Tag: Reviews

He Rode Tall

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Excerpt

Maybe it was more fun trying to guess. All they knew was
they were blessed to have him. From the time he locked up his
one room classroom and left town at the start of summer until he
returned a day or so before the start of the next school year, there
always was plenty of speculation on where he went every summer
and whether or not this very strange and very private man
would return.
Joel had developed his own theory about why no one asked Mr.
Johansson why he was doing what he was doing when he could
obviously be employed in some more prestigious task. The way
Joel had it figured, the teacher was on the run. On the run from
who knows what. Maybe himself. Maybe the law. Maybe his
family. And people in the community didn’t ask for fear of chasing
away the man that had become recognized as the best teacher
this part of the country ever had. What they didn’t know was that
Mr. Johansson was actually Dr. Johansson, PhD, and yes, he was
on the run. On the run from an east coast college and his appetite
for eighteen-year-old freshmen girls.
Mr. Johansson had provided a great start for young Joel. Right
from the tenth grade, when the teacher first arrived in Willow
Springs, he had given Joel some very special attention. Not one to
comment on anything other than those of scientific or mathematical
significance, the teacher did mention to Joel toward the end of
his final year in high school that he had been an excellent student
and would do very well in university. When Joel indicated that
university probably wasn’t in the cards for him, with the cost of it
being what it was, Mr. Johansson made a point of phoning the
ranch and asking to meet his parents. Both his mother and father
were amazed when Mr. Johansson visited their home and suggested,
very strongly, that it would be a crime if Joel did not go to
university. The money issue raised its head and the meeting took
a bad turn when the teacher suggested to Joel’s dad that if he
couldn’t afford to send Joel to university then he would most likely
be able to get some help from the government or some kind of a
special foundation for talented, underprivileged children.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897955

Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Excerpt

“I’ll give it to you,” Ken said.
“No,” he said. “You have to learn about artwork. You don’t give it away.
If you do, it becomes worthless. Things that are given, such as works of
art, tend to sit on the shelf for a while and then they go into a bedroom
somewhere and before you know it they’re in the basement and they become
part of the flotsam and jetsam of people’s lives. But if you pay a
great sum of money for something it goes over the mantel and you hold
cocktail parties to boast about your acquisition. That is one side of the art
world you’re going to have to learn about. How do we attribute value to
something in a world that understands very little? Everything is quantified
in our world. Therefore, if it has a big number attached to it, it must
be of great value.”
Ken and Rui agreed on a sum of money that was not too great but that
seemed like a great deal to Ken. With great pride he told his father that he
had sold a drawing to Rui.
“Did you offer to give it to him?” His father asked.
“Yes, I did and he wouldn’t take it,” Ken said and repeated what Rui
had told him.
Ken Sr. smiled. “Yes, that’s probably quite wise,” he said.
One day, When Francisco and Ken came out of the shack to go fishing
they noticed a young woman walking on the beach. Ken had seen her
from time to time walking to or from the hospital where she worked, or
climbing down the cliffs to the ocean. On this day, as so often happened,
the beach was empty, save for themselves and the marine life that scurried
about the rocks. The young woman had not seen the old man and the boy
and thinking herself utterly alone, took off her clothes and walked into
the water. Ken was mesmerized; she was the most beautiful creature he
had ever seen. “Look at that,” he whispered to Francisco.
“Yes,” he said, as though reading his thoughts, “She is very beautiful.
She has a limp, you know.”
“What does a limp have to do with anything?”
“It’s a long and complicated story – and we should not be interfering
here. She thinks she’s alone so let’s let her be alone.”
From that day on she became Ken’s passion. He discovered that she
was a nursing student and that she had come from a village several miles
away. Her family were peasants but she had studied hard because she was
determined that she would not become a servant for rich people.
He also became friends with Dawn Coates, a girl who was being tutored
at the same small school he attended each day. Her parents were
divorced – her mother, American, and her father, English. She was one
of the first children he had ever admired. She was strong and direct and
seemed fearless.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073573