Because my father was the minister at the Methodist churches in Boonville and Philo, and therefore I grew up in a church environment, I have always been drawn to the beauty and symbolism of the…
Posts published by “Jean Swearingen”
Last Wednesday, the 13th, I plunked down $16.95 at the Mendocino Book Co. on School Street in Ukiah for your book, Teach Your Dog to Shoplift, along with another $7.40 for two over-priced Valentine’s Day…
On Sunday, the tenth, I attended the Roundtable at the Grange Hall, sponsored by the Anderson Valley Historical Society (part of their Annual Meeting), with a friend and neighbor who was kind enough to drive…
I recently reread my (apparently original) paperback copy of Helen Doss’s book, The Family Nobody Wanted (1954, New York: Scholastic Book Services), the last half of which is set in Boonville in the early 1950’s,…
I am, and have always been since I first became acquainted with his body of work, a huge fan of comedian/actor/writer/producer/director Albert Brooks. I find myself thoroughly entranced with his uncanny ability to relate the…
My mother, like her four older sisters in Tennessee (one of whom, the 2nd grade teacher in Carthage, claimed as one of her most well-known students former vice-president Al Gore, Jr.), was, in the words…
My parents, along with my third grade teacher, Miss Wright, highly encouraged me to read as many books as I could during my “leisure time” (when I was not engaged in those other extracurricular activities…
My third grade year in Boonville was by far the most memorable of all three of the years that I lived there with my family, due, in large part, to my teacher, Miss Donna Wright.…
My 2nd grade year in Mrs. Hickey’s class (the only one of my first four years in school during which my mother did not teach the same grade that I was attending) was no more…