I am not a ultra-conservative, I am not an admirer of ultra-conservatives just as I am not an admirer of the ultra lefties. Although I bet I believe a lot of what both lefties and righties believe in. Me, being rather shallow in the sense that I am a headline reader versus the in-depth discussion pieces that I probably should read indicates that I am at the mercy of commentators who, of course, have their own personal political axes they like to grind. The right has the best of the bunch. They are the ones we love to hate, but boy are they good at what they do. Which brings me to what I wanted to say in the first place.

William F. Buckley, as we all know by now died this week. He was the godfather of conservatism. He was its voice, a voice who spouted words that would send me scurrying to find a dictionary. I loved to watch his television show and watch him refer to his clipboard and with his nose in the air throw out some words that I was always surprised that the interviewed person seemed to understand, or did he?

I read today's George Will's, another conservative, very moving good-bye to someone he obviously liked and admired. In the piece Mr. Will quotes one of Mr. Buckley's favorite quotes from Harold Nicolson that I had never heard before but which I will repeat here:

"Only one person in a thousand is a bore, and he is interesting because he is one person in a thousand."

That he liked and repeated the quote tells me a lot about his character.

He wrote many books, some of which were a series of spy novels. I figure if he could write spy novels in between his more erudite writings he had to be a good guy. I think he was.

James Thurber



A famous Ohioan born down the road from me was the writer James Thurber. Everytime I hear his name, I am reminded of the line supposedly spoken by innumerable mothers to their sons when they requested a BB gun for Christmas or a birthday,
“No you cannot have a BB gun, you’ll shoot your eye out with it.”

Thurber’s turn toward writing and drawing was probably directly related to the incident when his brother shot him in the eye with an arrow while they were playing ‘William Tell’. He was partially blinded which left him on the sidelines of some games and sports, which in turn it is believed activated his imagination. What was unlucky for Thurber was lucky for us as he left us innumerable writings and drawings.



The other Ohio author I want to mention is Louis Bromfield, born in Mansfield Ohio. Bromfield’s books were extremely popular in the thirties and forties. He wrote prolifically in Paris before returning his family to America when the First World War was about to break out. He bought several run-down farms in a beautiful setting in an area called Pleasant Valley, and had a house built, calling it Malabar Farm. He continued writing best selling books, many of which were turned into movies. THE RAINS CAME, and MRS. PARKINGTON being two of the books turned into movies. He would write the screenplays of his novels for Hollywood. He was a gregarious man who made friends with many of the Hollywood people and invited them to come visit him at Malabar Farm, which they did. He could drink with the best of them. A famous wedding took place at the farm when Humphrey Bogart married Lauren Bacall in the big house as it was called.

Bromfield lived a life that would be envied by many. He was able to live where he wanted, and do what he wanted later in life and that was running the farm and speaking for conservation causes. All of this took plenty of money, so he would head to his typewriter and write another novel. Of course all this ended as all things must, but he had a long run and from all I know of him a hugely satisfying life.

This came in my email. Of course I won't attend due to costs involved, but it sure would be interesting listening to them. Each of the three have had just a little bit of success. Jeeze.

The two Stuarts

Two of my favorite authors are also two of the most prolific guys out there. Stuart Woods writes an easy to read book featuring several different main characters. My favorite is Stone Barrington, a former NYC cop turned attorney. Woods puts him into adventures that sometimes take him out of the big city into plush surroundings with well to do friends. Of course he’s a stud who flies his own airplane. In fact, and most of us I think are glad of it, he is bigger than life. Sounds like it could be kind of banal but Woods is a master of plotting and the books always move along quickly. Buying his new books, which come out frequently, can be quite costly, as you all know. Books new are never less than 25 bucks a shot and that’s too much for my wallet for a book I will read once and give away eventually. So I get him from my very, very good local library. I am currently on the list of his latest and as usual I am 68th on the list. He is popular, give him a try.

The other Stuart is Stuart Kaminsky. Kaminsky is another very prolific writer with many different heroes featured. My favorite so far because I am a glutton for anything ‘forties’ is his series featuring Toby Peters. Toby is a private eye living in Los Angeles and works in Hollywood employed by various movie stars of that period among others hoping for him to get them out of some predicament. WWII is in progress and he lives in a boarding house with a variety of strange folks. It is light and interesting because at the same time entertaining it brings back to life how it was to live in those days on the homefront.

I give a high recommendation for both for just pure enjoyment.