Faith, Folklore, and Friends

Image from Wikipedia I can't remember the first time I heard my Daddy tell the story.  A friend of his, who apparently didn't get out much, hitched a ride to town one Saturday.  Red clover was in bloom all along the roadside.  The friend, astounded, looked out and said, "Just look at all those strawberries!" My Daddy thought it was hilarious, and told the story every time we were riding and saw some red clover outside the car window. We, being terribly smart and contemporary, would roll our eyes at each other, smirking at that lame story we were hearing for the hundredth time. Image from Wikipedia Isn't it crazy, and isn't it sad, that by the time we are mature enough to realize the value in some stories, the storyteller is no longer with us?  This story was a part of who my Daddy was, and a part of who we all were, part of the glue that bound us together as a family. We are lonesome animals.  We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. ...

                         Wikipedia Image Today is the birthday of the John Steinbeck (02/27/1902-12/20/1966), the author of 27 books.  His works include Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, The Pearl , and The Red Pony . He won the Nobel prize for literature in 1962.  I have read several of his books, but my favorite is  The Grapes of Wrath , Steinbeck's story of dust-bowl Oklahoma tenant farmers migrating to California.   The Grapes of Wrath  won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940, and sold millions of copies during Steinbeck's lifetime.  Of course, I have seen the movie starring a very young Henry Fonda. My first-born son is a voracious reader, just like his mama.  This year, we are planning to read as many Pulitzer Prize winning novels that we can.  I've read three already: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, and The Optimist's Daughter by Eud...