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The night before we were to help Maggie move to Kansas City, Mo., for her first job out of college in 2003, she was rummaging around in her room. The truck was already packed, so I had no idea what she was doing. "Mom, look!" she said. "It’s a letter from my old pen pal, Mike. Remember him? He lives in Kansas City." What I remember clearly was one of those parental white lies. "Oh, yeah," I said. "Mike from Kansas City. I remember him." In truth, I had no clue, or maybe only a vague clue. It was not like I had paid attention to her mail over the years. (Call me a bad mother.) But then it slowly came back to me that this Mike was someone she had met at a youth group weekend event in Minneapolis when she was in the eighth grade. They had written to each other for a couple of years and lost track of each other. But she had this letter with his address... It was great that it made her feel better that some kid she had written to for a few years was from the same place she was going. It certainly felt more permanent—and scary—to help her move to Kansas City than it had to the University of Minnesota. A couple of months into her work there she got up the courage to find Mike and call him. As it happened, he had just finished college and was living at home while he got established in his career in finance. "Mom," she said. "I found him. I talked to Mike, and we’re going out tonight with friends." Apparently, he had just come across her letters the week before, so he remembered her very well. Is the hair standing up on the back of your neck yet? Picking up where they’d left off Afterward, she called me to ask if it was OK to kiss her pen pal—a way to tell me it was getting romantic. I said yes, not that I had a say in such matters. As the romance progressed, we loved the fairy-tale story and we loved Mike, even when he was not writing letters to my daughter. Fast forward to July 2007, when Maggie and Mike became engaged on top of Grandad Bluff (Mike picked it so they would always have a place where they could revisit the moment), and a wedding in May 2008. Writing a love story I decided to use the letters from each of them to tell part of the story (with permission) and loved reading them because they were so innocent. They were mostly about getting braces and driver’s licenses, writing notes in class and not getting caught, about school activities once more. I made a collage of the letters for the cover of the book, which I called He Wrote! She Wrote! They Wed! The Story of Mike and Maggie. As a former scrapbooker-turned-big-fan of digital books, I knew that I would use these letters as graphic devices and remembrances in the book. I scanned the letters and placed them inside the book with the messages from others. Anything you can put in a scrapbook, you can put in a digital book by scanning. Also in the book were photos, stories and good wishes from family and friends. Together this book made an incredible wedding gift. I loved scrapbooks, but the major advantages of digital books for me are these:
I also created the wedding album for Maggie and Mike using a combination of professional and personal photos. The photographer they chose provided a high-resolution disk of all the photos and permission to print them ourselves. That choice made my day. I used an oversized digital book format for that album, and it sits on their coffee table, where it gets lots of oohs and aahs from visitors. I used the speeches that guests gave as toasts with photos of the speakers and the words of a song that Maggie’s dad created for the occasion. The story goes on... Creating books is both my profession and what I love to do for the people I love. Susan Hessel is a local author that lives in La Crosse and is a frequent contributor to Coulee Region Women magazine. more > > >go top Book Reviews The Friday Night Knitting Club
Let me explain why a man would read and review The Friday Night Knitting Club. My wife belongs to such a group right here in La Crosse. Well, it’s not really a club, and it doesn’t meet on Friday night. It meets every weekday, with a rotating cast of characters rich in diverse backgrounds. Like Georgia, the protagonist in The Friday Night Knitting Club, the leader of the local group is a knit shop owner. Like Georgia, she’s a successful entrepreneur and the glue that holds the thing together. She offers knitting help to all, tears out mistakes, coaches, teaches and encourages. Of those who belong to this polyglot group, some are expert knitters and some still struggle to make a scarf. Though this has not been reported to me, I intuit that a few do not knit at all. There is comfort food that is traded around, but the real currency is information. These people know what is going on. And they share. So that’s the backdrop, the source of interest, the universe parallel to The Friday Night Knitting Club. Now to the novel. Kate Jacobs has created a lively, swiftly flowing work. It’s about friendship, sisterhood, struggle and triumph. It’s about single parenting, marriage partners separated by a continent, nontraditional career pursuit and a betrayal of friendship. It’s also about the blooming of a late-in-life romance. It’s certainly about mother-daughter relationships, and especially about Dakota, Georgia’s daughter. The setting is the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and right away there is a disconnect for the reader. How does a struggling single mom, with no visible means of support other than an equally struggling small business, afford not only the rent for her shop but a decent apartment on the next floor? In one of the world’s highest-rent districts? The puzzle is solved by the end of the story, but by then I was so caught up in the plot and with concern for the characters that it no longer mattered. The story has flaws. Dakota is just a little too precocious. The multiple strands of the plot tangle and are straightened out a little too easily. Life doesn’t solve problems of this magnitude quite so neatly. Some of the solutions are predictable, and, with one major exception, end in fairy-tale denouements. You will enjoy nonetheless. The story will grab you and pull you along. Jacobs is particularly effective in transitioning from one character’s point of view to the next. There are two major reasons for reading this novel, reasons that probably apply to most fiction. The first is simply for enjoyment. You will relate to the characters. You, or someone close to you, has struggled with one or more of the challenges the club members encounter. The second reason is self-improvement. How can I be a better friend? Maybe I should refrain from judging others too quickly. Who needs my support, and how can I give it? Can I forgive? The story is syrupy at times, but sweet can be good. Kate Jacobs inserts seven or eight practical knitting tips as dividers or prefaces. It was only after I finished reading that I realized each of these tips is a life lesson as much as it is knitting instruction. In one of them she merely writes: “Ripping it out. All you really have to do is forgive.” Chew on that while the soul food goes around. Look for a knitting club near you, or just read the book. You do not have to be a woman or a knitter to enjoy it. The Friday Night Knitting Club is available in libraries and at bookstores in paperback. It would be a great travel companion.  Knitting for Peace
More serious knitters might want to consider Knitting for Peace by Betty Christiansen. It’s a hard-cover miniature coffee table book. The author gives us historical examples of women knitting in time of conflict, beginning with farm women near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, bringing warm knitted goods to Washington’s troops suffering through a winter. The U.S. Sanitary Commission, the precursor to the Red Cross, knit socks and caps for Civil War soldiers. From purely charitable work, knitting took on business roles as well. More than 100 women in Bosnia knit units for Snow Cabin Goods, a Boston area firm that marketed and distributed their products. These former professional women dressed up, came to work, changed into sweats and produced something of value in their war-ravaged country. Or, picture women in Kenya sitting on blankets with their children, knitting animals for sale. And the knitting comes full circle, back to charitable work such as producing afghans for Afghans, prayer shawls for those who need the comfort provided by both the material and the thought behind it. There is more. The Snuggles project creates warm blankets for animal shelters. Others make chemo caps. There are pages and pages of knitting instruction. There is also information on how to contribute, and, by extrapolation, maybe how to create your own channel of distribution. Knitters will particularly enjoy and profit. Reviews were written by Bill Leonard who is an avid reader. He is a Managing Partner with People First HR Solutions, a local HR consulting firm. go topPhotos/Slides
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