Dear Alben: Mr. Barkley of Kentucky (1979) By James K. Libbey

 

This summer I picked up several books – a $5 bag to be precise – at the McCracken County Library’s book fair. McCracken County includes Paducah, Kentucky, across the Ohio River and down a few miles from where I live. One of the books I selected while browsing was a biography of Alben Barkley, a name I recognized but actually knew little about. Lake Barkley in the Land-Between-the Lakes is named after Barkley, as is the regional airport in Paducah. I knew he was a longtime Congressman, and I was vaguely aware he was Vice-President under President Harry Truman.

The book is an interesting read.  Barkley grew up in western Kentucky, near Fancy Farm – home of a legendary annual political fair and picnic. He made his early career in Paducah – as County Judge Executive (in Kentucky this is the title given to the county administrator). Barkley won his first term in Congress during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency. Politically speaking it was a different era, Kentucky was reliably Democratic and patronage, not policy, was the name of the game. Barkley was a master of the patronage and spoils system. He also successfully secured federal funding for a bridge across the Ohio River from Paducah, KY to Brookport, IL -- a big boost for the local economy.

Eventually, Barkley moved up to become a U.S. Senator – and this is the part of his history that I knew nothing about. In due time he was selected as the Senate Majority Leader – as such, he served as the point man on legislation proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to lift the country out of the Great Depression – putting him at the heart of the New Deal -- and making him perhaps the most popular Democrat after FDR – and one of the few who could bridge the schism between northern progressives and southern conservatives in the party.  Many of his colleagues were ready to support Barkley as a presidential candidate in the 1948 election. However, FDR’s death had elevated Vice-President Harry Truman to the White House, and Barkley was unwilling to challenge an incumbent Democrat.

An aside:  Barkley’s maternal grandmother was a cousin to the first Adlai Stevenson, making Barkley a distant relative and contemporary of Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson II, who managed to win the 1952 Democrat Presidential nomination that many say was meant for Barkley.  Stevenson then went on to predictable defeat running against war hero General Dwight Eisenhower.  The first Stevenson by-the-way was Vice President under Grover Cleveland's second presidential term.

Recommendation:  Like many biographers, Libbey’s treatment of Barkley borders on idolatry – that said, it is a great read for political junkies, and those familiar with west Kentucky geography.

Fly Already (2013-2018 Hebrew, 2019 Yiddish Translation, 2019 English Translation) By Etgar Keret

 

“Daddy Look!”  It is amazing how two people can look at the same situation and produce entirely different interpretations. For example: a father is taking his son to the park when the kid spots a man standing on the edge of a roof top. “Is he a superhero?” asks the kid, as his father yells “don’t do it!”  Ah, the trials and tribulations of being a dad, talking down a potential suicide, without alarming his son. “Fly already” shouts the kid!

Fly Already is the title story in a 2019 English translation of short stories by Etgar Keret, a phenomenal and fun writer. I have read several of his books and attended a lecture he gave in Chicago some years ago. He has a virtual trademark irreverent sense of humor, fun despite his seeming obsession with suicides, a frequent subject in his writing.

Many of his works have a semi-autobiographical touch to them, particularly those with a father and young son storyline. Keret explained once that as a writer he does not work regular hours, so he is similar to a “stay at home Dad,” while his wife works a 9 to 5-plus. He spends a lot of time at the playground in the park.

In addition to Fly Already, other stories in the collection are:

A sad, but hysterically funny story about a man who seems to have failed at everything in life, titled The Next-to-Last Time I Was Shot Out of a Cannon.

The book’s cover art, a fish smoking on a balcony, relates to At Night, a short story about a boy who cannot sleep and gets out of bed. Every night he sees a Goldfish who has exited its fishbowl and is watching television with the volume turned off. The fish will go back into the bowl before dawn.

One of the less funny stories in the collection is Windows, about a man who has been hit by a car and loses his memory. He is placed in an “apartment” to recuperate and is monitored via video cam. He is only able to phone and speak with the people at the support center. He no longer knows how long he has been in rehab.

In divorce cases involving child custody Judges routinely pre-judge the mother to be the better parent and award her custody without any consideration as to whether or not that is actually true. In To The Moon and Back a father never gets to see his kid on his birthday, always the next day. Equally routine, fathers will then overdo it on a birthday present.

Dad With Mashed Potatoes is a thought-provoking story about how children whose fathers have “gone away” find a rabbit and pretend that Dad has not really gone away, he has merely shape shifted. Drives the mother nuts.

In all there are twenty-two short stories in this collection.

Recommendation:  Light reading, fun.

I’ve previously blogged Keret’s: Suddenly a Knock at the Door and The Seven GoodYears, a Memoir.

Biophilia, The Diversity of Life, Naturalist (2021) By Edward O. Wilson

 

The Library of America’s partial collection of works by E.O. Wilson is fascinating, and at the risk of sounding silly, his memoir, titled simply Naturalist, is enchanting. His peers consider him “the natural heir to Charles Darwin.”

E. (Edward) O. Wilson is an entomologist, a branch of biology that studies insects, and a Research Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He is the world’s leading authority on myrmecology – the study of ants. He is also an exceptionally good writer, having won two Pulitzer Prizes for Literature (general nonfiction), first in 1978 for On Human Nature, the second in 1991 for The Ants. Significant to readers of his works, he created the popular course on biology for non-science majors at Harvard – he knows how to communicate to/with non-scientists.

His list of science awards is lengthy and includes: Crafoord Prize, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; Newcombe Cleveland Prize, American Association for the Advancement of Science; the Kistler Prize; the King Faisal Prize; Global Environmental Citizen Award; and the International Cosmos Prize.

Wilson was (is, he is now 92), born in Birmingham, Alabama and grew up bouncing around the Alabama gulf coast and Florida panhandle, between custody sharing parents who both moved a lot. For entertainment, he would wander around the woods and wetlands where he developed his love of all-things nature. By the time he finished high school he was an Eagle Scout and had been “born again” in the Southern Baptist Church. He was not old enough to see military service in World War II. He received both his BS and MS from the University of Alabama. Eventually he became a research assistant at Harvard, while working on a PhD, and became a tenured professor thereafter.

Reading his memoir also amounts to reading a history of advances in the science disciplines of biology – starting with field biology, through evolutionary biology, geobiology, microbiology, environmental biology, and eventually into sociobiology (human) – a field of theoretical biology that remains as controversial today as evolution was in Darwin’s time. His involvement in studies such as island biological diversity is particularly interesting – even conducting an experiment in the Florida Keys where researchers destroyed all life on several small islands so as to witness and record the “return to life” on the empty islands.

Recommendation:  Absolutely. While at times the “science” in Wilson’s writings can become a bit complex for non-scientists like me, what comes through clearly is his passion for natural biology. The Naturalist is a not necessarily easy read, but one definitely worthwhile.

My other blog posts on environmental biology include:

The Immense Journey by Loren Eiseley

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

Charles Darwin: The Naturalist Who Started a Revolution by Cyril Aydon