The Weekly Wrap: August 30-September 5

September 5, 2026September 5, 2026 / rtrube54 / Leave a comment

The Weekly Wrap: August 30-September 5

Remembering Wendell Berry

I wanted him to live forever. But Marce Catlett, published a year ago reminded me that Wendell Berry was a mortal, like us all. I loved all of his writing, his fiction, essays, and poetry. On Tuesday, he crossed over Jordan.

Hannah Coulter was my favorite novel. It’s the story of a woman whose husband didn’t return from war, her decision to remain on her land in Port William, and share life with a second husband. Like everything Berry wrote, it is filled with communion both with the land and one’s people.

Land and people. Wendell taught me that love and careful attention to both are central to the calling of us all. We cannot care for the world if we do not love our people and our place.

He warned us to be slow to adopt the new and only do so if it was truly better, simpler, more energy efficient, and easily repaired locally. I don’t know if he wrote about data centers but I suspect he would shake his head at the folly of sacrificing arable land at the cost of huge expenditures of energy and water to impose AI on our population while we increasingly import our food from other countries, often with questionable food safety practices.

Yet amid the folly, he took joy in the bubbling stream, the changing seasons, and conversations with other men while harvesting. Few things were so beautiful as well as useful as a good team of horses. And few things so sustaining as a midday farm meal, with family and workers gathered round.

Thankfully, he left us so much of his wisdom in his books. Meanwhile, Wendell Berry is living his final Sabbath poem.

Five Articles Worth Reading

My first article is really three of the many tributes to Wendell Berry. First, verse from Gracey Olmstead, “In Memory: Wendell Berry.” Secondly, Norman Wirzba combines personal memories of meeting Wendell Berry with reflections on Berry’ sense of people and the land in “Wendell Berry’s vision of a sacr e d world.” Finally, Barbara Kingsolver, whose father (also a Wendell) worked with Berry to preserve threatened Kentucky lands, summarizes Berry in “Wendell Berry’s Message to Readers: All We Need Is Here.”

Perhaps it is fitting we remember Berry on Labor Day Weekend. One way to do so is to take a deep dive into JSTOR’s archive of articles on labor in “Labor Day: A Celebration of Working in America.”

However, contrary to Berry’s vision, our modern day “tech bros” have pursued a very different vision. In a review of The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State by Jill Lepore, Gal Beckerman fantasizes about taking a time machine to confiscate the science fiction these men read (or misread), that inspired their vision of the world. The review is suggestively titled “We Are Living in the Fantasy World of 13-Year-Old Boys.”

She’s an Oxford John Donne scholar and the writer of the middle grade Impossible Creatures fantasy trilogy. Now, Katherine Rundell has published a book for adults: Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise. Amanda Ramirez interviews the author in “Voracious Appetites: PW Talks with Katherine Rundell.”

Finally, Mark Bauerlein writes in “Saved by the Norton” how the two-volume Norton anthology transformed him. It gave a structure and coherence to his studies and view of the world. He thinks these things are lacking in contemporary literary studies.

Quote of the Week

Mary Renault, who wrote historical fiction, was born on September 4, 1905. She offered this watchword for how we ought live:

“One must live as if it would be forever, and as if one might die each moment. Always both at once.”

Miscellaneous Musings

Last week, Dolly Parton. This week, Wendell Berry. I’ve remarked that it seems that I go to more funerals than weddings these days. And it seems this is the season of the passing of many heroes. Perhaps this makes one long all the more for the great reunion!

Matthew Crawford’s The World Beyond Your Head is deliberately titled. He contends our modern world has each of us living in our own autonomous mental worlds. He argues real knowing involves getting out of our heads and into the world of things and flesh and blood people. Crawford talks, as do Michael Polanyi and Esther Lightcap Meek about knowing as personal. I think this is an important message as we are tempted to immerse ourselves ever more in digital worlds.

Recently, I reviewed T.A. Gibson’s A Wayfarer’s Poems: The Invitation. As I was working on the review, I realized he authored an earlier collection, A Wayfarer’s Poems: The Mirror and made a note to get a copy, having liked its sequel so much. Yesterday, I learned the author graciously gifted me with one and gave me permission to use poems in my weekly Bob on Poetry readings. I don’t get paid for any of this, but things like this make it worth it!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Katherine M. Douglass and Brittany M. Tausen, Love Your Neighbor

Tuesday: Clarence Jordan, Sermon on the Mount

Wednesday: Gerhard Lohfink, The Light of Faith and Reason

Thursday: Agatha Christie, The Labours of Hercules

Friday: Tim Brown, Nolan

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for August 30-September 5.

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Labor Day Memories

September 3, 2022September 2, 2022 / rtrube54 / Leave a comment

Cartoonist: Clifford Berryman. “Uncle Sam and a schoolboy celebrating Labor Day by bowing and paying homage to the common working man.” *Washington Post,* September 4, 1899, The U.S. National Archives, Public Domain

Labor Day Memories

A day honoring the hard work of Youngstown's workers

Tributes to work ethic while workers rest

Sleeping in (unless you delivered the paper)

The last fling of summer

The closing day of the Canfield Fair

The final harness races and competitions

Lots of winners ribbons

One more elephant ear

One more afternoon to hang out with friends

The last family picnics

The final time for those burgers and dogs on the grill

Tossing washers or horse shoes

Crystal blue skies heralding the crisp nights of fall

Sunsets before 8 o'clock

School clothes laid out for tomorrow

The first day of school^*

So early to bed

It's all of us to work tomorrow!

*When I was growing up, our first day of school was always the day after Labor Day.

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

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Our Parents Worked

September 5, 2020September 4, 2020 / rtrube54 / 18 Comments

With Labor Day coming up, it occurred to me that perhaps it was a fitting time to remember how hard our parents worked. Many were trying to get a foothold on the economic ladder, to buy a house, and to see us kids have opportunities they would never have. Pretty soon, at least for my generation, they all will be gone. Last week marked eight years since my father passed. My father and mother both would have been 100 this year. It seems especially fitting this Labor Day to honor them.

They worked since they were children, collecting scrap metal during the Depression to contribute to family income. Many Youngstown men in my neighborhood worked in the mills, some within walking distance. It was hard, grimy, and dangerous. A lapse of attention could cost a finger, a foot, or even a life. Others worked in railyards, or in factories making rail cars, office furniture, or automobiles. Often, they retired as soon as they could, before the strength of their bodies was totally broken down.

Our mothers worked. During the war, many filled the factory jobs vacated by the men gone to war. My mother was a telephone operator. My wife’s mom was an aircraft inspector. Some returned to home making when husbands came back from the war. That did not mean they did not work. Diapers were not disposable. Washers had wringers that could wring an arm as easily as your clothes. Washing, ironing, cleaning, cooking–every day. There were few takeout options or labor saving conveniences. To supplement groceries and stretch budgets, especially during strikes there was gardening, and canning and cooking from scratch.

Men came home and worked on cars and remodeled or added onto homes and pitched in to help relatives and buddies who were doing the same. And they taught us how to do a job well and finish it.

Some worked at the same place for many years. But even before Black Monday, people had to re-tool and find new work. I watched my father go through that, trying a succession of jobs before landing a decent job as a department store buyer and department manager. He always worked hard while treating his people with decency and fairness. He paid all his bills, provided for us, and left no debts. That’s the way he wanted it.

Many of us do enjoy better lives than our parents. They sent us to college or trade school. We may even have inherited from them, adding to our resources. More than that, they likely imparted their work ethic to us, whether we learned the lessons or not.

Our parents worked. Youngstown worked. We enjoyed a richness of life in our neighborhoods and the city that we love to remember. Perhaps as we celebrate this weekend, it’s a good time to remember our parents, how they worked and made Youngstown a good place–and how that hard work shaped our lives. Thank you mom and dad!