numbers and could almost instantaneously calculate the day on which any calendar date would fall for 80,000 years. The last case of an autistic patient, Jose, shows how much things have advanced since Sacks wrote. He was considered mentally deficient but Sacks discovered an artistic ability that brought him to life. When he was moved to a quieter setting and allowed to develop his artistic expression, he flourished. Perhaps Sacks anticipated (and maybe helped) the advances in the treatment of those on the autism spectrum.

Sacks account is fascinating for its account of unusual neurological conditions, revealing the influences of neurophysiology on our personalities. What is also impressive is the delightful respect Sacks has for his patients. He listens to them and recommends treatments and accommodations that respect their individuality. At the same time, this book strikes me as a “snapshot in time” that reflects the state of knowledge in the 1980’s, which has advanced tremendously since then. What hasn’t changed is the care for the person Sacks shows. They are not just cases to him but people, and hopefully we will never advance beyond respecting the dignity of each person in the way Sacks does.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Albert L. Pugsley

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With the retirement of Jim Tressel from the presidency of Youngstown State, my thoughts went back to the man who was president of Youngstown State when I enrolled as a freshman in the fall of 1972. He was Albert L. Pugsley and my one memory of him was his refusal to close Youngstown State during a snowstorm, saying, “This is northern country” or something to that effect. I don’t remember him as being particularly popular with students, but this was the Vietnam War era, and very few college presidents were popular with students. An article in The Vindicator in April of 1976, when Maag Library was dedicated, noted that “Dr. Pugsley kept the peace on campus here with a firm, but a fair policy, to maintain confidence without disrupting the educational process for the vast majority there to learn.” That may be a somewhat rosy assessment, but the truth is that while there were protests, no buildings were burned down and no students died.

What I didn’t realize was that Albert Pugsley played a key role in putting the “State” into Youngstown State University, and in beginning the building construction that transformed the campus. He was inaugurated in 1966, a year before Youngstown became a state university. An engineer and architect by training, he led the physical and academic expansion of the campus. Although Maag Library was dedicated after the end of his presidency in 1973, he was the one responsible for the plans that led to its construction as well as other campus buildings built in the 1970’s including the Kilcawley expansion, Cushwa Hall, Beeghly Center and other buildings. His planning was why I spent most of the time at Youngstown avoiding muddy construction areas.

What most of us didn’t realize was the successful career he had before coming to Youngstown. He was born in 1909 in Woodbine Nebraska, the son of Charles and Lillian Pugsley. He grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska and Brookings, South Dakota. He graduated from South Dakota State University in 1930 with an engineering degree. He went on to Harvard, where he was awarded a Masters degree in Architecture and a one year University Sheldon Traveling Fellowship to study abroad.

He returned to Nebraska to teach architecture at the University of Nebraska as well as engaging in private practice as an engineering and architecture consultant, designing a number of buildings in Lincoln, Nebraska during this time. During World War II, he served as assistant director of Engineering, Science and Management of the War Training Program in Washington, DC. After the war, he went to Kansas State as a professor of structural engineering and Assistant Director of Engineering for the Experiment Station. He was appointed dean of administration in 1950 by Milton Eisenhower, then president of the university and brother of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1963, he became an administrative Vice President of the university. He also held several top positions with college accrediting associations. He also held honorary doctoral degrees from South Dakota State University and Kansas Wesleyan University.  

He was a vice president at Kansas State when the opportunity called to become president at Youngstown, succeeding President Howard W. Jones, Youngstown’s first president. Dr. Eisenhower came to speak at his inauguration. He led Youngstown through the crucial transition years to a state university amid tumultuous times and exploding enrollments. He may not have been popular, but I think it can be argued that he left the university a much better place than when he came there. He strikes me that he was one of those people who wasn’t flashy but got things done.

After his retirement in 1973, he moved to Atlantis, Florida. He passed away October 16, 1977 while fishing on the banks of a lake near his condominium, of an apparent heart attack. He was buried in Woodbine, Nebraska, the town of his birth, in Woodbine Cemetery.

Albert L. Pugsley is remembered today at Youngstown State in the President’s Suite in Kilcawley Center, which may be divided into three smaller rooms named after President Pugsley and two of his successors, Presidents Coffelt and Humphrey. He should also be remembered as the man who led the university through a crucial and challenging time of transition.

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!

Review: Spinsters in Jeopardy

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Spinsters in Jeopardy (Inspector Alleyn #17), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2014 (first published in 1953).

Summary: Alleyn takes his family along to visit a distant cousin in southern France while collaborating with the French in investigating a drug ring.

The lesson of this story may be not to mix work and pleasure, particularly if your work is as a Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard. Alleyn is on assignment with the French police to bring down an international drug operation. Before he can even reach his destination, two things happen that get wrapped into the plot. He and Troy both witness what appears to be a murder of in a chateau immediately opposite where the train stopped before entering a tunnel. Ricky, their son, is still sleeping. Then they learn an unaccompanied elderly woman, Miss Truebody, has come down with acute appendicitis. When they reach Rocqueville, there destination, they learn the only available doctor (since the others are at a conference) is an Egyptian doctor Baradi, residing at the chateau.

Alleyn learns that authorities think the chateau is the center of the drug operation, which uses a nearby chemical factory. Taking Miss Truebody there gives him an in, particularly because he had experience administering anesthesia in the war and is needed. He learns that the chateau is the center of a weird cult led by M. Oberon, who likes to parade naked in their ceremonies. The guests are mostly elite socialites and actors, many with, or who will soon acquire, drug habits. Marsh devotes several of her stories to plots involving drugs–clearly something of which she did not approve and it’s apparent in her treatment of the characters.

Alleyn and his family arouse suspicion even though they are unsure of his identity, and Ricky is kidnapped to keep them out of the way, and plays a key role in helping break the case. Alleyn’s young and dashing driver becomes his right hand man both as they recover Ricky and help bust the drug cult/ring.

The title? There are three spinsters in jeopardy in this story and one is the apparent murder victim seen in the window by the Alleyns. Along the way, Raoul’s girlfriend Therese gets caught up in kidnapping Ricky but then plays a key role in assisting Alleyn and Raoul. Alleyn’s complicated schemes depend on his French counterpart showing up when needed. Troy pitches in by persuading a young woman not to return to the chateau and helps her and her young man recognize their love is more important than a crazy cult.

It’s all a bit madcap and out of the ordinary for an Alleyn mystery. One might object to Ricky being placed in the middle of this, but I recall that Marsh is not alone in using this device, which Elizabeth Peters uses to great effect with Ramses, Amelia’s son. It would be great to see Raoul and Alleyn team up again. But if not, then this was good fun!

Review: God at Work

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God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life, Gene Edward Veith, Jr. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2002.

Summary: A theology of vocation, rooted in the thought of Martin Luther, and covering God’s call over all of our lives.

It seems there are two extremes in the discussion. On one hand there is the notion of vocation as a religious calling that was the dominant idea prior to the Reformation, and there is the modern idea, which equates vocation with job–vocational training is job training. Gene Edward Veith, Jr. digs into the Reformers ideas of vocation, particularly those of Martin Luther, drawing extensively on Luther theologian Gustav Wingren’s Luther on Vocation. I found the book laden with insights giving meaning not only to our work but to all of life because Veith would insist that God’s calling extends to ever dimension of life, all the roles we fill as believer, congregant, spouse, parent, child, citizen, employee or employer.

One of the first was a subtle challenge to Weber’s Protestant work ethic. Veith proposes that the Reformed doctrine of vocation and its emphasis on encouraging the full expression of the individual’s unique gifts means we work not to prove our election but rather because we are elect, with a deep sense of the satisfaction and fulfillment that may come out of our work. Vocation is a place where we experience the love of God and act out of love and service in grateful response. He especially speaks of this in role relationships that the culture views as all about power. For the Christian, our vocation is lived out in prayer, in love, and service.

One of the basic grounds of vocation is that God sovereignly has chosen to work through human beings. He speaks to us, feeds us, heals us, and protects us through human beings faithfully living their vocations. When we speak of vocation, we speak of God’s “calling.” This is not singular. We have a number of callings. First of all, God calls us to himself through Christ. We all have callings to display God’s grace and mercy. We are called into families, into churches, into employment, into citizenship. Some have the calling for a period of being students. A significant aspect of calling, Veith insists, using the example of safety personnel who rushed into the Twin Towers on 9/11, consist simply in doing one’s job well. He devotes chapters to work, family, church, and society. In some of these he allows that one’s vocation as a peace officer or soldier, or judge or executioner, allows one to take lives lawfully that one could not do in one’s personal life. In others, like that of spouse, we violate our vocation if we join ourselves to any other than the person with whom we are covenanted in marriage, sinning against our vocation in the process. For pastors, he has challenging things to say about what does and does not fulfill pastoral calling, and how those with the ministry of the word, prayer, and spiritual care forfeit these to “run” the church.

He recurs to these ideas in the ethics of vocation. In many dimensions of life, sin is acting contrary to one’s calling. Often this means understanding our various callings–church work ought not draw us away from fulfilling our employment obligations and responsibilities well. In some seasons parenting takes precedence over some of the spiritual disciplines we might give ourselves to in other seasons. He speaks of the trials we face in our vocations and the practice of prayer and faith as we lean into these.

The concluding chapter focuses on resting in our vocations, accepting what we are rather than longing for what we are not, realizing we can please God in every good endeavor. And we look forward to our ultimate rest.

This book offers a whole of life perspective to calling, that recognizes that the same One calls in all of life. God is not just in church. He’s in the home, the kitchen, the bedroom, the shop floor, the laboratory, the crop-filled field, the city council chamber and the courtroom. God is at work through people in all of these places whether they recognize their calling or not. But for the Christian there is the great joy of knowing that as we “do our jobs” in each of these areas, often in ways little different from others, we know that we work alongside God. This is a wonderful book for enlarging our perspective on the significance of our lives. We are called.

Review: The Most Famous Man in America

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The Most Famous Man in America, Debby Applegate. New York: Three Leaves Press, 2007.

Summary: The Pulitzer prize-winning biography of the most famous preacher in nineteenth century America, and the scandals around his sexual life.

The story of the writing of this biography strikes me as nearly as interesting as the book itself. It began when Debby Applegate was an undergraduate student at Amherst researching famous Amherst alumni. She selected Henry Ward Beecher and then went on to write her senior thesis about him. She then went on to Yale, making him the subject of her doctoral thesis. And like any good writer of theses in history, she sought a book contract to turn it into a book. This was in the Clinton era and the sex scandals surrounding his administration. However, due to the time needed for research, it finally published in 2006 (in paper in 2007). The culmination of this twenty year project was that the book was a National Book Critics Award Finalist and winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.

Her biography traces the life of Henry Ward Beecher, who, if not the most famous man in America, was certainly the most famous preacher of America. He was asked by President Lincoln to speak at Fort Sumter at the end of the Civil War, an event overshadowed by Lincoln’s assassination. He filled the pulpit of Brooklyn’s Plymouth Church, a nineteenth century megachurch. At one point he drew a $100,000 salary–in the nineteenth century. He pioneered a more informal style of preaching using humor and pathos and emphasizing the love of God as well as social reform.

He was a mover in the abolitionist movement, although Applegate emphasizes his ambivalent record. One one hand, he raised money to emancipate slaves and sent rifles to Nebraska and Kansas to aid abolitionists–“Beecher Bibles.” On the other hand, he counselled caution and moderation, offending more radical proponents like Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. He also campaigned for women’s suffrage and for temperance.

The book portrays his distinguished family. His father Lyman was a New England Calvinist, later transplanted to Cincinnati as president of Lane Theological Seminary. Harriet Beecher Stowe, was his sister. One of the striking facts is that all of his children departed from this stern Calvinism, although a number were ministers. Nine were writers. Applegate traces Henry’s career from his early struggles with his charge in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where he first begins to shift from the more Calvinist form of preaching to the more informal and engaging style he observed among the Methodists. His success was great enough to attract the notice of church leaders in Indianapolis, who offered him a salary that finally allowed him and Eunice to live more comfortably. Increasingly his preaching focused on the love of God rather than human sinfulness. This, in turn, caught the attention of Henry Bowen, who lured the Beechers to Brooklyn, and the shared ambitions of building up Plymouth Church.

Applegate chronicles the influence of money and power that became increasingly alluring to Beecher. Bowen helped Beecher with his debts and Beecher contributed to his publishing enterprises. Beecher’s fame led to political influence within the newly born Republican party. As he became ever busier on social campaigns, he and Bowen relied more on Theodore Tilton for his writing enterprises.

This powerful alliance unraveled when Beecher became emotionally, and, it seems likely, sexually involved with several women, culminating in an affair with Tilton’s wife Elizabeth. Applegate records a tawdry set of confrontations, confessions, retractions and denial, and ultimately a civil trial that ended with a hung jury and a church trial that exonerated Beecher and shamed his accusers.

Reading the biography brought to mind the Apostle Paul’s counsel to a young pastor, Timothy: “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:16, NIV). As Beecher pursued pastoral success, he jettisoned unpopular doctrines for public acclaim. Having struggled with desperate circumstances, he gave way to the allures of money, power, and sex. At one point he defends and propounds free love and the rightness of intimacy with a woman not his wife. And sadly, because of his success, the leaders of his church cast a blind eye to these abuses, and the relational wreckage that resulted with Bowen, the Tiltons, and others.

If the biography came after the scandals of the Clinton administration, it came before the sex scandals, #MeToo, and #ChurchToo of the last decade. It seems to me that Applegate’s biography ought be recommended reading for aspiring ministers as well as the church boards who oversee their efforts, especially where such efforts result in significant growth and acclaim for minister and church. The biography explores not only the personal temptations but the systemic dynamics that contribute to pastoral unfaithfulness and the covering up of moral failures. The biography also traces the rise of the personality cults around pastors, which may arguably have begun with Beecher. A study of the circle around Beecher reveals a web of dysfunctionality. Even if none of this interests you, read this simply for Applegate’s fascinating chronicle of one of the most influential figures of the nineteenth century.

Review: Learning Humility

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Learning Humility, Richard J. Foster. Downers Grove: IVP/Formatio, 2022.

Summary: A journal of a year-long journey of learning humility including notes from readings, reflections, prayers, organized around the Lakota calendar.

Richard J. Foster was pondering at the turn of a year whether to set any resolutions for the new year. He sensed he was hearing from God the words “learn humility.”

Over the next year, he read a number of spiritual writers to glean their insights into humility and recorded his insights, quotes, and personal experiences in a journal organized according to the Lakota calendar. He thought a calendar rooted in nature and one from a Native American heritage similar to his own might be helpful.

The Lakota influence extended beyond the thirteen colorfully named moons of the Lakota calendar (for example “The Moon When Trees Crack from the Cold”). Each moon after the first opens with one of twelve Lakota virtues. During the course of the year, Foster also reads a number of works on Lakota history and culture. In addition to the connection of these virtues to humility, Foster’s study is a journey in humility in a couple other ways. He learns from Lakota spirituality while recognizing the ways it diverges from Christianity. One example is the vision quest involving solitude, nature, and fasting, practices also found in Christian tradition. He also grieves the broken promises and atrocities committed by the United States against the Lakota, culminating in the massacre at Wounded Knee. Perhaps this calls us into corporate humility, repenting our corporate sins and broken promises toward the First Nations who occupied the land before us.

He also shares insights from writers throughout church history from Augustine to Benedict to C. S. Lewis. He records personal experiences from momentary anger to impatience while on hold for a phone call to an insight into humility from a walk with his son. Often a subheading will consist of one or a few paragraphs with a few subheadings for each week. Rich fare but not heavy going. In many instances, his reflections end in questions or matters on which Foster wants to reflect further–not neatly packaged conclusions.

Early on, Foster reflects on the starting place in our journey being meditation on the life of Jesus, our supreme example of humility. He writes a simple prayer to which he recurs though the year:

Loving Lord Jesus, I humbly ask that you would...
Purify my heart,
Renew my mind,
Sanctify my imagination,
Enlarge my soul.
Amen

At various points he focuses on the various ways we learn humility, often in the everyday life of our homes, and often in the instances that expose our propensities to pride, vanity, self-importance, and selfishness, as we recognize the opportunities to renounce these and to prefer others interests to our own. Foster asserts that progress in humility comes from God. The most we can do is orient our will toward God. God often, then, takes us into situations in which we may choose the way of humility.

Toward the end, he proposes several questions I found challenging that help us discern our own progress in humility:

  • Am I genuinely happy when someone else succeeds?
  • Do I have less need to talk about my own accomplishments?
  • Is the inner urge to control or manage others growing less and less in me?
  • Can I genuinely enjoy a conversation without any need or even any desire to dominate what is being said? (p. 163)

The reflections in this work come out of a year of journaling (and a longer writing process). This is worth a slow reading, reflecting on the quotes and observations and questions Foster raises. Instead of a treatise on humility offering a merely academic understanding, Foster invites us to walk with him and learn humility with him as a fellow traveler. He points us less to answers and more to the one who will teach us and wants us to become more like him. Foster believes God is eager to grow the grace of humility in each one of us. The question is, are we willing to learn? Settling into this book is a good place to begin.

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Olive, Again

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Olive, Again, Elizabeth Strout. New York: Random House, 2020.

Summary: The sequel to Olive Kitteridge, an older Olive on her second marriage after Henry died, the indignities and transitions of aging, coming to terms with relationships with children and others, and the unique ways Olive shows up, helpfully, when you’d least expect it.

Olive Kitteridge is back. Elizabeth Strout has given us another exquisite set of stories revolving around Olive Kitteridge, the retired school teacher, always of an opinion, frank, sometimes to abrasiveness, and surprisingly sympathetic when it matters most.

This is an older Olive, and many of the stories revolve around the challenges of aging. She gives voice to the experience of many, marrying a second time after her first husband, Henry, had died. She married Jack Kennison, a retired Harvard professor, exiled to main after being exiled under the cloud of sexual harassment allegations. We experience how good it is to share a bed with someone again, and how hard. There are the bodily changes, and compensations–pedicures when no longer able to trim one’s nails, for example. Others are harder, including a heart attack, needing to wear Depends for incontinence, and falls.

Several stories focus around relationships with children, including a visit to Olive by Philip and his wife Ann and their son Henry. There are the realizations of the shortcomings of parenting, the compensations when kids nevertheless turn out to be decent human beings, and the reconciliations, such as when Ann opens up about the feeling of being a “motherless child” and Olive recognizes that this must be how Philip has felt as well. And there are the shifts in relationship, as parent becomes increasingly dependent on child, as is the case as Olive suffers a heart attack and a fall, and must move out of the big house Jack has left to a senior facility.

Then there are the relationships, some with former students. At a baby shower, Olive ends up delivering a baby, exercising her common sense with the laboring mother who is trying to make it through a tedious shower. Perhaps the most touching of the collection is how Olive walks with a cancer patient, a former student, as she undergoes chemo, the avoidance of other friends, and the fear of death. I found this perhaps the most powerful of the collection. Another case turns out less well, as an encounter with a former student turned poet laureate ends up with the encounter memorialized, not favorably, in a poem.

Strout gives us an unblinking portrayal through Olive and the circle around her of the journey of aging, the joys, the vicissitudes, the resolutions, and the unresolved. In Olive, we see a character who grows even as she ages, in self-understanding and empathy, even as she remains the indomitable Olive we’ve come to know.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Western Flyer Bicycles

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“IT’S…1959! Western Flyer Bicycle” by Brian is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

I was looking at old Western Auto ads from The Vindicator and was reminded that my first bicycle was a Western Flyer, which was sold by Western Auto. It was actually older than the one in this ad from 1959. The bike had been my brother’s, which he probably acquired in the early 1950’s. It was painted Maroon with some cream colored detailing. It had huge fenders to accommodate the 26″ balloon tires. There was even a hole in the back fender I could use to attach my Youngstown bike license. It had a carrier on the back with slots that allowed you to tie things to it. It also had a “tank” between the seat and the handle bars. The handlebars were much more wide swept than handle bars today, and because it was old, the chrome was worn off. It had a coaster brake in the back. Like the bike in the picture, it had a wide, padded seat with springs underneath. In one article I read, they said these bikes weighed about 76 pounds. I can believe it! That thing was heavy, and it only had one speed.

Of course, I added to the weight with various accessories: a headlight, mirrors, a speedometer, a horn and a rear tail light. Most of that I bought in the bike aisle at the Western Auto in the Mahoning Plaza. That bike took a lot of energy to get up hills and with some, you just ended up walking. But it could haul downhill–30 miles per hour on my speedometer. That actually got scary one time when the bike started shaking when I tried to put on the brake. Somehow I got it stopped. Because it was so old and clunky, even though I lovingly polished it up, I never had to worry about it being stolen–not with all the spiffy English racers and other cool bikes other kids had. Little did they know that these retro bikes would eventually fetch high prices. I saw one on Etsy selling for $4750! It was from 1950 and looked to be in mint condition.

Eventually, I used some paper route money and bought a 5-speed Schwinn Collegiate second hand (which I still own). I don’t know what happened to the old Western Flyer. At one point, I think my dad turned it into a stationary bike for some exercise. I remember that those old handlebars developed a crack. I suspect it might have been trashed–it wasn’t around when we cleaned out the house.

Western Flyers were first sold by Western Auto in 1931 and the brand continued to be sold until 1998. Other companies actually manufactured the bicycles including Murray and Huffy, the Cleveland Welding Company and the Shelby Cycle Company. Some of the most iconic bikes were sold between the 1930’s and the 1950’s. The Speedline Airflo, built in the late 1930’s, was one of the most popular, and was built by Shelby Cycle. The X-53 series from the 1950’s was also popular and included a frame made of hydrogen-braised seamless steel. There is even a Facebook group for Western Flyer X-53 Bicycles! Even though these things were heavy, they looked sleek, a lot like some of our cars from the Fifties.

I don’t think today’s “retro” bikes are quite as heavy. The thing that was great about these old bikes was that they were comfortable to ride and solid enough to deal with the rough use we gave them as kids. It was a time when we put streamers and baskets and lights and mirrors and lots of other stuff on our bikes and these were big enough that there was room for it all. I think some of us were imagining the motorcycles or the cars we would own in a few years and how we would customize them,

It would be fun to hear about your bike memories. Anyone else have a Western Flyer? What was your first bike? Anyone still have a bike from their youth?

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!

Review: Face to Face with God

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Face to Face with God (Essential Studies in Biblical Theology), T. Desmond Alexander. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022.

Summary: An exploration of the biblical theme of priesthood and mediation and how Christ fulfills these par excellence.

Throughout scripture, we learn that no one can see God face to face and live. Yet the promise of the New Testament is that one day we all will have the veil removed and see God face to face, and live forever in his presence. How can this be?

T. Desmond Alexander explores this in this sixth volume in the Essentials in Biblical Theology, focusing on the theme of priesthood and mediation throughout scripture, culminating with the portrait of Christ in Hebrews as a priest and mediator superior to all those who have gone before.

Alexander begins with a study of the portable sanctuary that Moses is instructed to erect amid the camp and how it is a model of the heavenly sanctuary, down to the perfect cubicle shape of the Holy of Holies, as is the new Jerusalem, descending from heaven as a cube. It is the place where heaven and earth meet, a footstool, as it were, of God’s heavenly throne. It also reproduces in its outer courtyard, holy place and Holy of Holies, the three zones on Mount Sinai, a new idea to me.

Then Alexander goes more deeply into the concept of holiness, the consecration of priests and of Aaron and the related concepts of clean and unclean, with the sanctuary being holy, the Israelite camp clean, and the world and nations beyond unclean. Yet with all of this, Aaron can only come before the Lord once a year, and not daily. But it is God’s intent, even if it is not yet truly face to face, that this be a tent of meeting, where God, mediated through the priests’ sacrifices, meets his people. He also deals with the “tent of meeting” where Moses talked to God “face to face” as it were, with the barrier of the tent between Moses and the cloud. When Moses asks to see God’s glory, he is told that he cannot see God’s face, lest he die. The mediation of human priesthood can only go so far. And even this is only possible by the daily intercession of Aaron and the priests, dramatically portrayed at one point when Aaron, burning incense, interposes himself between the dead and the living when God strikes Israel with a plague.

Daily sacrifices and incense are burned for the sins of the people, beginning at the outside of the camp and going into the holy place of the tent. Then on the Day of Atonement, the priest passes within the Holy of Holies to offer sacrifice for the people. Alexander shows how this pattern is fulfilled once and for all by Christ who is both priest and sacrifice, who in himself is mediator. Yet how can Jesus, born of the tribe of Judah, and not a Levite, and certainly not a descendent of Aaron, do this? Alexander shows how this is the significance of the reference to Jesus as a priest of the order of Melchizedek, the king of Salem. He is the priest-king, David’s greater son of Psalm 110. Hence he mediates a better covenant as head of a kingdom of priests, devoted to the service of God.

The wonder, as Alexander shows, is that all this is possible through the priesthood and mediation of Jesus, by which we are cleansed, sanctified and perfected. It is not that we must serve God but rather that we may. Our hope is one of being able to boldly approach, looking for forgiveness and cleansing, not only to serve but to rest. Alexander traces all this out, step by step from Sinai and the portable sanctuary and priesthood, to the fulfillment in the Son who more effectively mediates for us and intercedes than any priest. Read this to not only understand all the regulations around the sanctuary and priesthood but to grasp their wondrous fulfillment in Jesus and what this has won for us as his people.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.