Happy Halloween ~

Be Safe ~ Have Fun


Photo:  family files lbw

Anne Vallentin has a voice when it comes to an ecological understanding of not only our community but of our entire fragile planet.

Most of us know Anne for the stand that she took when  Edward's Station was designated by the Province as a major dump site.  She worked tirelessly to draw attention to the ill-advised project and helped coordinate community volunteers to bring together the best minds.

Later, her interest in the environment led to studies including the little-known Kogi from the Sierra Nevada mountains in Columbia and the belief that in any society, wisdom lies with the elders.

We are honoured to host an afternoon with Anne in The Neat Little Bookshop.   Join us in discussions on sustainability, organic gardening and farming and ways that we can each make a difference.

Thursday, November 1, 1:00 p.m.

The Neat Little Bookshop

 

Photos:  Haldimand County lbw

Kogi Village Columbia ~ Wikipedia



Group of Seven ~ McMichael Gallery

 

Cayuga Pines

 The McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario will feature a special exhibit of Tom Thomson's paintings.

Opening Saturday, November 3, 2012 - January 6, 2013, an exhibition that toured European cities during the past year, makes its only Canadian stop in Kleinburg.

Over 120 works from public and private collections include Thomson's The Jack Pine and The West Wind.

www.mcmichael.com

Old Brewery Bay ~ Stephen Leacock Home lbw

"After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books.  The true University of these days is a collection of books."



~ Thomas Carlyle
Of Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic, 1841.

"So there you have it, a lifetime of first smelling the books, they all smell wonderful, reading the books, loving the books, and remembering the books."
~ Ray Bradbury

"The moment a book is lent, I begin to miss it.  My mind goes to the gaps as one's tongue goes to a cavity.  Until the book is returned, I feel like a parent waiting up in the small hours for a teenage son or daughter to come home from the dubious party."
~Anatole Broyard

"An ordinary man can...surround himself with two thousand books...and thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is possible to be happy."
~ Augustine Birrell

"There was no answer, no solution, no sop, no deliverance.  What, then, did I do?  I read faster."
~ Leo Rosten

~ A Passion for Books, Edited by H. Rabinowitz & Rob Kaplan. Three Rivers Press, 1999.

Old Brewery Bay ~ Stephen Leacock Home lbw

(Click on photos for larger image. lbw)

Doris Kienitz has written the story of her parents' escape from East Germany.  Alfred Kienitz shares the harrowing experience through his daughter's book.
Today we are pleased to host an afternoon with Doris and her father in The Neat Little Bookshop.

SAT., OCT., 27, 1:00 p.m.  Please drop by.  "Coffee pot's always on..."

Written with "grace, honesty and humility,*" Doris and her father document an era that most would prefer to forget but most agree must never be forgotten.

Albert Kienitz, John & Cindy Bird
An Afternoon With The Author, Doris Kienitz

John and Cindy Bird were in The Neat Little Bookshop today to meet Doris Kienitz and her father Albert Kienitz.  Many of Albert's stories of his family and the escape from East Germany were shared this afternoon with interested listeners.  Thank you, Mr. Kienitz, for telling a story that generations will appreciate and not forget.  Children and grandchildren were among the folks who dropped in to visit with Albert.

R. L. Moore has a Few Stories of His Own to Tell

* Jessica Bradshaw, Canadian author

ESCAPE

Author Doris Kienitz With Her Father Alfred

While assisting others to escape East Germany, young Alfred along with his parents and other family members secretly planned their own escape.  It was important to include the family pet ~ a beautiful purebred dog due to give birth to valuable puppies that could be delivered and sold in their new country.  Nature doesn't always co-operate.  The puppies' story is one of the tense moments described in ESCAPE.

    The Neat Little Bookshop is pleased to host an afternoon with the author and her father on Saturday, October 27, 1:00 p.m.  Everyone welcome.  "Coffee pot's always on. . ."

Photo:  Presentation at The York Grand River Historical Society.  lbw

THE FIRST DRUG SQUAD ~

by KIRK DU GUID

"Drugs started to invade southern Ontario in quantity in the early 1970's, and the Ontario Provincial Police hierarchy decided it was time to form their first "Drug Squad."  This is the story of how a fledgling Drug Squad might have been established in those early days.  It chronicles how officers may have reacted to a new and hazardous form of policing they had never encountered before."

Kirk Du Guid is a retired Ontario Provincial Police Detective Sergeant.  He lives in the Amaguin Highlands in Burk's Falls, Ontario.  This is his forth book.

Available at The Neat Little Bookshop $15.

The First Drug Squad ~
A Much Anticipated New Book   

Visiting With Author, Kirk Du Guid

Dianna Christmas-Kehoe and Author Kirk Du Guid Share a Laugh

Veteran, Art Simmons with Wife, Anne & Daughter Visit with Kirk Du Guid

Art Simmons' story is in Kirk's book, Soldiers' Stories, published in 2009.

Kirk Du Guid and Cayuga Resident, Rick Meesters

Friends came to pick up a copy of Kirk Du Guid's latest book, The First Drug Squad, 2012.  Available at The Neat Little Bookshop $15.


  The Author with Fan Faye Farrance   (Serious for a Photo)

"Thank you, Mr. Du Guid, for a great day and for what appears to be another great book!"

(Click on photos for larger images ~ lbwalker)



Ouse Street Cayuga

INDIAN SUMMER ~ Emily Dickinson

THESE are the days when birds come back,

A very few, a bird or two,

To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies put on

The old, old sophistries of June, ~

A blue and gold mistake.

Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,

Almost thy plausibility

Induces my belief,

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,

And softly through the altered air

Hurries a timid leaf!

Oh, sacrament of summer days,
Oh, last communion in the haze,
Permit a child to join,

Thy sacred emblems to partake,
Thy consecrated bread to break,
Taste thine immortal wine!

(Photo:  October 25, 2012 lbw)

 Meet the Author ~

Kirk Du Guid

 Kirk Du Guid will be in The Neat Little Bookshop Thursday, October 25 at 10:00 a.m. until noon.  Drop in, say "Hi" and pick up Kirk's latest book, "The First Drug Squad."  Kirk is the author of "The First Cold Case" and "Soldiers' Stories."

(Photo:  files lbwalker)



Ruthven Park 243 Hwy. 54, Cayuga

 "From Ruthven to Passchendael" ~ a play with puppets by Studio Babette.

Remembrance Day, Sunday, November 11, 2:00 p.m.

PD Day, Friday, November 16, 10:00 a.m.

This production commemorates the upcoming anniversary of World War I by honouring the sacrifices made by the Thompson family of Cayuga and Brock's Rangers.
Watch for upcoming event.  Please visit   www.ruthvenpark.ca or www.studiobabette.ca for information.

Photo:  lbwalker

On Writing ~
E. Hemingway  (Two letters in March, 1925.  Paris.)

To:  Horace Liveright (American Publisher):  "As the contract only mentions excisions it is understood of course that no alterations of words shall be made without my approval.  This protects you as much as it does me as the stories are written so tight and so hard that the alteration of a word can throw an entire story out of key...There is nothing in the book that has not a definite place in its organization and if I at any time seem to repeat myself I have a good reason for doing so." 

To Dr. C.E.Hemingway  (EH's Dad):  "You see I'm trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across--not to just depict life--or criticize it--but to actually make it alive.  So that when you have read something by me you actually experience the thing.  You can't do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful.  Because if it is all beautiful you can't believe in it.  Things aren't that way.  It is only by showing both sides--3 dimensions and if possible 4 that you can write the way I want to."

Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961)

~ Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917 - 1961, Edited by Carlos Baker,Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981.

William Faulkner lost his job at the University of Mississippi post office in Oxford.  The official complaint read in part:  ~

"That you are neglectful of your duties, in that you are a habitual reader of books and magazines, and seem reluctant to cease reading long enough to wait on the patrons; that you have a book being printed at the present time, the greater part of which was written on duty at the post-office; that some of the patrons will not trust you to forward their mail, because of your past carelessness and these patrons have their neighbors forward same for them while away on vacations..."

~ Literature and the Arts, R. Spangenburg & D.K. Moser, Facts on File Inc., 1997

Wm. Faulkner (1898 - 1962) American writer, Nobel Prize laureate in literature, Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Death of a Friend ~

"Though I hadn't seen much of him of recent years, we had a sort of permanent relationship...
I feel myself as if I had been suddenly robbed of some part of my own personality ~ since there must have been some aspect of myself that had been developed in relation to him."

~ Edmund Wilson written to Zelda Fitzgerald on Scott's death

Our hearts go out today to family and friends.  Our condolences to those who have lost a dear father, husband and friend.

Photo:  lbwalker

The Ballad of East and West
~ Ruyard Kipling

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the earth!

~ Ruyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) English author, poet, The Jungle Book, Kim, Just So Stories.

Image Wikipedia

Visit www.poetryloverspage.com for complete poem

A WHIRL-BLAST FROM BEHIND THE HILL
~ Wm. Wordsworth


A whirl-blast from behind the hill
Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound:
Then all at once the air was still,
And showers of hailstones pattered round.
Where leafless Oaks towered high above,
I sate within an undergrove
Of tallest hollies, tall and green,
A fairer bower was never seen.
From year to year the spacious floor
With withered leaves is covered o'er,
You could not lay a hair between:
And all the year the bower is green.
But see!  where'er the hailstones drop
The withered leaves all skip and hop,
There's not a breeze ~ no breath of air ~
Yet here, and there, and everywhere
Along the floor, beneath the shade
By those embowering hollies made,
The leaves in myriads jump and spring,
As if with pips and music rare
Some Robin Goodfellow were there,
And all those leaves, that jump and spring,
Were each a joyous, living thing.

Oh! grant me Heaven a heart at ease
That I may never cease to find,
Even in appearances like these
Enough to nourish and to stir my mind!

~ Wm. Wordsworth (1770 - 1850) English Romantic Poet

Soldiers' Stories ~  Thursday, October 25

Kirk Du Guid did a wonderful thing when he interviewed twenty-five veterans in Haldimand County.  Their stories in their own words are in Kirk's book, Soldiers' Stories.

True Stories

Retired O.P.P. officer, Kirk Du Guid, who has a new release, The First Drug Squad, will be signing books in The Neat Little Bookshop Thursday morning, October, 25, from 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Join us for a coffee (or tea) and perhaps as old friends do, share some memories.  Free admission, everyone welcome.

Haldimand County Staff
Economic Development & Tourism Division

Net-working ~ Small Business Week

"Where the wonders of the Grand River Meet Lake Erie" ~  Staff sharing information including cycling maps and birding maps of Haldimand County, at the annual BIZ BREAKFAST, Cayuga.

Breakfast sponsored by The Sachem, Cayuga and District Chamber of Commerce and Haldimand Flyer Force.  Co-sponsored by:  Grand Erie Business Centre, Haldimand County Public Libraries, Haldimand County and St. Leonard's Community Services.





Cayuga Street Business ~ Individual and Group Lessons



We are pleased to welcome the music studio to 8 Cayuga Street *:  Progressive Music Studio.  Voice, Piano, Guitar, Bass, Theory ~ Pop, Rock, Country, Jazz and Classical Music.

*Home of the original Herb Martindale Neat Little Bookshop.

The Raven ~ Edgar Allan Poe

"Open here I flung the shutter when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;"

~ Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849) American poet, writer, editor, literary critic.  Poe wrote the poem "The Raven" only two years before his death in October, 1849.

Illustration: John Tenniel, 1858 (Wikipedia).

 

"...suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

"Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door ~

Only this and nothing more..."

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me ~ filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
"Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door ~ "

~ Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven

(View from the bookshop window.  Thank you ladies for your fun display.  Can't help but bring a smile! Corner of Hwy. 3 & Cayuga Street. Click on photo for larger image.)

On Writing ~ Ernest Hemingway

"A letter some time ago from Maxwell E. Perkins let me in on the little secret that you work eight hours every day ~ Joyce I believe worked twelve.  There was some comparison between how long it took you two great authors to finish your work.

Well Fitz you are certainly a worker.  I have never been able to write longer than two hours myself without getting utterly pooped - any longer than that and the stuff begins to become tripe...

You dirty lousy liar to say you work (write) eight hours a day."
Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961) American author, jouralist.

~Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, 9 October, 1928.   Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917 - 1961, edited by Carlos Baker, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981.

E. Hemingway

EAST GERMANY and the ESCAPE:

Kitchen Table Memoirs

Albert Kienitz signing books ~ His biography was written by his daughter, Doris

"She tells it with grace, honesty, and humility, wrapping the reader in the world her parents lived in...and ultimately left.  I did indeed find myself blotting my eyes as I read...and was relieved that my tears were tempered with the opportunity to laugh out loud, as well."

~ Jessica Bradshaw, Author of The Unbound Series.

 

Book Signing, York Grand River Historical Society

Photos:  lbwalker

www.eastgermanyandtheescape.com

Smile for Today ~

Come to me, O ye children!
For I hear you at your play,
And the questions that perplexed me
Have vanished quite away.

In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,
In your thoughts the brooklet's flow,
But in mine is the wind of Autumn

And the first fall of the snow.

For what are all our contrivings,
And the wisdom of our books,
When compared with your caresses,
And the gladness of your looks?

Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said;
For ye are living poems,
And all the rest are dead.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) American poet.

Photo:  lbwalker

Thursday Afternoons with Fascinating Personalities continues to be a fun pastime at The Neat Little Bookshop.  Conversation and lively discussions over tea has kept us learning and sharing ideas, stories and new interests ~ often meeting local authors.   Join us this fall for informal gatherings at the Round Table.

Watch for names that you recognize and some that are perhaps new to you ~ certainly always fascinating!  See you in the bookshop.

LATE NEWS:  Premier Dalton McGuinty Suddenly Resigns Today!  Proroguing the Legislature.

Afternoons With Authors
Schedule of Events

Oct. 25 Thur. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Kirk Du Guid, Author, The First Drug Squad.

Oct. 27 Sat. 1 - 3 p.m. Doris Kienitz, Author and Albert Kienitz, East Germany and the Escape.

Nov. 1 Thur. 1 - 3 p.m. Anne Vallentin, M. Ed. & Co-Chair of HALT.  Topic: "The Tao of Liberation."

Nov. 15 Thur. 1 - 3 p.m. Neil Paul, Author, A Slim Volume; Topic:  Robert Service Reading.

Free Admission, everyone welcome.  "The coffee pot's always on..."

The Neat Little Bookshop, 29 Talbot St., Cayuga, ON.905-577-5635.

(Note:  Click on Label:  Local Authors to review some of the authors.)

"Best of All He Loved the Fall" ~

Hemingway Memorial, Sun Valley, Idaho

Although written in a eulogy for his friend, Van Guilder, many believe that Hemingway wrote the prose not only for his friend but also for himself. 
"I think the fall was his favourite season.  That shows up in his writing." ~  Pat Hemingway(son), Fall issue 2005, Sun Valley News.

~ Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961), American author, journalist.
(For larger image, click on photo.)


Photo Source:  Wikipedia.  User Sca. 

 

"Dull would be he of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty." ~ William Wordsworth

Photos:  lbwalker

The Beauty of the Morning ~

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty;
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

~ Wm. Wordsworth (1770 - 1850) English romantic poet.

Photos:  lbwalker

According to Albert Einstein himself, the following is the most characteristic anecdote that could be told of the physicist (1879 - 1955):

"Einstein and an assistant, having finished a paper, searched the office for a paper clip.  They finally found one, too badly bent for use.  They looked for an implement to straighten it, and  after opening many more drawers came upon a whole box of clips.  Einstein at once shaped one into a tool to straighten the bent clip.  His assistant, puzzled, asked why he was doing this when there was a whole boxful of usable clips. 'Once I am set on a goal it becomes difficult to deflect me,' said Einstein."

~ THE LITTLE, BROWN BOOKS OF Anecdotes. Clifton Fadiman General Editor, 1985.

York Grand River Historical Society, Special Guests: Doris Kienitz and her father, Alfred.

The true story of Alfred Kienitz, an escape from East Germany.

A presentation and book signing

Tuesday, October 16th, 2 p.m.

Caledonia, Ontario

"Everyone Welcome"

Masonic Hall., Hwy. 6 (beside the railway tracks, opposite Tim Horton's)

(Doris and Alfred Kienitz Coming to The Neat Little Bookshop on Saturday, October 27, 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.)

~ East Germany and the ESCAPE Kitchen Table Memoirs, Doris Kienitz, FriesenPress, 2011.  Available at The Neat Little Bookshop.

East Germany and the ESCAPE ~ the true story of Alfred Kienitz ~ before, during and after WWII.
Alfred's daughter, Doris Kienitz, conveys well the uncertainty and horror of everyday life under the dictatorship of Hitler whom her parents and grandparents despised.

"Of the four horses that the Kienitzes owned, Grete (pronounced Greata) had been "drafted" by the German army the previous fall.  The remaining three horses were now seized by the Russian army:  the mare Puppe (pronounced Poopa and meaning "doll"), her three-year-old, Lotte, and a ten-week-old foal.  Against their will, the horses were taken away.  Half an hour later, the Kienitzes heard a noise at the gate.  Looking out they saw Lotte had returned.  It was assumed that the soldiers, attempting to saddle her, were bucked off and the young horse ran back to her home.  Moments later she was seized again and taken away."

Doris describes the loss of family members and neighbours to war, the seizure of properties and possessions for use by the army and the drafting against their will of young able-bodied youth to walk miles to labour in a ploughed field, building an airstrip for the invaders.  This is a story of human will and determination to survive.
The author lives on the outskirts of Selkirk in Haldimand, Ontario.  We are honoured to host an afternoon with Doris and her father, Alfred, in The Neat Little Bookshop on Saturday, October 27 from 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.   Join us for tea.

"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it."

~ Wm. Arthur Ward (1921 - 1994) American writer.

DAY'S PARLOR
~ Emily Dickenson

The day came slow, till five o'clock,

Then sprang before the hills
Like hindered rubies, or the light
A sudden musket spills.

The purple could not keep the east,
The sunrise shook from fold,
Like breadths of topaz, packed a night,
The lady just unrolled.

The happy winds their timbrels took;
The birds, in docile rows,
Arranged themselves around their prince
(The wind is prince of those).

The orchard sparkled like a Jew, ~
How mighty 't was, to stay
A guest in this stupendous place,
The parlor of the day!

~ Emily Dickenson (1830 - 1886) American poet

AUTUMN

~Emily Dickinson

The morns are meeker than they were

The nuts are getting brown;

The berry's cheek is plumper,

The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,

The field a scarlet gown.

Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.

~ E. Dickinson (1830 - 1886) American Poet

Thanksgiving Greetings

Post Card from 1911

In memory of a brave soldier Merlyn Kinrade

October 6, 2012

"The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush.  It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment." ~ Robert M. Hutchins. Great Books

"If we win here we will win everywhere.  The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it." ~ Ernest Hemingway. For Whom the Bell Tolls

"A man can be destroyed but not defeated." ~ Ernest Hemingway.  The Old Man and the Sea 

Demise of Canadian Canners Ltd,

the famous packers of Aylmer/Del Monte line of Quality food products.

Joseph Rider, 2012

SIMCOE CANNING CO.

Available at The Neat Little Bookshop $20.

Like so many multi-million-dollar Canadian businesses, Canadian Canners Ltd., closed a few plants at a time ~ then disappeared for good. Simcoe, Dresden, Vancouver, Penticton, Hamilton, St. Catharines, St. Davids, Toronto, Exeter.   Jobs gone, processing plants closed and abandoned, replaced by cheap labor and imported food.  Read a detailed account by an insider with forty years in the cannery production.  Read how Canadian Canners went from fifty plants in 1957 to five in 1991.  None exist today.

A well-documented, 235 page, soft-cover book including numerous color photographs, a chronological history of Canadian Canners Ltd.

Joe Rider lives in Brantford, ON.  He spent his early years in Haldimand County and Hamilton, Ontario.