The Lemon Tree

Lots of folks in many avenues were recommending The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan for a better understanding of the Israel/Palestine conflict. I was able to request the Young Reader's Edition from the library so that's the version that I read. I figured it might be an even better explanation than the version written for adults. Now I'm not sure about that. I felt like there was a lot missing.

This book certainly made me feel very pessimistic about what's going on in Israel now. The territorial claims on both sides are so strong. What I liked about this book is that it really forces you to consider the whole concept of "fugitive" and "refugee."

I feel like I got a lot more out of Noa Tishby's book, Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth. But I would recommend either one.

 

A History of the World in 6 Glasses

Not a book I ever would have picked up on my own, The History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage, while in parts sort of dry (ha ha... this is a book about beverages) was the type of book that compelled me to share snippets with my husband and the rest of my family over Thanksgiving weekend.

Standage tells the history of the world as it revolved around 6 different beverages. Beer, wine, coffee, tea, Coca Cola and water. "Did you know that people drank beer to get hydrated a really long time ago?" was one of the questions I posed to my family. Two of them quickly understood that beer was probably safer to drink than water back then. And so went our weekend. Me sharing facts, them either already figured them out and surprised to learn something new.

Parts of the book dragged on a little too long. And parts of it, some of the political things, I didn't want to concentrate hard enough to fully understand them. But I'm looking forward to discussing this with my book club next week. I think tea and Coca Cola were most interesting. And I'd love to hear his follow-up on water!

P.S. We had a great book club discussion.
 

I think I'd prefer the film version

The last book that Books and Beer Club read was The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America's Greatest Female Spy by Judith L. Pearson. I'm writing this several days after I finished the book (which is what I often do), but I'm also writing after the book club meeting, something I tend to not do. A book club meeting can change my initial impressions about a book and I like my reviews to reflect how I feel at the time I finished the book.

Each book club meeting starts with us giving the book a thumbs up, thumbs down or sideways. We had 20 people at this week's meeting. A large majority (nearly everyone) gave it a thumb's up. I was one of the few sideways thumbs. Virginia Hall's story, being an American female spy in World War II France was incredible. But Judith Pearson's writing was at times very dry. I did need refreshers about some what was going on in France before and during WWII. But many of those sections read like a text book. Some of the narrative about other spies that Virginia interacted with read like a phone book. As a result, it took me three weeks to plod through this book.

Not only wasn't I swayed by other book club members' more positive reviews, many of them did comment that the writing style was a bit dry. So I wasn't the only one who had very mixed feelings about The Wolves at the Door.

More highly recommended to us at the meeting was A Woman of No Importance, written by Sonia Purnell, published this year. While looking up that book, I read this:

So why haven't more people heard about Hall? A quote from Hall on the agency display offers an explanation: "Many of my friends were killed for talking too much."
But now — more than 70 years after her wartime exploits in France, and almost 40 years after her death — Virginia Hall is having a moment. Three books have just come out. Two movies are in the works.

 I am still considering picking up Purnell's book. But then again, I might just wait for the movie.

Killers of the Flower Moon

In a way, I'm glad that I wasn't able to write my book review when I first sat down to do so. I had very mixed feelings about Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Gramm. I wondered if once I discussed the book at Books & Beer Club if I'd feel any differently about it.

The answer is - no, I don't!

No one in the book club disliked the book. Only two gave the book thumbs up. The rest of us gave it a sideways thumb and most of us for the same reasons.

All of us were fascinated by the story of the Osage murders. How had we never heard of this before? The Osage Indians, like many other Native American tribes, have a storied past. In the late 1800s, they were relocated from Kansas to what is present-day Oklahoma. In the early 1900s, oil was discovered under their land. Most tribe members became wealthy and received leasing fees generated by the drilling of oil on their land. The history is more involved than that, but for the purpose of reviewing the book, that's enough.

The Osage weren't merely rich. They were really rich. A white husband of an Osage wife was asked what he did for a living. He replied that he didn't have to work, he had an Indian wife. They lived lavish lifestyles, had impressive homes. The biggest blot on this wealth was the fact that the majority of Osage had guardians handling all financial aspects of their lives. You can start to imagine the problems that might stem from that.

In the 1920s, many Osage members were being mysteriously murdered. Local officials weren't doing much to solve these murder mysteries and the Bureau of Investigation, in the days prior to it becoming the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was put on the case of those murders that were considered to have taken place on Federal land.

Some of what was expressed in the book was timely. I was able to make lots of connections between the text and things going on in the world today.

As is often the case, I'm going to share with you some of my random observations.

• For years after the American Revolution, the public opposed the creation of police departments, fearing that they would become forces of repression.

Police departments weren't really in existence until the mid-1800s when the dread of the so-called dangerous classes surpassed dread of the state.

• The land grabs of settlers in the late 1800s was really a land grab. A time was set, a shotgun went off and whomever got there first got to claim the land. When I taught about this aspect of the settling of Oregon, I envisioned it as a peaceful process. A wagon train would approach unsettled land. Pioneers would calmly divvy up the land and start building their homes and their fences, often with the cooperation and assistance of other pioneers. The description of the race for (previously) Indian land was so violent. People shooting each other, knocking each other down. Fainting, trampling, deaths. Here and there men were fighting to the death over claims which each maintained he was first to reach. Not what I envisioned at all!

• I'd also never given much thought to the evolution of detectives and investigators. During much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, private detective agencies had filled the vacuum left by decentralized, underfunded, incompetent, and corrupt sheriff and police departments.

• It was slow going linking the murders together since most of the murders were carried out in very different ways. There was no signature. The story was focused on Molly Burkhart and the murders of her family members. Two of Molly's sisters had been murdered. Her mother, Lizzie, was diabetic, and under their noses, doctors were giving Lizzie poison rather than insulin.

• I hate slurs against Jews. In this case, the slur was by one of the "bad guys" involved in the murders. A man filled with venom and bigotry, he'd once complained that Hale and Ernest Burkhart were "too much Jew - they want everything for nothing. No, they weren't Jewish. Ernest was Mollie's husband and Hale was his uncle. They were bad to the bone.

•  I thought the book would be more about the formation of the FBI than it was. In fact, more of the focus was on J. Edgar Hoover than the FBI. In the early days, there were no real forensics. Crime scene evidence wasn't preserved, finger prints and DNA weren't yet sciences. Which made me think of my recent jury duty experience. Lots of deputies were called to the stand and each one had to give a full accounting of all his or her forensic training. It's amazing what can be done now that couldn't be done then.

• And speaking of juries... There was one question that the judge and the prosecutors and the defense never asked the jurors but that was central to the proceedings: Would a jury of twelve white men ever punish another white man for killing an American Indian? One skeptical reported noted, "The attitude of a pioneer cattleman toward the full-blood Indian...is fairly well recognized." A prominent member of the Osage tribe put the matter more bluntly: "It is a question in my mind whether this jury is considering a murder case or not. The question for them to decide is whether a white man killnig an Osage is murder - or merely cruelty to animals."

• At book club, we agreed that it was probably good that we didn't know anything about the Osage murders before reading the book. This way we were able to read this as a murder mystery, trying to figure out "whodunnit" and why. 

• I chuckled over this passage regarding Tom White, the primary investigator from the FBI.  White's body was beginning to fail him. He had arthritis. He tripped walking (walking!) and injured himself.

• I didn't find Killers of the Flower Moon particularly well-written. While the story was definitely interesting and held my attention, Grann's writing often bogged me down. White assisted on the writing the history of the Osage murders. That book was never published because the story wasn't found to be captivating enough. Fred Groves, White's co-writer, eventually wrote a fictionalized version of the story called The Years of Fear. That sounded like it might be more readable, but the one review I found of that story said that it was actually less readable!

•  Grann stumbled across a reference to the murders and that got his interest going. This was not something that he'd read about in any history book. He did lots of research, met with lots of Osage Nation members. 

• And as I dug deeper into the Osage murder cases - into the murk of autopsies and witness testimony and probate records - I began to see certain holes in the bureau's investigation.

•  There were deaths by gunshot, explosions, poison, being pushed by a train. How many ways can you think of to commit murder? What made these murders so crazy was that people who seemed to figure out what was going on were murdered, too. The number of murders first estimated was 24 when in fact there were probably hundreds of murders that just weren't connected by a common thread. The murders also took place over a longer time period than originally suspected. Finally, descendants of the Osage from Molly's time period, when they'd meet Grann doing his research, viewed him as a hope. As a way to discover what really happened to their missing or mysteriously dead relatives.

In summary, the story was fascinating but the writing bogged it down. One of the book club members mentioned that the movie rights have been picked up by a studio. This could be an engaging movie as long as the action is captivating and the storytelling is concise.

I'm a Post Office Geek

Yes, I will admit it. I'm a post office geek. I got my first pen pal at 8 years old and I've never looked back. When this book was suggested for my community book club, I was right on board. The book is not available at our library, but the group was also interested in reading this.

I loved Devin Leonard's Neither Snow nor Rain: A History of the United States Postal Services.  Granted, this book might not be for anyone. Heck, this very involved review might not be for everyone. But I have so much to say.

To be very brief, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has the same fascination with the post office that I do. It's full of interesting history. If you're interested in the role amazon.com plays in keeping the post office afloat, you might want to read this book. If I've already bored you with what I've written, move on. This isn't the right book for you... and I won't be offended if you don't read the rest of my review.

While I was reading, I was happy to share tidbits of information with anyone who would listen. So much of what the book is about is so relevant today. "People often talk about how the postal service is lumbering and inefficient compared with private sector companies such as UPS and FedEx." After reading the book, I have a much better understanding of why this is so. Will the Post Office as we know it be around 10 years from now?

I love reading about Ben Franklin. I'm a Ben Franklin geek, too. I come by that honestly as I attended the University of Pennsylvania. Ben acquired a newspaper in his early days of Pennsylvania called the Pennsylvania Gazette. My alumni magazine is called the Pennsylvania Gazette.

The first post office
Benjamin Franklin, postmaster

Don't you love it when you can make a real life connection to a book you're reading as you're reading it? I was still reading Neither Snow nor Rain when I recently visited Philadelphia. I've probably passed this US Post Office many times. But I noticed it for the first time on this visit. When I researched information about this post office on Market and 3rd Streets, I came across a listing for  the B. Free Franklin Post Office & Museum inside. I was there after business hours. But wow, I need to go back to visit there!

As far back as the birth of our nation, Americans were conflicted about whether they wanted mail to be delivered by a private entity or if it was something they wanted the government to manage it. Even back then, there were many who feared that a massive federal government would be as oppressive as our rule by England.

As a result, the Post Office has always been politicized, with key positions being appointed to high ranking positions in the government. Postmaster general was a peach appointment. Wanamaker of Philadelphia department store fame raised funds for President Harrison's political campaign and as such, he became Harrison's postmaster general.

"Shall it be established for a precedent that a certain amount of cash entitles the giver or the financier to the position of Secretary of the Navy or Postmaster General?"

The Wanamaker Building in the distance

I also learned that "fake news" was a problem back then. Organizations used the postal service to spread disinformation through the mail as if it was true.

"... Kendall condemned the American Anti-Slavery Society, accusing it of using the public mails to spark a race war by disseminating "large masses of newspapers, pamphlets, tracts and almanacs, containing exaggerated, and in some instances, false accounts of the treatment of slaves, illustrated with cuts, calculated to operate on the passions of the colored men, and produce discontent, assassination, and servile war."

I always associated Wells Fargo with California. But Wells started a fish, oyster, bank notes and letter delivery service out of Albany, New York. Albany, New York! Who knew!

When I taught about the Oregon Trail to fifth graders, we always stressed how important letter writing was to those on the Trail and those left behind. But did I ever really think about how the mail traveled there? Letters took forever, but they were mostly expected. Would people have traveled west if they though they could never hear from family members again? I mean, they knew they'd probably never see family members again. But never hear from them?

And what about the fact that delivering mail on the frontier cost a lot more than delivering mail in the urban areas? That needed to balanced out. Rural Free Delivery was a phrase and now it has more meaning.

As I started out saying, I love letter writing. I love the act of finding the proper note card or stationery and then writing the letter. And I love receiving friendly letters in the mail. Don't you? In the early days of our nation, the post office encouraged people to write letters.

"It will do you and them good in several ways. Do not neglect it. Do not fall into the notion that you cannot write, unless you have some news to tell. Items of news may be gathered from the newspapers, but a friendly correspondence has, or should have, another purpose - to express sympathy and good feeling, and to keep up with an acquaintance with and a pleasurable remembrance of each other."

Have I convinced you to pick up a note card and pen and drop a line to a friend with whom you've been out of touch?

Home delivery of mail didn't start until 1863. And that was only for the larger cities. There were two to three deliveries per day. Which is why sometimes in an old movie you'll see someone send out a note inviting someone to dinner and then getting a response later that same day.

I read some other things that I'd learned last year when I was at the National Postal Museum in Washington, DC which is a part of the Smithsonian Institution. How mail was sorted by clerks on the moving chain and about the postal mascot, Owney, who wandered into the Albany, New York post office.

National Postal Museum

The type of sorting bags that were used on the mail trains.

You can see that my geekiness isn't new as these are my own photos. I wish I could find the photo that I had of a stuffed Owney!

Did you know that originally the Post Office Department only took care of delivery of letters and private services took care of packages? Going back to Postmaster General Wanamaker, who also happened to own a large department store, he attempted to add parcel post to the post office to increase his store's mail order business. There were so many arguments against it, mostly from the private delivery companies. Once parcel post was a thing, people mailed small children as it was less expensive than train tickets.

And how is this for a familiar - and current - argument?

"After all, they warned, once farmers got mail delivered to their homes, they would insist on ordering everything from Montgomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck & Company."

Information about the establishment of airmail was very interesting, too. It made me wonder just how much mail set up to be delivered by airmail got lost? And how ironic - or messed up - that it took the USPS so long to modernize that by the time they had sophisticated technology to handle the mail, first class mail had slowed due to the other advancing technology called the internet.

FDR was a big fan of stamp collecting. I sort of wonder why I never got into stamp collecting. I have two first day covers around here. I got one for the Joseph Wharton stamp in 1981 and another for the Cinco de Mayo stamp in 1998... simply because I happened to be in San Antonio for the First Day Cover celebration.

In 1940 the average American received 211 pieces of mail each year. Thinking about how much mail my parents got per day... well, let's just say they quite possibly received 211 pieces of mail each week.

Postal collection boxes from around the world

There was a "Great Postal Strike of 1970." How do I not remember this? What would happen if there was a postal strike now? Would it matter that much?

What I do remember, though, was the transition from the Post Office Department (as a part of the cabinet) to the U.S. Postal Service which was going to be a separate agency. There was fear that the new entity would not survive.

First class mail continues to drop off and most of the mail delivered is junk mail. Most people email rather than "snail mail" In order to keep the post office going, the chief operating officer of the post office developed a relationship with found of amazon.com's founder, Jeff Bezos. That's been a salvation. But amazon is all about making money and if they get another opportunity, I'm sure they'd run towards it, leaving the post office in the dust. For now, e-commerce more than makes up for the loss in first class mail.

"Every day, you hear, 'Thank God for Amazon.'"

There's also the weird combination of USPS delivering some small parcels for UPS and FedEx. It makes it confusing to know whether to expect something to arrive at our house or at our mailbox.

I found out when I moved to central Florida that I was technically on a rural route and that ZIP+4 was not used at all here. I'm surprised that my little bitty local post office is still open and that it wasn't closed in the rash of closings in 2013. Especially since so many post offices did close and our mail doesn't even get delivered out of our own post office. It comes from another larger post office that's probably equally close to my house. One of the smaller post offices in the area was slated to close. I checked the hours there. They are now open from 9AM - 12PM and then again from 1-4PM weekdays and just two hours on Saturday. Frankly, I'm surprised they are open for that many hours.

"The bottom line is this," Donahue said. "With the exception of the holidays and your birthday, think about your own mailbox. When was the last time you got a piece of mail that had a stamp on it? You don't get it." The questions kept coming and Donahue's answer remained the same. "If I take a survey, I'll get a lot of people here don't pay any bills by mail."

When I lived in NJ, nearly all my bills were paid online. For some reason, where I currently live, things are backwards and many companies still charge extra for paying online. Which makes no sense. I'm fairly certain I use more stamps here in a month than I used while living in NJ.

The book starts with a tale about a guy who would like to see as many post offices as he can see in all the states. He grew up in Queens, NY, and didn't go to a post office at all as a child. I can't even imagine how that happens. He's making up for lost time. Some old post offices are really so spectacular unlike today's that are more utilitarian. The book ends with the same post office fanatic. He got lost driving home from Pennsylvania, finding himself in Ohio. He gets off the road and checks out some post offices. He felt it was worth it since what is the guarantee that one of the beautiful New Deal post offices might still be open next time he was in Ohio. And that's how the book ends. Crash ending. A bit disappointing after I so thoroughly enjoyed this book.


I'll end with some unrelated facts I learned about:

• Charles Ponzi used the mail to rip off his victims... using a pyramid scheme that he set up.
• TWA started out as Transcontinental & Western Air and not Trans World Airways.

If you're still with me, thank you! Thank you! You might enjoy this book, too. This was a book I didn't need to discuss with a book club. Maybe because I talked about it with my husband, my daughter and anyone who would listen as I was reading. But now I can't wait until my community book club discusses this book. In addition to everything I've written about here, I've got pages of other notes. Will anyone else be as excited about the post office as I am?