Summer Reading

Summer! Dry and hot today. More rain would be nice, but not at the cost of delivering a couple of summer days like last year -- June 11, when we went to Six Flags Great America and it got distinctly chilly in the evening, and another, August 27, when I took Lilly to see the minor-league Schaumburg Fliers for a home game. It rained, cleared up in time for the game to be played, and slipped just below 60 F that evening, with wind. Good thing there was a blanket handy to wrap her in.

I’m nearly done with the fascinating The Zanzibar Chest, a book by a former Reuters war correspondent in East Africa, Aiden Hartley. My brother Jay gave it to me along with a clutch of other books while I was in St. Louis last month. Hartley tells his stories well, too well sometimes, especially Somalia 1992-93 and Rwanda 1994. I’m glad someone has the mettle to be a war correspondent. I’m too phlegmatic for it, not to mention chicken.