Meet Edie Rieken

Here at this place I call home, I have about 150 neighbors, most of whom I've never met, a few of whom I nod to and say, "Hi," and another, smaller group, of whom I've become acquainted and now call friends. One of them is Ethel (Edie) Dorothea Plaep Rieken. Unlike 99% of my other neighbors, Edie is a gifted writer and she is the author of a book to prove it: "Growing Pains: A Childhood on Bear Creek"

We met at lunch one day when I saw she was alone and invited her to join me (that's how we do things here at Russellville Park) and she did.  I learned Edie had a life-long love of writing (an interest we had in common) and that she was the chair of a group who share that interest every week.  When she told me she had written a book and had it self-published, I asked to borrow her copy.

Read a self-published book and the first paragraph usually indicates why that volume didn't come from Random House. Imagine my amazement as I turned page after page to find that this was a brilliantly crafted narrative about the life of a girl growing up on a dairy farm snuggled into a small forested canyon 15 miles inland from the town of Florence on the Southern Oregon coast in the years 1924 to 1937.

Edie was born six years after her nearest of six siblings to parents who were immigrants from East Prussia in Germany. She tells the story of her mother, Henrietta Dorothea Kahlhaw Plaep, to whom she dedicates her book. Henrietta, at 25, was living in East Prussia in terrible circumstances.  Her father had died leaving the family impoverished; in desperation she agreed to go to America with a family that had earlier immigrated to Coos County on Oregon's southern coast.  This was in the early 1900s and part of the agreement with this family was that she would marry a son whom she had never met. The drama is darkened by her cruel future mother-in-law.

It's a wonderful story about that little girl who attended a one-room school where nine students were taught by one teacher and who, in her eight years of grade school, never had a classmate.  Here is a sample of Edie's lyrical prose when early in the book she writes of that Childhood home.

"The forested hills that watched over our valley, the fields surrounded by solidly built, straight wooden fences, and the meandering creek with its own mini-universe of marine life created a background of peace and serenity.  The morning songs of many birds and the chorus of a thousand frogs croaking their welcome to springtime evenings complemented the constancy of our lives."

The lady has a way with words.

Edie's book is shelved in Portland's Oregon Historical Society but is otherwise out of print.

You Get the Popcorn, I'll Get the Seats

CNN is running a new six-part series every Sunday featuring movies from the Golden Age onward;  Tom Hanks is one of the producers.  As someone who loves movies, I took a look but then gave up in despair. I thought they would select a few outstanding movies from the different eras and perform in-depth examinations of the film and its stars.  I was looking for nostalgia on steroids. That's not what this treatment is about and, to be fair, I think it is well done for what they are doing.

The CNN presentation is a sociological exercise showing how the movies of particular decades reflect the culture of those times.  So you have a scene or two from a movie with voice-over comments and then a cut to another movie and the continuing theme of that era. And it is loaded with commercial breaks (eight minutes of entertainment,  five minutes of ads).

I would view scenes from a movie such as Chicago and then, SLASH, it was gone and scenes from another movie appears. And on and on.  It was like those annoying informercials that come on in the cheap time-buys for people selling music from the past: Country Western, The Fifties, The Sixties, and on and on by decades. Listen to "Autumn Leaves" by Nat King Cole:  "The falling leaves, drift by the window, the autumn leaves of red and gold." SLASH "I wonder who's kissing her now" Hey, damn it,  I'm singing here...go back and pick it up, "I see your lips, the summer kisses, the sun-burned hands I used to hold. Since you went away, the days grow long, and soon I'll hear old winter's song..."  I'm not buying your freaking music because you cut me off from Autumn Leaves.

Same with the movies.  I would have wanted a "60 Minutes" format with 15 minutes segments devoted to great movies.   Important scenes could be shown with appropriate comments as you remember the magic of the film and its stars.  For the truly great films you could focus a half hour,  such as Godfather I & II.  But Tom Hanks never called to ask my opinion.

I will digress to tell you I believe the Godfather I & II combined to be the greatest movie ever made.  The writing, the casting (every character dead on), the location shooting, the theme music, (la da da da da da da da, da, da, oh, my).  If you don't agree with me on this it doesn't mean your judgment is suspect or you're a bad person; just don't ask me to go to the movies with you.