Brad Smith & fan Ken Vollick





Brad has a new book coming out this year ~ the wildly anticipated third in the Virgil Cain Series, Shoot the Dog.

  

http://books.simonandschuster.ca/Red-Means-Run/Brad-Smith/9781451673999 

Watch a video related to Red Means Run including scenes in Cayuga.

Brad's books are available at The Neat L'l Bookshop.

Spring Calendar

Thursday, April 18th, 1 p.m. John Passfield
Thursday, May 16th,  1 p.m. Jose Penny
Thursday, June 20th, 1 p.m. Laurie Miller

"Everyone Welcome ~ Mark your calendar!"

Grand River Indiana

This is Ontario ~ by Katherine Hale, c. 1937.
Katherine's strategy for her journey:

"We decided that the first journey into southern Ontario would skirt this lake [Lake Erie] to Port Maitland, the mouth of the Grand River, from where we should explore its valley.  We were surrounded by maps and folders.  The patterns of these maps, woven of the cobweb lines of railroads and motor roads, dotted with towns and rivers and many series of minute lakes and islands, and the folders with their photographs and information about industries and tourists attractions failed to whet our sense of adventure.  We thought that there was only one thing for us, or anyone who intended to enjoy the road ~ it was to draw an extra map of one's own, which should be coloured with associations as well as facts.  It would be a map whose design is influenced by experience of travel, and would therefore be of unconventional outline.  We knew, for instance, that we would be sure to hurry by some dull, important monument and to pause with entranced interest beside another, to drive with pleasant or picturesque ghosts out of history, and to step on the gas if they became tiresome..."

Authors' Book Fair Today 11am ~ 4pm

Click on Poster for larger image

Note:  Dunnville Author Brad Smith 11:30 a.m.

Reading excerpts from his "Virgil Cain Series"



Brad Smith



Reading from Red Means Run

Watch for Brad's third in the Virgil Cain Series, Shoot The Dog, coming out this year.  ("No dogs get shot in the book.")



Old Railway Bridge Cayuga

 This is Ontario, copyright 1937. Katherine Hale describes her venture along the Grand River ~ travelling north.

"We were tracing our way on the River Road from Dunnville, through farmlands...
Here begins the continuous series of bridges which we will follow for a hundred and eighty miles.  Wooden bridges, stone bridges, wide modern cement bridges, tell the story of the valley from the day of ox-carts to automobiles.  The first we noticed was at Cayuga, a town which was named after one of the Six Nation tribes ~ "The people of the Great Pipe."  Caledonia, further up, has a larger bridge of ten spans.  With every mile that we drove the trees in greater frequency and beauty lined the road, or were grouped into small woods.  The entire valley is a paradise for tree lovers and an ideal field for the student of forest resources."

~ This is Ontario, Katherine Hale, The Ryerson Press, 1937.
Photo: lbw
Tomorrow: Katherine Hale's interesting strategy for enjoying a journey.

"There is an enchantment about this valley, which only those who were born under a river spell can understand.  The magic of the earth is in it.  It is bound to the earth, as the spaces of lake and ocean are bound to the sky.  As we turned to follow the course of the stream, it was as if a minstrel were singing a song that we had often heard before; something recalled from childhood about wandering with the river past stone dykes and busy towns into a land of meadows and perpetual summer.

"We were tracing our way on the River Road from Dunnville, through farmlands and along the old lumber trails, where in other days the logs from these rich forests were floated on a strong current that took them from Brantford down to Lake Erie.
"Some of the descendants of these trees are now transformed to hold telephone and Niagara Power Lines..."

~ Katherine Hale describing travelling up stream along the Grand River.  This Ontario, The Ryerson Press, 1937
Tomorrow:  Hale follows the Grand River to Cayuga.

"Many people walk in and out of your life,
But only true friends will leave their footprints in your heart...
Learn from the mistakes of others;
You can't live long enough to make them all yourself...
Friends, you and me...you brought a friend...
And now there are three...we started a group...
Our circle of friends...and like that circle...
There is no end...
Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is mystery.
Today is a gift."

~ Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 - 1962) First Lady, United States of America from 1933 - 1945.