Christmas on South Second Street

I'll be returning to the Marias Heritage Center this evening (Tuesday) at six to share some good reading and history with some of the residents. I would like to thank Marie Ostrem for filling in for me last Tuesday while I was back in Minnesota. I'm planning to continue with Great Falls literacy teacher and winner of "The Montana Book Award". Ruth McLaughlin's "Bound Like Grass" or as it is becoming known, "101 Reasons NOT to live on the high plains near Culbertson in Eastern Montana". Talk about getting a lump of coal in your Christmas stocking...this could be worse AND last longer! I'll also be reading one of my favorite Christmas stories this evening, "Christmas on West Seventh Street" penned by a man I had the pleasure of interviewing and getting to know a few years back. He's Jerry Fearing and for more than 40 years, Jerry was staff artist and cartoonist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch back in the Twin Cities. His books have included "The Sioux Uprising", "The Story of Minnesota", "That Wild Campaign of '68", and "Fearing Revisited-Twenty Years of Cartoons". "Christmas on West Seventh Street" is a wonderful snapshot in cartoons and text of a special time and place. Fearing says, "Only now, when so much of it is gone or changed, do I realize what a treat it was growing up on 'West Seventh". Every generation, of course, has its own setting, a time and place that can never be again, but Mr. Fearing's delightful read is also a universal one that strikes a chord in each of us. I'm looking forward myself to spreading a little Christmas cheer this evening (Tuesday, 12/20) at the Marias Heritage Center. See you at SIX for "Christmas on SEVENTH"!