Richie's Picks: THE OFF SEASON by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Houghton
Mifflin, June 2007, ISBN: 0-618-68695-9
"And I called my farm 'muscle in my arm'
But the land was sweet and good and I did what I could"
-- Traditional, "When I First Came to this Land"
If you have yet to read DAIRY QUEEN -- a Richie's Picks Best of 2006 title
_http://www.richiespicks.com/users/stories/picks/dairy_queen.html_
(http://www.richiespicks.com/users/stories/picks/dairy_queen.html) , and the book
for
which this is the sequel -- then you might hold off reading this review and,
instead, go read DAIRY QUEEN first.
"All of a sudden he blurted out, 'You ever date a football player?'
"I thought for a minute about going to the movies with Troy Lundstrom. 'Not
really.'
" 'Me neither,' he said, looking off over the trees." -- from DAIRY QUEEN
THE OFF SEASON picks up right where DAIRY QUEEN ends, with both the new
school year and the official high school football season beginning while, at the
same time, the relationship between DJ (Darlene Joyce) Schwenk and Brian
Nelson is seriously revving up. For many readers, the humor and complexities in
the evolving relationship between these two football players from rival high
schools will serve quite well by itself in making this a great read.
Readers will also become thoroughly caught up in the thought-provoking and
well-researched aspects of the book that deal with the grave, life-altering
risks and consequences involved when twenty-two large, fast, and well-practiced
players repeatedly smash into each other on the field of play:
"Everyone else stood up, getting off the ground in that way you do when
you've hit the grass a million times in your life and you know you'll hit it a
million more. I wanted to stand up too, stand like you always do. Because if
you don't, it means that you're either really wimpy or really hurt, and who
would want to be either one of those? But I couldn't."
But apart from the romance and the violence, the aspect of THE OFF SEASON
upon which I've been reflecting involves the Schwenk farm serving as a model of
so many of today's family farms across America -- at least, the ones that
are still remaining in the face of new housing developments and the
consolidation of family farms into the agribusinesses about which Eric Schlosser
speaks
in CHEW ON THIS
_http://www.richiespicks.com/users/stories/picks/chew_on_this.html_
(http://www.richiespicks.com/users/stories/picks/chew_on_this.html) .
"I might as well just quit high school right now and work for Dad, slaving
away for eighteen hours a day while we lost even more money and after a
century of backbreaking work had to sell to some developer who'd turn our
beautiful
soil into driveways and basements, and our cows into dinner."
"Scarecrow on a wooden cross, blackbird in the barn
Four hundred empty acres that used to be my farm
I grew up like my daddy did, my grandpa cleared this land
When I was five I walked the fence while grandpa held my hand
-- John Mellencamp "Rain on the Scarecrow"
_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9Iy2Jw4DVk_
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9Iy2Jw4DVk)
I was a little kid on Long Island, far enough back in time that I can
remember when there was still a dairy farm on Manetta Hill Road in Plainview (back
when the Long Island Expressway only extended east to South Oyster Bay Road).
When we moved east from Plainview to East Northport, there was still a
dairy over on Jericho Turnpike in Elwood, and I'd walk along the periphery of
hundreds of acres of potatoes and pumpkins each morning after they opened Grace
Hubbs School in 1964. Meanwhile, Shari grew up out here, down in Silicon
Valley when it was still full of apricot and plum orchards. Now that is all
long gone, too.
In the upcoming Richard Peck book, ON THE WINGS OF HEROES, there is a very
funny scene involving the young main character, his best friend, and an old
car they find which had been manufactured locally by a company that only built
a hundred or so of them before falling victim to the economies of scale that
the larger manufacturers were already achieving back in the 1930s. We've all
seen the disappearing family grocery stores, bookstores, stationary stores,
hardware stores, and coffee shops. An old goatfarming friend of mine was
complaining the other day because there is no longer a corner barbershop to go
sit in and chat while waiting your turn, and so now he is required to make an
appointment to go get a haircut in a corporate-owned salon.
There is a romanticism concerning family farms that remains alive in
America. Kids are still growing up with CHARLOTTE'S WEB and Old McDonald's Farm
just as we Baby Boomers did. But from back in the days that my grandfather was
learning to read until the recent time when our current middle school
students were learning to read, the farming population in America has dwindled
from
32 million people to under 5 million. Does that romanticism mean that family
farms are something to be supported and preserved in a way that has not been
done for other businesses? A 1998 USDA study _http://www.csree
s.usda.gov/nea/ag_systems/pdfs/time_to_act_1998.pdf_
(http://www.csrees.usda.gov/nea/ag_systems/pdfs/time_to_act_1998.pdf)
found that federal policies over the past couple of decades have actually
favored agribusinesses over the family farms.
THE OFF SEASON will have many readers thinking about whether something
should be done to help preserve this way of life. As with DAIRY QUEEN, it will
certainly erase many a romantic notion about farming for some readers, and will
undoubtedly ignite some notions of becoming a farmer for others.
Richie Partington
Student, SJSU SLIS
_http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/)
_http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks_ (http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks)
_BudNotBuddy@aol.com_ (mailto:BudNotBuddy@aol.com)
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