Christa's book club blog

Thank you to whoever fixed the blog, I guess it was Molly. So here is my blog from last month.

Book club
Yesterday was book club at my house. More than 25 years ago, when I was invited to join "the" bookcub I didn't think it would be such a positive force in my life. Back then I was just excited to be included in a group of women I admired and was happy and pleased that they considered me their equal. And the nice, free lunch away from the kids once a month was a great bonus. There are not really any rules in book club, to keep things simple the group has only 12 members so that each of them could host the lunch once a year. That rule has not always been hard and fast either, some members have floated in and out, but as sisters moved away they were sooner or later replaced. Janet, Sue, Laverne, Nese and myself are some of the original members. I came in after the group had been already going for maybe a year or so but since then the other 7 chairs have been filled with a variety of good women, who through their example have left a permanent stamp on my heart and mind. In the early days the conversations revolved around pregancy, child birth, diapers, tantrums and schools. In later years we discussed unruly teenagers, proms, weight loss and dinner recipies. As our families grew up so did we. For many years the companionship, the feeling of being understood and not judged held us together. For many years what we called book club was more accurately a lunch club or a Mom's play group as Tims used to tease me. Nese was the first to get restless with that arrangement, she was one of the first empty nesters and she admonished us to dig deeper, make a better effort to read the book and to discuss it. Too bad she was out of town yesterday because she would have been proud of us. The book for September was "The Help". the story delves into the lives of black maids in the 60's. We jumped into the discussion as soon as the prayer on the food was over. One of the highlights for me was when Jenny told of her childhood in Texas, her confusion at seeing the first bus load of scared, black kids arrive at their high school to the daunts and jeers of her friends parents. She had tears in her eyes when she recounted that she cried when she heard the Pres. Obama won the election, not that she voted for him but that things in America had changed that much for the better to allow this to happen. We talked about how we individually had to learn that our self worth was not determent by the clean-ness of our house or the behavior of our children. Lavern told the funny story of how she had over-reacted when her visiting teachers showed up unexpected (back in the days when she was just a new member of the church) while she, in her grubbies was in the middle of house cleaning. She was so upset and emarrassed that she slammed the door in their face. But that was just half of the story, because she had forgotten that Julie was one of those ill-treated visiting teachers and Julie was seated across the table from her at that moment. Julie added to the story that she also remembered that not only was the door slammed into their face but Lavern had yelled angrily at them also. Our new book is named "The Book Thief". The story's narrator is Death himself. I started reading it last night, I can hardly wait until our next book club.
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Roger Fife says...
"As you can clearly tell this was Mom's first stab at writing a blog. I am proud of her. Over the years I have also enjoyed book club--even though I had to enjoy much of it vicariously. Whenever it was book club day I could hardly wait to come home and hear all of the juicy stories that the women told Christa. Without book club I never would have known anything about what was going on in the private lives of people in the stake. When I was with the boys we never seemed to have any time or interest in socializing or gossiping. Unfortunately as Mom's group got older the gossip got dryer, but I still enjoy hearing the post game report. There are other benefits of book club. It is especially enjoyable when it is Christa's turn to host the affair. She always puts extra effort into cooking something special to impress her friends. Thankfully, I am considered one of her best friends and she always manages to make sure that there is some left over for me. She also spends a week or so cleaning the house and trimming the bushes so the house will look good. I certainly cannot complain about that. Finally, Many of the books that I have enjoyed reading over the years have been books that were suggested or discussed in book club. Some of them I read first and then suggested that Christa see what the girls think about them. I actually enjoy the second hand discussions that I have with Christa. It is almost as if I were a hidden book club member. I don't have to put up with trying to socialize with a house full of women but at the same time I still get to benefit from their discussions. I think that really is a win-win situation."