I started teaching when I was in grad school earning my teaching certification. I spent another 3 years in school continuing on for a masters degree. I was a single mom with three fairly young kids living at home, and did not have a whole lot of time for pleasure reading. I sat at the lunch table, envious of talk about the district book club. What they were reading, what their discussions were like. I'd never been in a book club but I really wanted to join one. I wanted to join their book club.
Immediately after graduating, I let the folks at the book club know that I was ready to join them. I was so excited. My first book club! Then I learned that our district education foundation was the sponsor of the book club - and purchased the books for us! Free books and I'd get to discuss them. What could be better.
For the next 7 years, the book club was an important part of my life. When my kids were still little, it was my me time. (And since I was teaching fifth grade, it was my only time with adult conversation outside of faculty meetings and the lunch table at work.) I loved being in a book club and I loved this particular book club. I was sad to say goodbye to them when I moved from New Jersey to Florida with my new husband.
That first year away, I tried to read what they were reading. And faithfully each month I'd send my thoughts about each book to the woman responsible for emailing the group. She'd share my reflections with the group and then would try to relay what the discussion had been like. I'd found a local book club that I belonged to and got busy with my retirement life so eventually keeping up with the New Jersey book club fell off. Over the ten years that I've been down south, I have found myself up north twice on the afternoons when the book club was meeting and got to join them. The summer of 2014, I got together with some of the teachers when they met to select what books they'd read in the coming school year.
In December, I sent a Christmas card to one of my closest friends from my teaching days and was delighted when she wrote me a long letter back. And said, "Hey, the book club is meeting by zoom these days. Why don't you join us?"
That brings me to Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies by J.B. West with Mary Lynn Kotz. That's the book that the New Jersey book club and I will be discussing two days from now. It's not a book that I ever would have picked up on my own, and I'm not sure that I'm dying to discuss it, but it was a pleasurable read.
West was an assistant usher and eventually the head usher at the White House, a job that is primarily responsible for the running of the Executive Residence part of the White House. West started working during the FDR administration and retired 30 years later, at the beginning of the Nixon administration. It wasn't exactly about the First Ladies, but more about the impact each of the First Ladies had upon the White House. He gives some gossipy anecdotes about each of the families he served as well some dry facts about the running of the White House. I'm not sure how much there will be to discuss in this book (other to perhaps contrast it to what I'd expect life was like for the First Families of recent years. Some stories stuck out in my mind, but others might have found other different bits more interesting.
Many times, I've written here that timing really matters in whether you like a book or you don't like a book. I think that's the case here, too. This book is so different from what I've been reading the past few months and it contrasts so starkly with all the turmoil in Washington at the current moment. It was a good escape for me, one that I'm not sure I would have enjoyed as much at another time.
Best of all, I'll get to reconnect with some of my friends from another part of my life!
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