Yellowstone National Park and postcards are practically synonymous. Yellowstone has been defined through postcards as perhaps no other place on earth. The number of postcards that have been published of Yellowstone Park is staggering. It has been estimated that Haynes, Inc. alone published between 44 and 55 million Yellowstone postcards from 1899 through 1968. The records of the Detroit Publishing Company (DPC) do not survive, so we don’t know how many postcards they published while they were in business. The overall number of North American picture postcards published by the DPC would probably be in the hundreds of millions. They were the most prolific publisher of American postcards from the turn of the century through the 1920s and issued a wide range of Yellowstone Park views.
Yellowstone National Park was established as the first national park in the world in 1872. This date precedes the introduction of postcards. If you are interested in a brief history of postcards and gaining a better historical perspective of Yellowstone postcards read the second article in this series.
The history of Yellowstone National Park postcards transcends all eras of postcards, unlike national parks that were created after the turn of the century. The only other national parks established prior to the authorization of Private Mailing Cards in 1898 were Yosemite and Sequoia. The major advantage Yellowstone enjoyed over these two parks was that concessionaire shops had already been established and were in operation throughout the park. The Haynes Picture Shops were owned and operated by the Haynes family. There were nine of these shops doing business in the park at the turn of the century. Souvenir shops specializing in Yellowstone Park merchandise were also doing business in Gardiner, MT, the northern entrance to Yellowstone, and in Livingston, MT, the gateway to Yellowstone Park. The Northern Pacific Railroad had been servicing Yellowstone Park since 1883 and was a major promoter of the park. The tourism business relating to Yellowstone Park had been developed and promoted via the Yellowstone Park Line of the NPRR from St. Paul, MN to Tacoma, WA, and a number of souvenir shops that sold postcards were in business along this route.
The first postcards published of national parks were two Pioneer Postals published in 1897 of Yellowstone and Yosemite. These early postals were multi-view images published by Albert Kayser of Oakland, CA. The first Private Mailing Cards of Yellowstone, published in 1898 by the DPC, were a series of ten experimental cards. The images on these cards were early photographs by William Henry Jackson. If you would like to know more about the DPC go the link above for the National Park Quilts web site. Private Mailing Cards (PMCs) were authorized by Congress on March 31, 1898, to be effective July 1, 1898. A dilemma regarding Yellowstone and Yosemite PMCs was that July 1 was into the summer season and distribution and sales of PMCs to tourists in these parks at this time of the year would have been problematic. PMCs were new to the market and there was no history as to their use or popularity.
No one realized that postcards would become the most popular collectible in the world and fundamentally change the souvenir industry, especially in national parks. The production of postcards increased dramatically after 1898. Postcard production and sales increased each year through circa 1907-08, which was the peak period for postcard production in the Golden Age. Postcard production and sales remained very strong through 1909-10, when it began to decline.
The passage of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff in 1909 increased the price for imported paper and printed products, including postcards. The increase in cost of imported postcards from Europe had an immediate impact on the overall postcard market. The postcard markets in North America began to shift away from imported postcard to domestic postcards. The German printers were considered to be the finest and most experienced in the world in producing chromolithographic prints and postcards. The high-quality chromo postcards printed in Germany practically came to a stop after the tariff took affect. Haynes had contracted with Louis Glazer in Germany to produce his 100 Series postcards beginning in 1908 (see the Haynes article for more details). The second edition of this series of postcards was printed in Germany in 1909. However, the third and last edition of this series was printed in America. The quality of the 1912 series is much lower than the other two series that were printed in Germany.
The cost of many postcards, including most that were imported from Europe, increased after the Payne-Aldrich Tariff from one cent to two cents or two for five cents. Some of the more labor-intensive chromo postcards from Germany, and from the American company DPC, increased to five cents each. Most of the postcards published in America after 1909 were printed on inexpensive paper with cheap inks and the overall quality was inferior to cards published earlier. The Golden Age of Postcards came to an end with the beginning of World War I, and this had an affect on national park postcard production. The next era of postcard production, especially with respect to national parks, occurred circa 1915-16. I will discuss this in more detail later in this article.
One of the most important reasons postcards became so popular with the public was that a personalized message could be sent through the mail for one cent. Rural Free Delivery was established in America in 1896, and it soon became possible to send and receive postcards almost anywhere in the country, and throughout the world. Postcards, referred to as Penny Postcards at the time because they cost one cent, were the perfect souvenirs. They were inexpensive, could be sent through the mail with a message, and were available with a wide range of images.
Picture postcards were mailed throughout the world and were very influential in shaping the perception of national parks. Postcard messages stating that “it looks just like this” directly influenced how people perceived the parks to be. Postcards are small windows to the world. The tinting and hand coloring of photographic-based images may not have been realistic, but to the receiver they were taken literally. The colors of the terraces at Mammoth Hot Springs were greatly exaggerated on postcards, but very few people knew the difference. The same can be said for the geysers, waterfalls, and landscape views of the park. The one company that did not exaggerate colors, but attempted to produce views that were true to life, was the DPC.
Postcards made a dramatic impact on people’s conceptions of what the national parks looked like, especially in the early 20th century. For the first time in history people could send an image of where they visited to someone thousands of miles away for one cent. Families and friends exchanged postcards. Postcard clubs were started throughout the country and members exchanged cards with members of other clubs. The Postal Craze, as it was referred to, lasted from the turn of the century through the beginning of World War I. This period was also known as the Golden Age of Postcards. Not only were postcards the most popular collectible in the world at this time, they were the main form of communication. Hundreds of millions of postcards were produced and sold from circa 1900 through 1915, and a large percentage of these were of national parks.
Two companies printed and distributed more Yellowstone postcards than any other publishers; Haynes and the Detroit Publishing Company. The DPC is discussed in a separate article (see the link above) and I will write a separate article on Haynes that will be posted on this web site as time permits. These two companies dominated the Yellowstone Park postcard market from the turn of the century until they went out of business. The DPC declared bankruptcy in 1932 and Haynes, Inc. sold to Hamilton Stores, Inc. in 1968. There were many other publishers of Yellowstone Park postcards that prospered and sold large numbers of cards in and around the park. The “Yellowstone Postcard Checklist – Revised Edition” by Michael Frances and Kathleen Burk, July 2006, lists more than 200 different Yellowstone postcard publishers from 1897 through 1950. Unfortunately this checklist is out of print.
I am going to discontinue this discussion at this time, but plan to come back to add information and edit this article. Susan and I have collected Yellowstone Park antiques since we were married in 1978. Susan actually began collecting Yellowstone Park antiques when she was in high school, and we added to her original collection as a couple. The first antique she bought was a boxed set of Haynes postcards. Postcard collecting has been our passion and our private collection of more than 10,000 Yellowstone Park postcards now resides in the archives of the park at the Heritage and Research Center in Gardiner, MT.
Susan and I are members of the International Federation of Postcard Dealers and have collected national park postcards for more than 30 years. If you have any questions feel free to contact us and we will help you however we can. Thank you!


The annotations themselves are normally between 50 and 200 words in size, sometimes formatted as a single paragraph. This can vary relying on the word depend of the assignment, the relative size and importance of different sources, and the number of sources you embody. An annotated bibliography is an organized listing of sources .
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An MLA bibliography makes use of the same format and citation information as an MLA Works Cited web page. Sometimes, the bibliography is referred to as a Works Consulted web page and is usually a separate paper or comply with the Works Cited web page in a paper. This supply presents information that factors to international warming over the last one hundred years and discusses attainable causes.
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“This debut novel by Florida author M.J. Joseph—and published by Florida-based publisher Peppertree Press—is a work of historical fiction centered around World War I. While the story showcases the life of David Rosenberg of Lübeck, a city lit northern Germany, the cast of characters is quite large. One of the more memorable characters is Dr. Sam Yoffey, a young Florida panhandle doctor working in the late 188os who has fallen lit love with a nun.
This book touches on a range of topics, ranging from philosophy to religion to the complexities of interpersonal relationships of any type. And those who are drawn to the slower, more methodical pace of older British novelists will likely find this to suit their needs.
Here’s one example of Joseph’s characteristic style:
‘He looked at her intently, her features undiminished in this aspect. Amazing high cheekbones; wide-spaced, almond-shaped eyes; and finely formed nose and ears. Her complexion was clear and the light brown color of her skin centered upon the very red and full lips. Ephraim thought: This really is a beautiful woman!’
Joseph has created a very ambitious book here. If you’re open to that kind of reading commitment and you like historical fiction, then by all means, give it a shot. You just might be the ideal reader.”
– The Sarasota Scene
“The Lübecker takes place just before World War I and portrays a sundry group of characters who each struggle with their own lives and destinies on the cusp of a war that engulfs their families and lives.
The first thing to note about The Lübecker is that its epic, sweeping visions are anything but easy reads. M.J. Joseph is serious about portraying a wide range of individuals and circumstances that grapple both with their worlds and with the consequences of greater decisions made by others; and so the cast of characters is complicated and diverse. Among them is a young doctor who struggles with a forbidden be in Florida, and eight-year-old David Rosenberg and his family, of the northern German city of Lübeck, who all face their own life challenges.
It should be noted that The Lübecker is as much a literary work as a epic history. As Joseph flushes out her characters against the milieu of a changing world, readers gain a series of insights that move from a young military man’s entry into war (“He did soon, however, begin to feel the excitement of the new possibilities available to him: new people to know, a foreign world to explore, and the prospect of interesting work to demand his attention. Wisdom and suffering, he remembered from his dream. He pushed the recollection aside in his mind, shaking his head and concentrating on removing his boots to free his sweat-conjoined toes and offer the room a whiff of real life”) to the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of characters who adapt to these changes: “He sat on the foredeck of the little ship and between naps, he was finally able to brush the questions from his mind, accepting the events of his life as steps forward. Wouldn’t life end if he achieved an ultimate goal? He decided that his natural, judicious combativeness was more important than solving the riddle of his destiny. He would just keep the philosopher at bay, and get on with life, as always.”
There’s a deeply rooted philosophical tone that permeates events and observations, and there’s also a reflective series of insights provided about lost and new connections, budding romances, and the experiences of military and civilians alike; “As he turned toward the swamps, he knew that his rendezvous with the Indians would be dangerous, but if Witt’s intelligence was correct that the British planned to move the naval gun in place near Kantana, its presence would almost nullify any attempt to capture the east side of the canal. He must be successful in disproving this information or destroying the gun, David thought. After four hours of traveling, he settled his train of camels and rested until dawn, when he would make navigational observations and care for the animals. The rest of the day would involve constant vigilance and water.”
All this is brought to life in a narrative that moves deftly through different settings and events, exposing the encounters and clashes between different peoples.
Readers seeking a sweeping historical novel that highlights social, spiritual and political challenges of the World War I era will find the time invested in reading The Lübecker is time well spent. The Lübecker is very highly recommended for its ability to move beyond the trappings of romance, military, or social experience to embrace elements of all three as it pursues its characters across changing landscapes.”
– Midwest Book Review


More Than a Title: Malcolm’s Searing Take on Equity of Immorality in “The Journalist and the Murderer”
Posted on 3rd April 2022 at 22:06
By Sebastian Grace
“Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.”
Janet Malcolm’s "The Journalist and the Murderer" lays bare the convoluted and pitfall-laden relationship between journalists and their sources through the tale of Jeffrey MacDonald, a Green Beret doctor convicted of killing his young family, and Joe McGinniss, an author and would-be charlatan, loosely held up as representative of the journalism field in which he would surely be one of the very worst.
While seemingly always looking in the mirror at his morally indefensible journalistic practices, McGinniss appears both too stupid and too full of himself to care. Malcolm's book serves to both offer a critique of McGinniss' malpractice in his mission to document the facts from the side of the defense in the MacDonald case while depicting him as a narcissistic psychopath and, more broadly, the dichotomy between journalistic reportage and the morality and ethics of the behavior in question as a result.
While some, such as award-winning documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, argue that considerable questions remain around the facts of the crime for which MacDonald was convicted, little is left to the imagination about Malcolm's view on McGinniss' conduct throughout the months of conversation and research that informed his book, "Fatal Vision."
"McGinniss chose not to see what was staring him in the face," Malcolm writes. Detailing a litany of self-enforced missteps and criticizing McGinniss' financially motivated involvements in the intimate and vulnerable details of MacDonald's defense, Malcolm claims he indicts himself. Even MacDonald, too, in letters to Malcolm, admits, "McGinniss has no excuse for his false portrayal."
Through McGinniss' flaws, illustrated ultimately by when he is forced to pay MacDonald a $325,000 settlement after a 1987 fraud trial he brought, Malcolm revealingly portrays him as ultimately in the same position as his subject: eventually turning down further interviews with Malcolm, seemingly broken by interrogations similar to his own.
"When one is feeling as beleaguered as McGinniss must have been feeling, anything short of utter, empathetic agreement will seem hostile and unfeeling." Well, quite.
Malcolm writes in a separate instance, "And just as the subject, after the book or article comes out, will desperately attempt to unsay the things he wishes he had not said to the journalist, so, at the trial, did McGinniss attempt to repudiate his letters to MacDonald."
In the Washington Post, a 2012 article by Gene Weingarten describes a version of events surrounding MacDonald as "one currently popular theory." Through this tongue-in-cheek remark, Weingarten cuts right to the heart of the central issue in this case and Malcolm's book - narrative: what is it, when, and to whom. Malcolm appears to lean towards favoring the decision to send Macdonald to jail for his crimes in "The Journalist and the Murderer” with a less than inexplicit and provocative title and routine dismissal of his attempts to clear his name with evidence sent in desperation from a jail cell.
While almost certainly adopting the defensive crouch Malcolm anticipated in the closing passages of her book, I do believe the role of “The Journalist and the Murderer” in the zeitgeist as a no holds barred view is misguided on the process often cited as the foundational dynamic of journalism’s pursuit of the truth: befriending sources, beseeching their trust, and then exploiting it to report less than favorable information in the name of public but often equally personal interest.
In my opinion, McGinniss' paranoid and exploitative spin and self-interest while putting together "Fatal Vision" are alone at fault and do not provide an extrapolative case study. Informative, sure, but far from proof of the "stealing as a foundation of making" Malcolm references early in the book and indeed not broadly applicable enough to merit the unfavorably introspective and indicative beacon she shines on what she sees as the potentially corrupted ideals of ethics and objectivity in journalism that most practitioners hold dear.
Malcolm's book "The Journalist and the Murderer" appropriately depicts McGinniss as an astonishingly flawed and ill-motivated actor in the MacDonald case, regardless of the merits of the specifics of his defense and later conviction. While he undoubtedly behaved in a morally reprehensible and certainly indefensible way concerning journalistic ethics, not "every journalist" can be tarred with the same brush. The extremity of his mishaps and misguided belief that anything is permissible given some "sacred duty" to finish a book go most of the way to highlighting this.
However, perhaps I'm just too stupid or full of myself to see the forest for the journalistic trees.
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The expedition led by the Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, was probably the first made by white man into what is now known as the Southwest. Several centuries later, we find some of the same territory known as the "Brush Country", or the "Brasada", peopled with the Indians and the long-horned cattle left by the Spaniards. It was in 1716 that the Spaniards seriously began the establishment of missions and colonies in Texas. However, it was not until Texas had achieved its independence from Mexico that the territory between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande was considered a part of the State.
In the early days of the nineteenth century, the Nueces and Frio Rivers were important camping grounds for the Spanish trains of wagons that came to San Antonio and went to the forts and missions beyond and returned to Mexico. The ox trains traveled slow, and the long stretch of road between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande required several days. In those days these rivers were bold mountain streams, whose waters teemed with an abundance of fish, and the green valleys abounded with game of all kinds. These camps were often attacked by the tribes of Indians that roamed the country. Many of the white settlers lost their lives, and too, no doubt some of the gold that the Spaniards carried in the ox carts. The rumor has persisted through the years that the Indians were aided by renegade Mexican bandits, who robbed the ox trains sometimes. From these raids have come down many of the stories of the buried treasure that have become legends of the Southwestern country.the foundations of some old homes and a little graveyard fenced in.
Along about the time of the establishment of Fort Ewell, there was a settlement on the Frio River known as "Dogtown", which after the presidential election of 1876 was re-christened "Tilden" and is now the county seat of McMullen County. This county was organized several years before La Salle County. Before the county was organized it was attached to San Patricio County for judicial purposes. Many of the old deed records were transcribed from the deed records of San Patricio County. Later when Live Oak County was organized, McMullen County was attached to it for judicial purposes, Oakville being the county seat of Live Oak County. One of the outstanding citizens of Live Oak County who was frequently called in by the early settlers of McMullen County to help keep law and order, when the outlaws and cattle skinners got too numerous, was Captain Pate McNeel. He had a friend he always brought with him, a Mr. Pierce. Both of these men were Civil War veterans, and to a great extent made it possible for the early citizens of McMullen County to get protection. Another man who helped the citizens to get some law and order was Jorge Alanis, who lived in the northern part of what is now Duval County. He made two trips to Austin in a buggy to ask the Governor of Texas for help in protecting the cattle of the settlers, when the outlaws were killing the cattle for their hides and tallow. The State gave them no help, but Captain McNeel lost no time in coming to their assistance.
The trouble with cattle skinners was just one of the problems of the early settlers, as they were continually raided by the Indians, who murdered their families and drove off their horses.
Some of these raids were made by Indians who came out of Mexico, crossing the Rio Grande at Presidio. Some were Comanches and some were Apaches. They were of Chief Geronimo's tribe. On one of their raids they killed the Stringfield family, carrying off two sons, in about 1770. One of the boys was discovered in San Antonio in 1904 with a Wild West Show. He was known as "Tommy Two-Braids". He came to Tilden in 1908 and placed tombstones on his parent's graves, which are located on the old Ruckman Ranch, South of the Nueces River. In 1878 the Indians again raided the Nueces country, raiding the Steele Ranch, located on the south side of the river and known as the "Tigre". They killed Mr. Steele's brother and his two small boys. Ceb Martin and "Pony Jim" Martin, father and uncle of J.W. Martin, ranched on the "Chiminias" ranch, and were on their way south to buy cattle.
They went by the Steele Ranch and learned of the raid, and gave what assistance they could. Three of the Steele children are at this time living in Cotulla. Many other Indian raids were made, but they failed to discourage the early pioneers.
Many of the early settlers of McMullen County came from the coast, around old St. Mary's and Indianola, getting away from the storms which frequently occurred. Some of the families were there before the Civil War; others came later, among them were the Martins, Michots, Towes, Drake Youngs, Hyars, Hills, Byrnes, Kuykendalls, Teals, Hollands, Bruces, Drakes, Crains, Wests, Richarson, Dilworths, Joe Walker and many others. Practically all the people were engaged in cattle raising. For the lack of a railroad and the meager highway facilities, most all of the land in the county is still used for grazing purposes, with a few farms along the San Miguel Creek, and in the eastern part of the county.
McMullen County was orgaanized in 1877, and the minutes of the Commissioners' Court show the following proceedings: "The Honorable G.W. Jones, County Judge of Live Oak presiding, the following officers were sworn in and gave bond: G.W. Dilworth, County Judge; L.A. Parchman, Sheriff; M.F. Lowe, Tax Assessor; M.H. Martin, Hide and Animal Inspector; L.W. Snowden, County Clerk; Henry Martin, Treasurer."
The same officers were elected in a general election, which was held December 19, 1876. On February 26, 1877, James Lowe qualified for sheriff, and M.H. Martin, Deputy. May 1, 1877, M.H. Martin qualified for Sheriff, making three sheriffs in five months. In the Minutes of the Commissioners' Court, some time later the records show that M.H. Martin made a quarterly report as Sheriff and Tax Collector, and M.H. Martin made a report as Hide and Animal Inspector, and M.H. Martin made a report as County Treasurer. He was the father of M.H. Martin, Jr., who is one of the Committeemen of the "Dos Rios Soil Conservation District". The principal road that was in existence at that time was the Old San Antonio Road that had a stagecoach that made weekly trips from San Antonio, through Pleasanton, Tilden and Fort Ewell.
It carried the United States mail. The Postmaster at Tilden could not read nor write, so when the mail came in he emptied it in a box on the floor and every one helped themselves. This plan worked until a Postal Inspector arrived on the stage coach one day and informed the Postmaster that he did not approve of the way he was handling the mail. Mr. Walker handed him the mail sack and told him, "to take his dammed outfit and get out".
Today Tilden has a fine courthouse, good schools, and a paved road coming from San Antonio with hopes of getting it paved to Freer, and a big oil field.
In the early seventies, there were some settlements along the Nueces River in what is now La Salle County. There was a post office called "Iuka" with a few families and a store at Cochina Lake. Mr. Jesse Laxton, a pioneer of Frio County was postmaster. The white families living there were the Laxtons, McCoys, Lemmons, John DeSpain, some of the Gardners and Martin Wilkins. Some tough characters showed up now and then, and cast their lots with the frontiersmen. Of course, like all frontiers, the six-shooter was the law. Further down the Nueces about 25 miles below Cotulla, Mr. and Mrs. W.B. Burks came in 1876. They established what is known as the La Mota Ranch. In 1871 during the height of the big cattle drives to Kansas, Mrs. Burks went "Up the Trail" with the herd. Many years later she was elected "Queen of the 7777777777777777777777777777777777777777777Trail Drivers Association". Mr. Burks died a few months after coming to La Salle County. Mrs. Burks stayed on, and through the years increased her holdings of land and cattle until she had one of the most successful ranches in the Southwest, comprising about 40,000 acres of land. The ranch is still owned by her descendants, Mr. and Mrs. Jim Bell, who reside there at the present time.
What is now La Salle County was created in 1858, and attached to McMullen County for judicial purposes. In 1880 the county was organized into a distinct political unit at the old Guajuco ranch, one and a half miles from Fort Ewell, and named for the first French explorer to Texas, Cavalier La Salle. There were present and sworn in as officers: Pierce Johnston, County Judge; J.M. Buck, Sheriff; J.W. Baylor (father of Jack Baylor and Mrs. Jim Bell) Clerk. The County Commissioners were Jesse Laxton, Charles Sullivan and G. B. Robbins. In 1882 the county seat was moved to the present site at Cotulla.
First Courthouse built on Courthouse Square in Cotulla
In the settlement of all countries it takes the hardy pioneer to blaze the way, no frontier could be settled without the trail blazer. To the little bands that first came to these counties along the border, we are indebted for our freedom and the abundant life we enjoy today. They endured many hardships and privations as they battled the Indians, and the cow thieves from old Mexico and the renegades from the settled sections of the State. Among the old settlers who blazed the way in La Salle County were the Hargus', Henschells, McKinneys, Burks, Withers, Irvins, Berettas, Baylors, Earnests, Kerrs and many others.
The open range attracted many of the lawless elements and out of this condition came feuds and bloodshed, and the loss of may good men as well as bad ones. Throughout the "Brush" counties occurred the "Hide and Tallow War". This land teemed with cattle and wild horses. Throughout the length and breadth of it cattle were killed and skinned, and others re-branded. The answer to the general lawlessness was the Texas Ranger. In 1874 a bill was passed for the reorganization and maintenance of Rangers for frontier defense. Captain Lee Hall, a member of McNeely's Ranger Company, and a brave and colorful figure, was sent to clean up these border counties. So well did his Rangers improve conditions that it was no longer said that the Nueces that traversed the two counties, was "the sheriff's deadline".
The gentle rolling hills and fertile valleys, which now comprise the "Dos Rios Soil Conservation District", at that time were used only for cattle and sheep raising. With the passing of the big round-ups and cattle drives "up the trail" came the fencing of the ranges, bringing another wave of feuds and fights between the land owners and those men who coveted the herds grazing on enclosed pastures. In 1880 forty thousand tons of steel barbed wire was sold to Texas cattlemen. In time, this situation too was cleaned up by Captain Hall and some of the men who had served with him as rangers, Jake, Tom and Sam Plat, Charlie McKinney and others. The fighting ended and civilization was on the march.
The instinct for adventure and the desire for land in an unsettled country brought Joseph Cotulla to this section in 1871. He staked out some large tracts of land on the Nueces River and in 1880 he brought his family here, having built a rock house on the land he had acquired, about two miles above what is now Cotulla. The house is still occupied by one of his daughters, Miss Mary Cotulla, who with her brother, Simon Cotulla operates the ranch. Joseph Cotulla gave a township of 120 acres to induce the railroad to come through here and in 1883 the first train came through, extending only as far as what is now Artesia Wells, from San Antonio. Other men of vision had become settlers in La Salle County, among them, Mr. George Copp, an Englishman, who in 1895 planted the first Bermuda onions in this section. In 1896 he shipped the first onion plants in Texas. By 1900 the Bermuda onion raising had become an important industry in the Cotulla-Laredo district. In 1909 some few people began to irrigate their farms.
As the years passed, cotton became another agricultural industry, and gradually some of the vast ranges of the past were producing the food and cloth needed by man. The great value of irrigation was realized, and in 1925 two irrigation districts were created for the purpose of building dams on the Frio and Nueces Rivers, in order to conserve the flood waters of these two mountain streams to produce the food and vegetables that are adapted to this mild climate. The Nueces project is known as the "La Salle County Irrigation District No. 1", and the Frio project is the "La Salle-McMullen Irrigation District No. 1". Government engineers have completed all the necessary surveys, their recommendations have been approved, and all thast remains to be done is to get appropriations from Congress.
Diversified farming and some irrigation from small dams on the Nueces River have to some extent taken the place of cattle raising. Spinach, tomatoes, peppers, beans and other garden vegetables are grown and shipped to Northern markets. The improvement of the cattle industry from the days of the Spanish longhorns has made great advances. The selection and breeding of Herford cattle and the introduction of Brahman cattle, has enabled the ranchman to have better marketing calves. The creation of the soil conservation movement is doing much to preserve and protect our great heritage - the earth on which we live.
"The Dos Rios Soil Conservation District", is composed of all of La Salle County, and that part of McMullen County that lies south of the San Miguel Creek, taking in approximately 1,600,000 acres of land. The Nueces and Frio Rivers traverse this District, and with their tributaries and underground water, furnish an abundance of water. This district has the same problems as the adjoining district, mainly the overgrazing of all pastureland, causing a great scarcity of grass. In the early days the grass was so rank and abundant that when it turned dry, the grass fires would destroy the heavy growth of brush; and clear the land. In recent years the entire area has become covered with a dense and heavy growth of brush, and in many places so thick that no grass can grow. Serious erosion has been the result, with the soil gradually washing away. We are looking forward to some economical method of destroying that which cannot be grazed. The large lakes are becoming filled with silt and the streams also which in the early days flowed continuously, and now in dry weather they do not flow at all. The land in this district varies, with some black land, some sandy loam, and some plain sand. However, the land is all very fertile, and will grow various grasses, some of which look very promising. With the protection and conservation of our natural resources, it can well be said of our district - a colorful, past, a prosperous present, and an unlimited future.
La Salle County Historical Commission
Text Copyright 1999 by La Salle County Historical Commission
Mail to Tom Graham: Webmaster
Copyright 2022 by Historic District.


"The state of being apart", "apart-hood" or what we know better by its more familiar Afrikaans name - Apartheid!
Given the horror, revulsion and the unfairness that the name evokes, I find it difficult to read books on Apartheid. I mean, I'd hesitate many times over, before choosing one. I approached 'Buckingham Palace', District Six by Richard Rive with a certain amount of trepidation. I looked up the author, tried to find a parallel, decided that a probable one might be James Baldwin; the fact that they come from different continents notwithstanding! Yeah, right, you got it...I was procrastinating! That's how much I worried about getting drawn into the suffering of an indigenous people dominated in their own land!
Set in South Africa of the '50s and '60s, the novel spans 15 years in the lives of the inhabitants of this row of motley cottages, ironically called Buckingham Palace. Mary, "Madam" of the Casbah and her "girls", Zoot, her bouncer, Pretty-boy, his friend, the Jungles, Knight-before-last and Katzen, their Jewish landlord. It is their religion and their sense of community that binds them together. In his tragicomic narrative, Rive takes the reader through the harsh incidents that characterized life in the South Africa of that time. His craft lies in the skill with which he makes you feel all the injustice the characters accept stoically. He does this, without going into profound details. Unlike Baldwin, I might add.
Why does their stoicism upset me? Why can't I see that they had no choice?? Is it because I always put up a fight??? Is it because of Richard Rive's narrative, is THAT what he wants me to see....that they had no choice? That under apartheid, they...had...NO..choice!
We go off to the US of A next to pursue the American dream with the " Namesake " by Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri. We meet on the 24th of April 2015 at 1830 hrs at Luis Vives.
Have a lovely Easter!
Michelle Ann Prabhu


Early literacy is so important! Our beautiful library is full of both fiction and non-fiction books. Every class visits the library weekly for story time with our librarian as well as checking out books.
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When Cherry was only fourteen, she was married off to the horrible Lord Norman Huntsman. His contempt for her was evident. He had only married her to give him sons, beyond that he had no interest in her, so she tried to make the best of her life. Things got easier after the children were born, she adored them. But when the Twelfth Infantry arrived outside and made it evident they had no intention of going anywhere, she knew her husband's shady dealings had been worse than she ever could have imagined, treason. He had forfeited their lives, but with an offer of mercy from the King, Norman surrenders to spare the lives of his men and family. Though Norman's problems have come to an end, Cherry fears hers are only beginning as she finds herself married to the man who executed Norman, but she will do anything to spare the lives of her children.
Release date 7-17-2020
The Wrong Life
Daisy Carson's life had begun with a rocky start, but now as she turned sixteen, her life seemed to be clear sailing. All she had to do was finalize her career choices and pick a college, what could be easier? Even graduating posed no concern. Then she was awoken in the middle of the night to a fire, sending her life spiraling out of her control. Before she knows what happened, she finds herself running away, desperate to be anywhere but where she is, alone in the dark, hiding by a dumpster, in desperate need of a friend.
Five Star - Mrs. Lindmark does a remarkable job of creating characters with heart, flaws, and dimension. She also does a phenomenal job at driving a story along at a good pace without being bogged down with over describing a scenario. Some of the characters in this story can be a little abrasive, however, if you understand why they think that way, then a reader can understand why the characters act the way they do. Well done, Mrs. Lindmark, well done. Kindle Customer
An Accident of Faith
Rachel prayed to God to be delivered from her problems. This was not a new prayer. She had been praying for deliverance for as long as she could remember. She was a woman of faith and she believed that God had everything planned perfectly. All that was left for her to do was to serve God and her fellow man to the best of her ability. Her chief responsibility was raising her little brother Samuel to be a good and obedient servant of God, and right now she just felt that was impossible in Atlanta. It had become so overcrowded, with a nasty, criminal element creeping in. So she had prayed about it and discussed it with her neighbors and it was decided all that was left for her and Samuel to do was to go out West and find their uncle, but this only created more problems. Could they even find him as his last known address was over eight years old? And what would they do if they could not?
Five Star - In this case, yes. One of the characters in this book (to me) has no redeeming qualities. Mrs. Lindmark does a fabulous job creating this character. This character may not "physically" be through out the book, however, the lasting effects of this character last all of the way through. This is a great book in which the main character travels a long road to shake the lasting effects of her father's zealot behavior. She has many hard decisions to make in a short time, however, she does find that she is a strong person and can handle what life brings. Kindle Customer
The Christmas Derailment
Martin Cross hasn't taken a real vacation in six years, not since before he started his own firm. The closest he ever came was going home for Christmas, which if one wanted to be technical, that was all this was, but he was doing it in style, a private sleeper car from Seattle, Washington, to Topeka, Kansas. Four days of rest and relaxation, traveling by train, but as so often happens, fate had other plans. When a run in with a gang member in the train station leads to angry words and an unexpected accident occurs, followed by a trip to the ER, his plans are shattered for going home for Christmas. But maybe, with the help of a stranger, he might just make it.
The Eye of the Storm
Well, enough was enough. Sid has finally had it. He was tired of war, tired of being just another beat cop, and he was definitely tired of big cities with a high crime rate. He couldn't take it anymore. What he needed was a change, maybe in a small town he could finally find peace. So, he started putting his name out there, but as job offer after job offer came back, it was starting to look like only big cities needed cops. Until one morning, like a gift in his email, there was an offer to join the Donegal County Sheriff's Department with a population of two thousand, spread out over a thousand square miles. That was exactly what he needed, a sleepy little county where nothing ever happened.
Five Star - I love that there are triumphs and defeats but that love really does conquer all. What an amazingly good story this is! Kindle Customer
Five Star - Good story line with strong characters. Loved references to actual towns in the panhandle and the medical references were spot on. This book captures true small town. Kindle Customer


Welcome to the English area, here you will find some recommended websites to help you select a great book for your child to enjoy. There are also some useful documents and information to support your child’s learning at home.
Each class visits the library weekly, we use a system called Junior Librarian where we track the books that are in our school library and record books as they are borrowed and returned. These books are regularly reviewed and updated thanks to the incredible work of the PTA and some generous donations.
Children are invited to scan out one library book at a time, please keep track of the books they enjoy bringing home and ensure they are returned after a period of two weeks. Mrs Walker leads the library with a team of fantastic librarians from Year 5 and 6. The library is also open at these times for any child from Year 1 through to Year 6, to borrow or return their library books:
Thursday lunchtimes 12.45 through to 1.10pm
From Year 3, children will begin using Accelerated Reader (AR) to select their school reading book.
We subscribe to this website which gives Children a reading range to help them select a reading book which is within their comprehension ability. It also tracks how many they complete and offers a quiz to check their understanding. Parents have requested to see the AR book catalogue which gives details of the reading range (ATOS Books Level) of books, this allows you to search for any book and see if it is within the recommended range for your child.
Unfortunately, children are unable to log in from home to take their quizzes, Google can’t find our school AR website, as it is unique to us.
However, we do not want children to avoid aspirational books that they would enjoy reading with a family member or different genres of books that can be read for pure enjoyment and interest. We want children to be enthusiastic about their reading, so we encourage children to have a AR book (as their school reading book) and to enjoy the wide range of books in our library and elsewhere just for the love of reading! If you’re not sure if a book is appropriate, please contact your child’s teacher, who will be glad to help.


Structure of scientific revolutions
Thomas kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions natural philosophers of science investigate the logical structure of scientific theories and the historical. Many if not most lay people have probably never heard of its author, thomas kuhn, or of his book, the structure of scientific revolutions. A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were—and still are the structure of. Free essay: in the structure of scientific revolutions (ssr) thomas kuhn argued that science fluctuated between sustained periods of normal science and.
In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: book reviews 351 the structure o] scientific revolutions by thomas kuhn (international encyclopedia of united science, vol ii, no 2 chicago: university of chicago press, 1962 pp 172 $400) this is, generally, a very interesting. Thomas samuel kuhn (1922–1996) is one of the most influential philosophers of science of the twentieth century, perhaps the most influential his 1962 book the structure of scientific revolutions is one of the most cited academic books of all time kuhn's contribution to the philosophy of science. The structure of scientific revolutions was first published as a monograph in the international encyclopedia of unified science, then as a book by university of chicago press in 1962 in 1969, kuhn added a postscript to the book in which he replied to critical responses to the first edition. The structure of scientific revolutions by thomas s kuhn a synopsis from the original by professor frank pajares from the philosopher's web magazine i introduction a scientific community cannot practice its trade without some set of received beliefs.
The structure of scientific revolutions pt2 - duration: 8:09 daudnew2009 18,222 views 8:09 the structure of scientific revolutions pt3 - duration: 6. The structure of scientific revolutions is that kind of book when it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science.
The structure of scientific revolutions is a fascinating book because it works out, detail after tiny detail, how a scientific revolution takes place. The structure of scientific revolutions is that kind of book when it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science fifty years later, it still has many lessons to teach.
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice simply select your manager software from the list below and click on download. Guide to thomas kuhn’s the structure of scientific revolutions malcolm r forster: march 19, 1998 note: i have tried to let kuhn speak for himself whenever possiblethe make is easier to distinguish the quotes from the paraphrases, i have written the quotes in boldface.
- Those conceptions were ones i had previously drawn partly from scientific training itself and partly from a long-standing avocational interest in the.
- The structure of scientific revolutions by kuhn and a great selection of similar used, new and collectible books available now at abebookscom.
- Outline of thomas kuhn's structure of scientific revolutions.
Title: thomas kuhn's the structure of scientific revolutions , by: roberts, lisa j, etc: a review of general semantics, 0014164x, spring2000, vol 57, issue 1. Overview & questions on thomas kuhn's 1969 postscript to the structure of scientific revolutions: thomas kuhn's 1969 postscript to his the structure of scientific revolutions was intended to answer critics of the book primarily in regards to three charges:. This free synopsis covers all the crucial plot points of the scientific revolution scientific study (largely unsuccessfully) to discover the structure of. The structure of scientific revolutions thomas s kuhn (1962) (excerpt) viii the response to crisis let us then assume that crises are a necessary precondition for the emergence of novel theories.Get file


7 Insanely Useful Books That Helped My Writing Career
Note: If you’re into audio books and haven’t tried audible by Amazon before, you can sign up here and get two free audiobooks with no obligation.
I eat people’s brains…
I love to crack open their skulls and peek into the inner workings of their mind.
Metaphorically, of course.
Reading feeds your brain, fosters creativity, and makes you a better writer.
“To be a great writer, you need to be a great reader.” – Thousands of writers.
Today I wanted to share some of the books that have helped me most in my writing career. Some taught me personal development skills, some taught me how to market my work, and all have taught me something simply through imagining the process the authors went through to create them.
I have dozens of books I’ve bought and haven’t read because I know how important they are to my career.
If any of these books look helpful, I encourage you to check them out.
Without further ado, here’s the list:
“The War of Art” – by Steven Pressfield
If this book doesn’t convince you to pursue your creative career–give up. It’s the most motivational creative manifesto in the history of writing. The book talks about the Evil Resistance, more commonly known as self-doubt, and gives you the weapons to defeat it.
I remember the day I went to the library to read this book. I was feeling a bit stuck and needed some motivation for my writing. After I read the book, I went into a blind range and wrote about 2,500 words in one hour.
Yeah, it’s that good.
I’d also check out his other books on creativity and writing because they’re all amazing and will give you the kick in the ass you need in your writing career.
“Steal Like an Artist” – by Austin Kleon
The book itself is beautiful. It’s worth buying just to have on your bookshelf. Austin Kleon is a writer/drawer and Steal Like an Artist is a combination of sage pieces of wisdom and interesting artwork.
The premise of the book is the idea that nobody’s original. You must steal from other artists and remix their work to create something unique.
This book taught me to study and borrow from masters to create something only I can make. The point isn’t to steal from one — it’s to steal from hundreds. Great artists honor those that came before them and stand on their shoulders.
Also, consider reading his other book, Show Your Work!, which is about building a loyal tribe of fans for your work by letting them get a glimpse into your process.
“The Obstacle Is the Way” – By Ryan Holiday
This book has nothing and everything to do with writing. It’s a modern rendition of the tenets of stoic philosophy. Holiday uses carefully selected stories and anecdotes to describe how some of the world’s most successful people found their success through their obstacles, not by trying to avoid them.
The book teaches you to accept your life as it is instead of the way you wish it was. It teaches you to stay level headed when you’re under pressure. It teaches you that perspective matters above all else, and that you’re always in control of your reaction to circumstances in your life.
The book has helped me when I face setbacks in my writing career. It’s also filled with damn good writing and storytelling, which is something I’m learning to improve every day.
The book is also the by-product of a research technique I learned from holiday, where you use note cards to collect quotes, facts, and anecdotes to use in your writing. I use this technique with every book I read and it’s quite helpful. You can read more about it here.
“Contagious: Why Things Catch On” by Jonah Berger
Do you want your next blog post to go viral?
Read Contagious and the author will tell you how. Berger spent years researching the reasons why ideas spread and created a framework for creating things that catch on. The S.T.E.P.P.S. framework for creating contagious content, products, and ideas is as follows:
- Social Currency – People like looking smart in front of their friends. Create something that helps them do that and they will share it with others.
- Trigger – People share things that are top of mind and tip of the tongue, e.g., the terrible song “Friday” by Rebecca Black seeing a spike in views every Friday.
- Emotional – Create something that stirs people’s emotions and it will spread. They have to be high arousal emotions, e.g., anger, awe, and joy. Think Donald Trump. For better or worse, he’s a master at tapping into high arousal emotions, which is why you can’t escape hearing his name on a daily basis.
- Practical – People like helping people. This is why people share “how to,” type content.
- Public – Your content, product, or idea has to be visible for people to share and talk about it.
- Story – People learn through stories and love hearing them. If you’re able to master storytelling you have massive power and an unfair advantage.
I haven’t read this book in a while, but now I’m going to re-read it and try to follow the framework for everything I create.
As a writer, you can use the S.T.E.P.P.S framework with the blog posts and books you write. If you’re a creative trying to market your work, you can use these techniques to get your ideas to spread.
“Mastery” – by Robert Greene
Greene tells amazing stories. Mastery is about finding your life’s task and dedicating the time it requires to master that task.
If you want to learn to become a master writer — a true craftsman or woman — read this book.
More than anything I use this book as inspiration for creating amazing work. The book itself is a testament to painstaking care and patience, which is something I need to continue to learn in my writing career.
Ryan Holiday learned his research and note taking techniques from Greene while he was his assistant. Both of these authors have taught me the importance of leveling up my game and doing the necessary prep work before I even sit down to write something monumental like a book.
“Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” – By Robert Cialdini
It’s not enough to write well. You have to influence people with your writing and persuade them to read it.
This book teaches you how people influence one another by exploiting the cognitive biases we all have. For example, Social Proof is huge when it comes to decision making. The more we see people doing something, the more likely we are to do it ourselves.
It’s why marketers use testimonials to sell their products and bloggers put logos of the sites they’ve written for on their own sites. They’re utilizing the subtle cues our brains use to make decisions. There are tons of ways to use these techniques for either good or evil, and they’re being used on you all the time.
Learn how to use them yourself and it will improve the way you write and in the way you promote your writing. This is the only book I’d say is a must read if you haven’t read it already.
“Where Good Ideas Come From” – by Steven Johnson
Creativity comes from the adjacent possible. The adjacent possible is where the fringes of ideas meet.
If you want to be creative and come up with good ideas, treat everything around you as material and work to combine different ideas together.
Creativity also comes from collaboration. The author even says moving to a more populated area will increase your creativity because you’ll have more contributors to the adjacent possible around you. I’ve learned a ton by collaborating with other writers — things I wouldn’t have if I didn’t take the leap to reach out to them.
It’s important to read widely and deeply to become a great writer or be creative in general. You never know how your ideas will connect, so it’s in your best interest to gather as much information as possible.
The book makes crazy connections between ideas and tells stories about some of the world’s more important inventions. It’s another book to read and imbibe the language of the author and learn from it from a pure storytelling standpoint.
“I thought this was going to be a list of books about writing.”
None of these books are straightforward “how to write,” books, but they’ve been immensely helpful in my writing career for many reasons.
I encourage everyone, not just writers, to read as many books as possible because reading adds richness to your life in mysterious ways.
What about you?
If you have any suggestions for books you think I should read, leave me a comment, and I’ll buy them.
You can never have enough books.


Episode 1 - Anthony Devine
Librarians, Ninjas and Comic-Con
On our first episode, I’ll be talking with Anthony Devine, a good friend who also happens to be a teacher-librarian at El Cajon Valley High School. Anthony is also a Google Ninja (yes, that’s a real thing), a bullish advocate of students creating digital portfolios, and a teacher who believes in empowering students to think critically in whatever area they’re studying.
We also talk about Comic-con and graphic novels and more. Anthony’s a far cry from the stereotypical librarian, and I hope you enjoy our conversation.
And be sure to check out Anthony's guest post for CUE by clicking here.


Since I have been working with my son on writing, and it is impossible to separate reading with writing. I have found some great resources of free reading materials for kids.
The first one is Free Kids Books. It offers children’s books for purchase. Some books are free, but all books are available for free in PDF format. You can print out the PDF and put them in binders. The benefit of that is you can have your child draw or write on these pages, and it become the child’s creation too.
Read to Me is a website where kids can listen to books read by the authors. A nice feature is for some books they have lesson plans that provide talking point and activity ideas. It is a great help for parents.
Storyline Online is another site offers free books. It is run by Screen Actors Guild Foundation, all books are read aloud by some very famous actors and actresses. In addition to books, they also offer book related activities, which is always a welcoming feature for the busy parents who have no time to come up fun activity ideas for the kids.
Update: Now I find some more resources, and some are from comments.
Wegivebooks: is another great site for free children’s books. Seems they have a very large selections.
Memetales: not completely free, but when you sign up, you get 15 books for free, and each week you get a new free book. You can read it online, or on your iPhone/iPAD, or Android tablets, including Kindle.
Gutenberg project: it is a site with more than 30,000 free eBooks, either via Kindle or iBook. Although they are not all for kids, but there are a lot kids books, including picture books.
Do you use any online resources for reading? Would mind sharing with everyone?


Let's be honest: children are narcissists. They cry when they don't get their way. They throw temper tantrums. They pout. They shriek on the subway, they bawl on the bus, and god forbid you get seated next to one on an airplane. For a child, it's almost impossible to understand that his own emotional state (sorrow over a lost toy, excitement over a trip to the zoo, righteous indignation over a broken promise) is not permeating the atmosphere and affecting everyone he encounters. Conversely, when it rains on the day of a picnic, or refuses to snow come Christmastime, or when the weather outside takes another, darker turn, children turn inward; they use magical thinking to figure these indifferent external events into a personal narrative: God is angry with me, Santa knows what I did. The journey to maturity is, in part, a growing understanding that other people have their own inner lives, as intense and complex and consuming as one's own -- and that the things that happen in the world do not only happen to you.
In my last post, I talked about the genre of the Young Adult novel, and how for me that differs from a novel that's simply about young people (i.e., a bildungsroman or "coming-of-age"). I think that the central distinguishing factor between the YA and coming-of-age novels is that, in the coming-of-age novel, the child's narcissism at some point collides meaningfully with a world inhabited by others. And I don't mean a wise old baba who pops up in every few chapters to deliver homespun wisdom, or the bully at school who serves as an inexplicable thunderbolt of in-scene tension, or the Good Teacher who sees the narrator's potential. I mean other real characters, ones with motivations and drives and faults that have nothing to do with the journey our hero is on -- ones who could just as easily be the focus of a novel of their own. For just one example, in Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping, three characters (sisters Ruth and Lucille and their aunt Sylvie) tug in opposing directions: what each one wants is understandable, but mutually exclusive to the desires of the others. In negotiating her relationships with her aunt and sister, Ruth, for all her dreamy self-absorption, is forced to enter a realm where other people's loneliness, grief, and obsessions share equal time with her own.
For all its strengths, and there are many, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close does not share this quality, not ever but especially not at the end. And I'm going to sound the SPOILER ALERT right now, because much of what I have to say about the book relates to that ending, a ridiculous, saccharine, cop-out of a twist, which I found to be an M. Night Shyamalan-level betrayal of everything genuinely poignant or intriguing about the book that preceded it.
The set-up of Foer's novel is ingeniously simple. Oskar Schell, a nine-year-old Manhattanite, loses his father in the WTC attacks on September 11. In his grief, he discovers a key in his father's closet inside a small envelope with the word "Black" written on it in red ink. Since his father always set challenges for him, Oskar decides in mournful desperation this is one last mystery for him to solve. He sets out to find the lock that matches the key by visiting everyone with the last name of "Black" in the NY metro area. With an unlimited supply of cab fare and a shell-shocked mother who barely seems to notice his comings and goings, he embarks on a quest that takes him to all five boroughs (though, with typical New Yorker chauvinism, never to Jersey).
To me, the brilliance of this concept is that it inherently suggests a gap between the child's point of view and the harshness of reality. Oskar behaves as though he's living in The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, but the New York he actually inhabits isn't cute or charming: it's dangerous, a place where terrorists fly airplanes out of a clear blue sky and fucking kill everyone. This reality, telegraphed from the first chapter on, inflects Oskar's imaginings with a kind of manic optimism, a naivete that feels more longed-for than actual: "Sometimes I think it would be weird if there were a skyscraper that moved up and down while its elevator stayed in place... that could be extremely useful, because if you're on the ninety-fifth floor and a plane hits below you, the building could take you to the ground," he observes on the third page. Oskar is not just a child, but a child clinging on to childhood, a precarious situation that sets us up with an immediate source of tension. As he rings the doorbells of total strangers, we're frightened not just for his personal safety (though certainly that too), but also for the last scraps of his innocence.
And yet, as we move through the chapters, it becomes, weirdly enough, clearer and clearer that Oskar has nothing to fear -- that his naivete is right on the money and that his fears and distrust are actually what he needs to shed. The Blacks he meets are charmingly gruff at worst, but mostly indie-flick quirky, with life lessons to share. One of them, his upstairs neighbor, a 103 year-old war reporter, even joins him on his quest; the old dude tromps gamely around the city until he dies, out of sight, from health problems that fortunately haven't hindered him from acting as Oskar's sherpa for the last hundred pages. It's his time to go, natch: Oskar bringing him back into the world is "the greatest thing anyone could have done," and now, thanks to the kid, he's finally ready to close up shop.
There's an eerie feeling about the encounters with these Blacks, who seem to spring into existence solely for Oskar's therapeutic benefit: only one of them, a woman he meets at the top of the Empire State Building, is a literal tour guide, but the others are like tour guides too, displaying museums of their lives, relating life philosophies and stories of grief that, curiously, seem to relate directly to Oskar's quest. Some of these interludes are undeniably entertaining -- Sherpa Black's card catalogue system, which sums up the lives of the important (and mostly dead) with one word each ("Who's Marilyn Monroe?" "Sex!") had me laughing out loud. But there's something about the book that reminded me of the profoundly creepy film The Truman Show, even before I reached the end.
I thought it was a question of authorial contrivance, but in fact, this contrivance is part of the plot. All along, you probably thought Mama Schell was dealing with her own grief, losing herself in a new romance, or maybe just getting an eensy bit drunk, but, wise to the little one's plans, she's actually been orchestrating this journey all along! She's phoned each Black in advance, to make sure they had cookies waiting and, presumably, didn't have a criminal record, and she even knows the ultimate solution of the mystery: the second Black he visited called with the big reveal just after he left her house, and good old mom picked up the phone. "My search was a play that Mom had written, and she knew the ending when I was at the beginning," Oskar relates. There was no danger all along.
There's so much that annoys me about this that it's tough to know where to start, but here's the gist: it's not just that this ending retroactively undercuts the dramatic tension of the entire novel. It's that it also simplifies the only other potentially complicated character, Oskar's mother, into just one more good-guy babysitter among many. Even if a lot of her story takes place off the page, a mother so bewildered in the wake of her husband's death that she literally loses track of her son makes for a truly poignant, disturbing, and believable character, and one peculiarly appropriate to a 9/11 novel. After all, in the confusion and despair following the national tragedy, a lot of authority figures in this country seemed to drop the ball on their responsibilities. Instead, Oskar's mother, like everyone else in the book, exists just to heal him, and to keep him "safe."
"Safe" is an important word when describing this novel, and not just because it's the last word in the book. Since the adults here have no driving motivations, take no significant actions, they're about as threatening as imaginary friends. The other part of the story, which I've so far omitted from this summary, has to do with Oskar's grandparents, survivors of the Dresden firebombing. His elective-mute grandpa and his grandma -- who pretends to be blind so she can type a "memoir" of entirely blank pages -- exist in an overlong parable of passivity. They serve entirely as a cautionary tale about how one mustn't be afraid to love, even when one has lost before. (And, like Oskar's mom, they prepare their story intentionally for the edification of their son and grandson, with second person "you" references throughout.) Yet in this part of the story, as in Oskar's, there's something missing: the problem of evil.
This is not what actually happened.
September 11 wasn't an accident; neither was the Dresden firebombing or Hiroshima (also featured here) or for that matter, the Holocaust or the Iraq War. They were awful, cruel, intentionally destructive acts that human beings committed against other human beings. And, although I don't think any novel needs to take a dark view of humankind, I do think that a novel that makes use of these tragedies needs to in some way account for them, to figure them into its picture of the world. In my last post, I wrote about how the adults in a true YA novel can't be fallible, because then the sense of order, necessary for the hero's safe return to the world of childhood, would be thrown out of whack. And in that sense, the primary thing that adults can't be in this novel is angry.
The catastrophes of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close have victims by the truckload: men, women, children, zoo animals. But what they don't have, and what they could never have in the world of this novel, are perpetrators. No one here is violent, or capable of violence. When attacked, these characters turn inward. They become isolated, sad, numb, nostalgic, and then ultimately, they become wise. They don't become militant, and they don't want revenge. Christlike, they endure, and thus, Christlike, they eventually rise from the ashes unscathed and blameless. Their biggest regret is falling out of love with the world and temporarily losing their sense of childlike wonder. Fundamentally selfless, their only hope is that the next generation will learn from their mistakes.
This is an appealing view of human nature, but it's also one that doesn't make any sense in light of the events of the novel -- that is, unless you take the child-narcissist's view. September 11 happened in reality, a mass violence by some people on others that led to misguided retaliation and two wars' worth of gruesome, still-continuing bloodshed. That is unfathomably horrifying, and the questions it raises are unanswerable. But, if like everything else in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, we saw September 11 as something that happened to Oskar Schell to teach him difficult but beautiful truths about life... well, that would make a lot more sense, wouldn't it? As much as it might upset a child to think that God is crying because of something he did, the truth of the matter is even more disturbing: that though the water is rising, the rain doesn't have anything to do with him at all.


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Lady Roberts Keeper of the Royal Library at Windsor Castle accepting a Solander Box made by Phil Parkins on behalf of HM Queen from The Master of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers.
One the latest recipients of binding from Ludlow Bookbinders...
The book on the US Major Baseball Leagues, printed specially for President Obama as a one-off, has been bound by Ludlow Bookbinders.
This article is about an extarordinary man called Charlie Smith, who worked for Paul Kidson's family firm, JW Braithwaite and Son Ltd for over 70 years.The article celebrates the first 65 years. He was trained by Paul's Great Grandfather JW Braithwaite and he went on to train Derek Roden who in turn trained Phil Parkins who is now Paul's right hand man at Ludlow Bookbinders.
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