Hello everyone and welcome to the Ribbon Book Club, a Dear America podcast.My name is Jen.I'm Kate.And we kept it together.We're keeping it tight and we're keeping it on track because We are starting a brand new book and we are ready to go.
This book is called West to a Land of Plenty the diary of Teresa Angelino Viscardi and it takes place in 1883 and our protagonist Teresa is traveling from New York to the Idaho territory.
Fun, you know before we dive in I feel like this one is One it's like a the first real departure from what I would call iconic American history.
Yeah, I I would agree with that It's a little it's much more niche.Mm-hmm As opposed to like the Oregon Trail.Yeah, I said Oregon You said it so clearly to
so michigan too yeah yeah well yeah this is i think this is the first book that's not like oh this is about this period in history right although we did say reconstruction while you know definitely a part of american history yeah it's an pretty niche in and of itself yeah widely recognized it's an often overlooked era but it is still like a definable era certainly but
yeah this one is very much like there's going to be a lot of comparisons i think to hattie's story that neither of us can remember the title of at the moment it's a shit normally oh oh across the wine and lonesome prairie there we go yes there are going to be a lot of parallels there but obviously this one takes place about 60 years in the future
no 47 was Hattie and this is 83 okay so we're about 30 some years which doesn't seem like that much that's really just a generation yeah kind of a generation and a half but yeah yeah good yeah um so anyway so this book was written by Jim Murphy our second male author
How does that make you feel?
You know, having read the whole book, I did not know that it was a man.Well, when you're unemployed, what else am I going to do?I also, so Jen sent me roughly 200 pages worth of JSTOR articles.
Yep, I couldn't find a single book that was fitting for this.There was one book that was about Italian Americans in the West, in the US West. And they wanted $44 for a single copy and I just couldn't.So we're doing JSTOR articles this time.
I did read through of the 200 pages.I actually did print out all of them, but I was like four pages to one page on printing.
oh okay yeah just to save on the paper and ink i guess um but there was a lot of information that it looks like it applies until you start getting into the article and you're like oh this has nothing to do yeah like one was about the english versus southern custom of do you
fence cattle out?So are you, no seriously yeah, are you responsible for putting the fence around your property to stop livestock from trampling your things?Or do you have to fence your animals in?And how does that relate to the railroad?Because
It was the way that we all divided the land in the United States, and the different regions and settlements of the United States did it differently.And they were at odds with each other, ranchers versus farmers.
In fact, in the movie play, Oklahoma, they talk about how divided ranchers and farmers, or cattlemen or cowmen versus farmers, were in Oklahoma.So in this time period.
Is that what that musical's about?
Partially. Oklahoma is about a lot of things.Primarily, it's a love story.And it's also about very gray characters.
Every time I've seen that show, it's under duress.
Really?It's actually one of my favorites.
And one of the times was with you.
And it was the Hugh Jackman one.
Yeah, of course, because that's the best one.Thanks.Which was really... I know, but you don't like Hugh Jackman because you're stupid and wrong.I love you so much.I do.I love you.
You are my favorite human being who I'm not actively in a marriage with.Oh, good.Good job.Thank you.Captain PG! You are.I love you.I do.I was fantasizing last night about moving away, but I would have to tell you.
I was like, what if we just moved away and we didn't tell anybody where we went?And I think about that all the time.And I was like, I'd tell Jen.
Yeah, but I would keep that secret.
I know you would.That's why you would get to be told. When I someday buy a lake house, you'll have the address to the lake house.You'll probably have your own key to the lake house.
I don't know if I'm ever going to get a lake house, but that's my dream.
Yeah, we can dream.Anyway, I can sense that this was all leading up to you telling me that my opinions are bad and wrong.
Your opinions are bad, wrong, dumb, and stupid.To be fair, so are some of yours. False.Next question.
Yeah, no, we, it's, they're just small peanuts things, matters of opinions that we have, but there are legitimately things that we cannot discuss in depth because we just disagree so fundamentally.
gosh but instead of being something that like you know is like defining someone's humanity or politics they're just movies yeah jen doesn't like the way hugh jackman sings and she's wrong kate doesn't like lord of the rings which is objectively a masterpiece oh my god it's the worst she likes the hobbit movies oh you know having revisited those yeah no i don't they're trash i just like that there's a girl in it yeah it's bad
yeah but i appreciate that there's a girl they tried yeah they tried whereas like they did not try with the other ones they didn't and you know that's always going to be a criticism of tolkien but in in his defense he was just a world war one man through and through and he just
I think World War I is secretly a very gay time because, you know, they were in the trenches.
They trauma bonded.It was, you know, probably a lot more platonic than ancient Greece, for example.Right. But you know.Keep it at PG.But you know, there is a lot of tension.There's a lot of tension there.
And that carries through to the relationship between Sam and Frodo.And so I think there's a lot of great representation in that way.
I do like the character of Samwise, Gamgee.Yeah.And I like Hobbit aesthetic.Yeah. So you've gotten me that far.Also, every time Viggo Mortensen kicks a helmet, breaks his toe, and I think about the fact that that was the take that worked.
It was.I think about that almost daily.Anyways, should we talk about the book?
Well, how did we get started on this?
No, we're so off track.We started so professionally.And now we're talking about Viggo Mortensen breaking his toe.Also, he knows how to open doors correctly. Yes, yes.
I hate that I know exactly what you're talking about.
You know exactly what I'm talking about.
All right, so West to a Land of Plenty.Yeah.First off, having read the whole book, this is my third favorite of these books that we've read so far.
Yeah, this is very, very, very enjoyable.I think my favorite thing is that the opening pages are spent in a rage. This character is not a nice girl.And I don't mean, like, she's a perfectly fine person.She's not morally messed.
She's not a morally gray character.But she's not afraid to be mad and tell people about it.And I, who struggles with that, I come from nice girl culture where you never raise your voice and you do not advocate for yourself.
And I'm trying really, really hard in my life to get past that.I have little like pep talks about how I'm going to yell at people about things and I never do it but I know that I could always put you in, right?
I'll just take you off the bench and be like, Jen, handle this.
That's so, yeah, we're I think in general so much better at being angry on someone else's behalf.
Yeah, I'm actually good at that too.I can be an advocate for you but not for me.
yeah and yeah and i can encourage you to say nice things to yourself but not me oh exactly and it's fine if you fail but heaven forbid i'd be less than perfect oh 100 yeah i yep just just flip that and that's absolutely because you're a human being yeah so but yeah this is very refreshing to see someone just so wholeheartedly embracing her rage
She's furious and I think she's got grounds.I think she does too.What I loved was before I started reading this you sent me a picture of a somewhat contemporary period sampler that was stitched by a young girl.
This was stitched by Abigail something and she hated every minute.She hated every moment of it. Love that.
It's it's yeah, it's just strong like Grumpy little girl energy to our younger listeners There will be a time in your life where you are encouraged to not ever let anybody know you're mad and there is a certain power in that but it is ultimately a form of self-harm and
You are cutting your own legs off and I want you young listeners Regardless of gender.Yeah, although it is typically something more visited upon the female highly socialized upon Girls, yeah, but regardless of how you identify.Yeah, be mad.
It's okay to be mad and people are adults and they can deal with you being mad and
Mm-hmm.Also adults get mad all the time.
Yeah, it's like a constant state of being too much Depending on the situation also, I think this reminded me of I think particularly in regard to the this stitching sampler and not so much this specific character, but um
the idea of being a kid and being in school and being kind of forced to try out a bunch of different things and it's okay if you're not good and don't like something that you're being forced to try it's a part of
um school it's a part of life and being young and being you know like you have to learn a lot of things in order to be you know a functioning adult in these in today's society but uh you have to as a kid you're being forced to be exposed to a lot of those like a wide swath of
you know, math and science and history and English, you know, all these different subjects.And it's okay to not like some of them because you will find some that you do like and that will help lead you in the right direction.Absolutely.
That's our little pep talk.So the reason why Teresa is angry is furious.Actually, she starts out mad, but even before that, we just get the text of an advertisement that says, everyone is welcome to a free series of lectures.
On the benefits and rewards available in the Western Territory of Idaho, where land is cheap and the soil is of the richest kind, here Mr. Wilson Anderson, Vice Chairman of the Association for the Development of the Town of Opportunity, described this land of plenty, freedom, and economic potential.
with no obligation to you at all.Refreshments will be served.All are invited, including the Irish and those of Latin, Slav, Semitic, and Mongolian races.January 14th at 7 p.m.at 43 Spring Street."This immediately reminded me of a timeshare pitch.
Although I don't, from what I,
i have not read all of the articles you sent me about the utopian society i'm saving that for part two yeah yeah um but this is an advertisement for utopian society or a take on one um which were i guess pretty popular yeah western west of the mississippi um in these like developing regions of the united states that were like looking to burgeon towards statehood
And they were trying different things, including what is effectively communist societies.
If you think about it, it's a bit of a second go at the original 13 colonies.They're essentially colonizing the West in multiple senses of that word.
um and you know as we think back to our first book uh about the pilgrims and mem and you know they were kind of going also for a similar you know there was was definitely more of a religious um quest but they were going to kind of you know create this world this society um i mean the famous city on a hill speech was yeah i mean we have a lot of opinions about that but
Well, just because it was taken and used in the 80s by Ronald Reagan as part of everything that's wrong, but the idea, the initial idea behind it, which was written by William Bradford of the Boston Colony,
was to create this more perfect union and that's literally where we got these original ideas.In purchasing the land from France for the Mississippi or the Louisiana Purchase, which a great deal of this territory is in, even
That slaveholder rapist, gosh, what's his name?He was a president.He's on.
Yeah, him.He was.I know, just beyond.
I also know because he's the one who was president during the, for the Louisiana.
And also nobody makes me angrier.
Right.We've touched on Reagan. who I also hate.So like we're really just batting a thousand here.Top three of Kate's least favorite presidents.Gosh, Andrew Jackson, I guess there's number three.
Was it Jackson or was it Jefferson?Was it?No, no, you're right.Yeah, it was Jefferson.
I was just trying to figure out who was my top third least favorite US president.And it's that racist Andrew Jackson.
Yeah, yeah.Yeah, yeah.Oh, I had a thought.Likewise with the utopia and the founding of Plymouth, there's a popular theory about American culture, which is that it's America is made up of actually about 11 different distinct cultures.
Yes And those have subcultures.So it's closer to like 40.
Yes, but there there are 11 basic regions of the US and I don't know all of them off the top of my head because I wasn't planning on talking about this but
There are some interesting similarities and patterns based on the way these areas were settled and based on who settled them.And there's a striking similarity between the coastal cultures
um and it doesn't just it's not just because they're near water and something about being near water makes you want to be puritanical right it's because people you know who settled those areas first and who set up like the government that kind of instills some of our values yeah had a lot of those very idealistic like we are going to
forge a new society and we are going with a plan and so they're very kind of you know focused on a goal and and idealistic and like very moralistic and and They're you know the way they set up their society I'm so glad you said that because it reminds me what I wanted to tell you about that rapist Thomas Jefferson Yeah
When he purchased the Louisiana Purchase, which is really the western half of the US.Very true.He was looking to create a white utopia effectively by implementing governmental laws, removing Native Americans, and encouraging white settlement
so that the laws would be built to benefit a white race and culture so it became the meritocracy that he wanted it to be and that all of that was settled in one of the articles you sent me called Creating the White West and it was talking about how all these different cultures come together and whichever
you know, dominant group is the group in an area.They're the ones who, like, set up the standard culture.So in West Michigan, it is largely the Dutch.And that has, I mean, we're like six generations past anybody living in the Netherlands.
Unless you're me.Right.In which case, you're only two.I'm sorry.
I'm going to cough briefly. But anyway, that was something.Settling the American West, they were trying to set... I'm sorry, I'm trying to find... Yeah, create a white utopia.But it was impossible because the West is inherently hyper diverse.
Additionally, in order to settle an area, truly settle an area, you need women.And so there was an additional form of diversity there.During the
point in time when Louisiana, the area that was New France, this Louisiana Purchase, was still maintained by the government of France.
They gave French women an incredible, effectively dowry, to come and marry the French sailors who were using the Port of New Orleans and the Mississippi River as part of their fur trading outpost.
And so they gave the women of New France, they gave them clothing and cooking pots and just like as gifts from the government to go and settle in this area.To go to the wilderness and put up with these disgusting backwoods men.
But if they did it, these women had power of property that was inalienable.It didn't become their husband's property.It was theirs.They had a great deal of political power.They could set up their own businesses in their names.
So the West, all settlements, need women.The American West, hugely diverse, not only because of the Native American populations, many different populations with their own different distinct cultures, but also there were other
nationalities coming from across the ocean yeah the pacific which you touched on multiple times yeah yeah right here in the advertisement we're seeing in the advertisement we'll also see with the reality of who they're traveling with um yeah ellie i there's an incredible amount of diversity as we will as we will discuss but it's also interesting that you're saying you know they want to build this white utopia because also what we will see
in this advertisement and the story is that they are, this is when we are getting to the expansion of what it means to be white.
Because it's saying even those who are Latin, which I think will include the Viscardi family because they are Italian, Slavic, which would be Ukraine, Poland, Romania.
Mind you, a lot of those countries didn't exist yet.
Right, but those territories. Semitic Jewish people.Yep.That's not considered white.
Yeah, and and the Irish and the Irish Arguably in terms of color tone the whitest and yet not considered white which is but you know thinking back to our Mary Driscoll story.Yeah, the Irish were incredibly discriminated against and
And you know that talking about that has certain implications with race today, but at the time it was very true that they were discriminated against.
And that the idea of whiteness changes.
so who gets to be called white has not been static white is not an ethnicity like it is a con it's a social concept yeah um and here we are seeing that in in real time so that being said uh yeah theresa she's mad she's mad and she's mad at a large group of people because she's traveling with a large group of people her whole family
Yes, we meet her.There's no kind of like, this is my name and this is who I am and this is where I come from.
She transcribes the advertisement and then right away it's, I hate this train and it's tiny wood seats and the Italian word for cockroaches crawling everywhere.
and the rain i hate it i hate papa and mama for letting him do this to us and uncle eugenio i hate him for seeing the advertisement for making papa leave our street and my aunt and all all she thinks is money and supper and nana i hate her most of all
It's just this litany of all of her complaints.
But she's echoed right away.The minute we change the page, we get a different font and we start hearing from her little sister Antoinette, sometimes called Netta.
Dear sister, a writer is only as good as her pencil and a pencil is only as good as its point.Have I made my point?And why did you paste the advertisement if you hate the move so much?Your sister Antoinette.
So even though this is a diary, we get dual and sometimes dueling voices right on the page, which is one of the reasons that I love this book.
Yes, this is such an innovative way to write these books and to write, you know, a fictional diary is to have it be from two perspectives.
Two radically different characterizations right there, like within two paragraphs.
Yeah.And it's also very clever because it does make sense, you know, if this family packed up everything that they have.Literally everything.
They have a great deal more material with them than Hattie has when she goes across the country.
Well, maybe somewhat similar to start out with.
but like they haul a piano yeah train to train uh-huh and i cannot imagine putting up with how difficult that must have been yeah yeah so and then right away theresa comes back a little Did you just say seesters because you are Italian?
Little sisters was not trying to put on an accent.Okay.Little sisters should never be seen or heard and they should shouldn't snoop where they aren't invited.
There's another charming bit about this book where you find out that Teresa is not a great speller.Right.And so she's she's learning contractions and so she's not writing them very smoothly.
and then uh netty comes back and is like constantly like correcting her spelling she's so obnoxious you can borrow my dictionary if you want to it's such like a little little stinker little sister energy and i i love it that was not the kind of little sister i was i don't think i don't think i was judging on the fact that you and your sister have such a good relationship today i think that's true we certainly needled at each other constantly but i i don't think i ever imagined that i was like
I, me and my sister both got into a gifted and talented program for high school and to do so you had to take the SATs as an eighth grader.Yikes!So I mean I passed, it was fun.Okay.
So I did about a hundred points better than Maggie and I remember that to this day.Maggie got a 1040, I got an 1140.Wow. I know so I maybe was that kind of little sister.
I assumed until very recently actually that Laura had had gotten into the gifted and talented program and I didn't and it turns out that she also didn't.Oh good.Sorry to put you on blast.Sorry Laura.
Anyway, so yeah, kind of very annoying, like perfectionist little sister and angry older sister.
Can we talk briefly about the setup of their family who's included in this traveling train?So just in this one train car, everybody who is going to Opportunity seems to have a ticket.
At first, I thought that they were like anybody else who just happened to be going to Idaho by way of Chicago from New York City.But as it turns out, these are people that we meet in these first few entries
we will see them even towards the end of the book.
Yeah, she explains that everyone who is going to Opportunity, they've essentially signed a contract where the person who has founded the community is subsidizing their trip.
And so they are all traveling, at the beginning they're all traveling in one or two cars.But their cars are basically segregated from the rest of like people who are just going to Philadelphia, for example.
And so they're constantly stopping at different stations and, you know, made to, you know, disembark the train and wait on the platform while they disconnect the cars and connect them to other, you know, trains.
And so they switch conductors like three different times.
Yeah, and only one of them is polite.The rest of them are ugly. Yeah, I thought that was really interesting.
So the family Viscardi that is traveling, the matriarch nonna, although Teresa has started switching from Italian to American and she says nana.
She says Nana.And it causes a bit of a kerfuffle.It causes a kerfuffle.Also, they never say that they're speaking English.They always say American.Yes.Which is a great distinction, because there is a difference.
But also, like, I could very much see, like, you're Italian, and you're showing up to this country.And you're, oh, what?I'm learning English?We're not in England.We're in America.Like, I'm learning American.
While we were briefly touching on their Italian-ness, they frequently refer to the fact that they are from southern Italy, the Sicilian era.And they are, I don't know if you know about the, do you know Italy?
Culturally, it's, yeah, they mentioned they are from Sicily.And they mentioned that they were even being discriminated against by northern Italians.Yes.
And that's actually a huge problem.And it led to the birth of the mob, La Costa Nostra.It's the mob, typically Sicilian.There was one in Sicily.
And then as people immigrated to the United States, a second had formed in the United States, which is just the mob.And it's separated out by five families usually, although that changes.
La Costa Nostra, I think is down to just three families, but I don't know.And it was hard to get work in Italy, as well as in the United States, which is why the mob developed.They were giving themselves jobs.
yeah and so that's what they're looking for here imagine the kind of prejudice that happens you're not gonna like this from from northerners to southerners in the u.s um you know there's a stereotype that they're slow and dumb because they speak slowly um and they're lazy because they're just you know
Absolutely, although I will tell you that goes two ways, too, because the northerners are looked at as rude and arrogant and that's not necessarily true either.
I think that if we really break it down, it's about who has enough money to live and who doesn't.Because community to community, that changes regardless of what side of the Mason-Dixon you're on.
all it should all be about class warfare usually isn't it the the theme of this podcast but yes um so we we discover that that one of the major reasons why they have taken this opportunity to go to opportunity is uh that um Ernesto and and Teresa's father Eugenio Eugenio so there are two so there's Nana
Yes.She has two boys.Papa, whose first name we don't know, and Uncle Eugenio.Uncle Eugenio is married to a woman named Marta.
Marta, to the best of my knowledge, is not an Italian name, so I think she's also an American immigrant, possibly somebody who's German.I didn't even think about that.To the best of my knowledge.
I'm not sure, I couldn't pick out Mama, either, if she was Italian or not.
Just in the way that she speaks.
She and the like cooking and like it seems like she's passing on Italian knowledge and values.
So Aunt Marta and Mama fight.
And so Eugenio and Papa are always trying to put a little bit of space between their women.Eugenio and Marta have one daughter She's a little bit younger.She's like in between Teresa and Antoinetta And her name is cousin Rosaria.
And to my knowledge, she's their only child.Okay, the Viscardi's Papa and mama Teresa is the eldest and then comes the eldest boy.His name is Ernesto and he is treated like a little king Yes, and that is something I would like to talk about.
And then after Ernesto comes Antoinetta the other voice in our book and finally they have baby Tomas Yes, so this is a large family.That's traveling.
This is the first book in this series where I really missed what was very common in the American girl books and which was the first couple pages would just be your cast of characters.
And it would have little portraits for each of them and it would, you know, you would get a sense of like who all the characters are and how they're related.And I would love that for this book.
Yeah, because there's a lot of names.
It took me a while to sort it out.I did have to write things down.But they are traveling.Sorry, let me grab
So Teresa's age 14, she's the oldest.
The other immigrants who are going is the Irish Brigade, which is a group of Irish men.One of them is named Liam.Five brothers.There you go.There's the Hesse family.I assume they are German, Hess, H-E-S-S-E.
And then what I think is a Polish last name, Kozwitzki. And then five additional Italian families who came from Wooster Street, which seems like the tenement street that they grew up on.So all these people decided to come collectively together.
And then he also traveling with is mr. Wilson Anderson who is one of the people setting up this idealistic community He has a son who is age 14 or 15 Yes, and he we will meet them.We'll talk a little bit about them.
And then there's mr. Kiel and mr. Kiel seems to be a
more the idea man than the money man whereas mr wilson that's the that's the impression i got historically also mr keel existed real life yeah yeah the land that he set up was called opportune i'm sorry it was called aurora not opportunity um and there were a lot of articles about that there's a couple communities right and they were like bethel community like it was
yes yeah okay i didn't actually read the articles i sent you that's fine but i mean one of them was 76 pages so i don't blame you i read the first snippet and i was like this sounds vaguely yeah we'll sort it out don't worry correct um yeah yeah so like we meet this kind of diverse group um which was
yeah when we're talking about you know forming a white west you know here's all these immigrants who on the east coast as they first immigrated are forced to live with whiteness yes they're they're forced to have that access to power um if you know they're irish they're you know kind of given the poorest wages and forced to live in these like awful slums and
yeah so these i mean that those are the people who are going to going to want to take this huge risk to move west because they don't have it made in right in the east so it's just very interesting how like they're taking this chance and by doing that they are hoping to ascend to i think when we discussed hattie's book
and possibly also mem.We talked about how the people who leave are not the people who are wealthy and well.Yeah.
If you're immigrating to a new area, new state, new country, new territory, what have you, you're not doing it because things are great where you are.
You have to be willing to take the risk in order to socially advance.
These aren't really like wanderlust girlies.
Right.And who can blame? At a time when travel is uncomfortable and dangerous, this book is plagued by illness.There are roughly 30 people in these train cars where they're all sleeping and eating and living together.
There's one stove at the front of the train car that everybody's cooking and using for warmth.There's one toilet, which is called a convenience. Teresa says at one point in time that she is not scared of the dark.
She'd rather be in that convenience in the dark rather than have the light on because she's afraid of what she'd see.She and I feel differently about that.
So you know what it's reminding me of like it feels like imagine riding across the country in a coach bus.
yes yes but it has like a stove at the front right which might make some of that better yeah i don't know so yeah it kind of takes them forever to even reach like they start in jersey city and it takes them like a day or two to get to even philadelphia right 44 miles away from new york city can you imagine i would be incensed
Mm-hmm and and the men of the train are Yeah, they're dealing with like little frequent uprisings like oh We're gonna get that conductor this time or the porters or whoever is at fault at a given time yeah, kind of constantly complaining to the the powers that be and There's not a whole lot that they can do about it agreed.
Mm-hmm So they're also kind of very in the way that kids who have to move away from everything they've ever known are very sad to leave their friends and their teachers.
So we hear about Mrs. Curran who was presumably... It seems like both girls' teacher.Both girls' teacher.And so she's writing to Mrs. Curran and she's also writing to Francesca.
One of her friends from Worcester Street.Yeah Worcester, Worcester.
Yeah, I'm gonna go with Worcester because that feels more correct to me.
That's how it's spelled.It's not spelled like the English way, which would be Worchester.Right.And in Boston.
But you just know one came from the other.
Yeah in Boston you would pronounce that Worcester.But we're in New York, so I don't I don't know.Yeah.
So we go through, we've met a lot of great people.Some of the things that we're talking about are changing values on page 28, where we talk about Nana versus Nana and also what is a good girl in Sicily?
Yes. Yeah, like it this book is interesting because like in terms of plot there there are basically just sitting on a train for a long time This would be a terrible play, but it's a wonderful book.Yeah, so there's just lots of like reflecting about
things there there's a part where like they the mr is it wilson mr wilson anderson yeah wilson anderson like tells them about how what opportunity is going to be yeah so they they like draw the layout of the town which i really love page 23 no it's page 18 and 19 18 and 19 page 23 is where we get the shaker almanac so okay yeah
yeah i as a historian you you end up looking at a lot of like fire insurance maps weirdly um did you know this that the sanborn fire insurance company is like the main resource we have for knowing how cities used to be laid out and like what buildings used to be where at different like decades like no but that's fascinating 19th and early 20th century um they're very detailed
fire insurance maps of almost every city in America.There's one of Grand Rapids, Grand Haven, and you can look them up at the Library of Congress because they're all digitized and you can see like and they would be like an atlas but for each city.
So it would give like a huge overview and then it would go into like different like street
neighborhoods, and it would outline every single building, and it would tell you, you know, how many exits there were, what, how many stories there were, what materials the building was made of, if it was business, what kind of business was it, and you can learn so much about
um the history of cities and how they developed even comparing like you know oh in this map you know main street had this many theaters and blacksmiths and cobblers and stuff and then and then 10 years later that these businesses moved in and changed and so highly recommend looking them up our friend wally uh who writes so many books about grand haven i'm sure that's a resource he uses a lot of his books are this address here's what it was here's who owned it it's like
a book of tax records not always the most riveting reads but always informative and usually correct.
They're great resources yeah so it's I mean it's telling that it's a fire insurance because it's very interested in tracking like okay well if a fire started here and spread to this building and this building like we know we have we can anticipate like who would be responsible for that because of like what these buildings are made of and how close they are blah blah blah.
So anyway, fun little tidbit.
But you were going to talk about page 28.And I was like, let me talk about maps real quick.
No, yeah, that's fine.So first, before we get to 28, because I did mess up my numbers, can we start with page 23?Absolutely.
So at page 23, we are changing trains and sending off a letter to Francesca when we meet one of the porters or mailmen who gives Teresa
Oh, yeah, this is an interesting how this happens, too.
Yeah, go ahead, please.I can't find my spot.
Yeah, so they're they're kind of like just chilling at this.They're in Altoona, which she spells a fun way.Yes.A-L-T-O-O-N-A.And it was Saturday night.We had just 10 minutes to find and eat supper and return to our cars.
I skipped supper and went to mail my letter, but the window was closed.The station porter said he'd mail my letter if I left my stamp pennies with him.
Nana would say I was foolish and recite one of her sayings, but he had a kindly way and I trusted him. He also gave me a copy of the Shaker Almanac and told me that it had many wonderful pictures in it.You might learn a thing or two, miss, he said.
When you are finished with it, pass it on to another soul in need.Maybe he thought I couldn't speak American very well because he spoke every word so slow and clear.I said, thank you, and I was sure I would enjoy learning new things from it.
And I said this very fast, which surprised the man and made him laugh.
I thought that was very sweet.Throughout the book, we get a couple quotes from the Shaker almanac.
It made me wonder if he was Shaker.
Oh, I'm sure.Yeah.Because that area is Pennsylvania Dutch, right?Yeah.
So that makes sense to me.That is the area where Shakers would be.And it also makes sense that he would, A, be like, you know, I'm very trustworthy.I will mail your letter.And also, like, give her the almanac as almost a form of evangelizing.
Yeah. Yeah, but also and I think this is interesting shaker style has always been a kind of tied to Capitalism as well.Oh, so selling shaker style furniture or natural remedies Was very very common.So not only was it a form of evangelism but
yeah but also like hey send away it's like advertisement exactly um and so they created these almanacs that were full of like little tidbitty information think ben franklin because that's what i think of yeah old farmer's almanac for sure um and that is definitely where it comes from but little like readers digest is kind of like maybe a more modern
yeah where it's information it's also advertisements and it's also things that are just for the betterment like yeah i mean readers digest is also a completely outdated reference now too that's probably true that's probably true i don't know what would be relevant i guess anybody anybody's fyp
right like it's got like pretty things and informative things and funny things and also you should buy this yeah yeah so maybe it's just the social media feed of the day yeah but it was only controlled by this you know one the publisher yeah um so i thought that was interesting they get this and then on page 28 uh we get some information about what a good girl in sicily means and it's yeah it differs
From America.According to Nana, a good girl always stays indoors all the time and only talks to boys from a second story window.A good girl never, ever goes for a walk with a boy unless there's a chaperone to watch them.
And good girl never talks loudly or argues.I think it must be very boring being a good girl. good for her.
Yeah we find that Nana and and to a certain extent Mama have some some toxic traits uh ingrained in them.
Yeah there's just some cultures that you know Teresa's a very modern emerging American girl and these old world Sicilian values don't sit well with her and she's like this is crap
I think one of the major themes of this book that we see is the story of being an immigrant kid.Yeah, that's a very good point.It's the constant tension between the old, you know, culture values.
This is how you, this is how a Sicilian girl is, this is how we cook.There's also a lot of comments, especially when they're all crammed into that single train car and they all have to share one stove.
There's a comment where she mentions that the smells are constantly changing because the different families are making different foods.And, you know, so the Germans are probably making something with sauerkraut. It's a lot.It becomes a lot.
Yeah, and she makes a comment that Nana says that it's the other's food smells awful, but she says that she thinks it smells good.
And I thought that that was a very telling thing where like she is the younger generation who is more open to like what are these other cultures doing? It's a very subtle way to express, you know... Acceptance.
Acceptance, diversity, like that trend of what makes America, America.What makes us proud to be American, essentially, is the acceptance of diverse culture.That melting pot idea.Yeah.I would definitely agree.
Well, another thing that makes her a very typical immigrant kid that we'll find is that she's constantly having to translate for your family.
She might not be very good at spelling but it appears that she is fluent in speaking English and it seems clear that she's writing like you know how you can have the narrative disbelief of like oh maybe she's writing in Italian but we're reading in English because you know it's
it's a book but remember this book is being written as part of a class exercise as well yes and i'm sure that they would have been demanding i think we are to understand that she is reading writing this in english and so you
the generational divide of the immigrant kids learning and becoming fluent in English very quickly because their brains are so elastic and them having to constantly translate for their older generations who just it's hard to learn a language when you're old.
Especially when you just want to stick to your own ways and preserve them.
Yes, if you're not looking to change it makes it even harder.
There is a tendency for the, you know, the first generation, the people who immigrate have a really hard time assimilating is the word when you, you know. Absorb the culture of the place that you immigrate to and so they tend to be very insular.
They keep their original language They they don't trust outsiders outsiders don't like them, you know I guess and then their children are the first to go to American schools and learn English become American and they often have this feeling of I want to shed my You know immigrant identity because they're often bullied for it.
And so the the second the
yeah the second generation is you know very like assimilation focused and they often end up losing a lot of their original culture because they're so kind of ashamed of it and then it'll often you'll often see the next generation kind of kind of circling back to yeah to think like oh i've lost i don't know how to speak italian you know in this case and i had some
And I want to be able to learn that and so they'll often kind of come back to appreciating their culture.
Absolutely.So one thing that starts happening on page 26-27 is illness.This is going to be something that they battle throughout the book.
And as someone who has been raised by these books and the American Girl books, I am terrified any time I hear of a character being sick, because I automatically assume that they're going to die.
Yeah, it's like seeing a picture of a dog and an award sticker on the front of a book.Yeah, you're like, that dog is going down.
These books I have learned, just like anyone in a period drama, the minute they cough.And it's bloody.
Oh, they got the TB.They're gone.
So we do have some illness.The shaker almanac offers some thought that it's food staying in the stomach until it becomes corrupted.
And Aunt Marta is maybe in agreement, though she does not know about the shaker almanac because she chucks the salami that her family was gonna eat out the window and their family stays well.
yeah yeah so i wonder if that is what was happening i think so poisoning the the shaker almanac um also recommends this extract of roots which i was wondering like is that root beer or is it ginger beer could be sarsaparilla yeah something like that
Yeah, and that will work to settle a stomach.Yeah, there's a reason.God, how good does a ginger ale and whiskey sound?
I would hold the whiskey right now, but a ginger ale would cure all.
I'll take your whiskey.Okay.That sounds lovely.
A ginger ale would cure all of my ills right now.
I would be a fundamentally nicer person.
All right, let's keep trucking on.
Yes We did we decide that the diary is gonna be called Aria This is one of those that they decide to name the diary diary And it's only when Antoinette is writing.Does she say Aria?That's not true.Is that not true?
That's not true Ellen We we have it where it is just Netta at first and she names it Aria because Aria is her best friend that she left behind uh-huh, and then there is a skirmish between the sisters
where oh what happens is that oh the shaker almanac finds the secret shaker almanac that's right Teresa's been keeping it secret because there's some blackmail that happens yes page 23 Teresa has been keeping it secret because she is certain that her you know parents and Nana will be disapproving of this you know what is this
not Italian Book of Wisdom.And then Netta finds out about it and she blackmails Teresa into letting her officially share the diary.Before it was just that, Netta would find it, steal it,
read, inevitably, Teresa's writing, comment on it, and then Teresa would get it back and be furious that Natta stole it and used it, and so she would try to hide it again.
And so now Natta's forced her to agree to officially share the diary, and part of the terms is that she has to, like, she starts also calling the diary Aria.
All right. Good.So they finally are getting out of town.They get through what's kind of the eastern seaboard.And once they hit Chicago, things really start to speed up in this book.
But during some of that, those interchanges, we have some logging looks between Mr. John Wilson Anderson and our main character, Teresa.This is, I think, our second most overt love story.
Second, what was, oh, Hattie.
Hattie, yeah, I mean, Hattie gets schtupped on the trail, so.No, she does not.No, she does, her friend does.Well, yes, that was definitely true.
They get married.I had this thought, because.
Am I allowed to say schtupped on this show? I feel like I am.
It's Yiddish.Anyway, we won't dwell on that.Yes, so we have this long train ride and they're bored so they're looking out the windows and then Teresa looks out the window and she looks back and who's that also looking out the window?
Well, he goes, she ends up calling him J.W.Eventually.That's what his friends call him.That's right.But before she uses his full name, but they keep catching each other's eye and and smiling at each other.
And there's one devastating moment where they're again sitting on a platform.
We have that.I have the page for that.
i feel like we're page 59 yeah possibly we are kind of playing fast and loose with with being so there's a meet cute on page 39 yeah they they have a first meeting but then this oh yeah i just turned to it page 44 there you go i have met an interesting boy on the train his name is john wilson anderson and he is 14 but he looks much older he says hello to me every time we meet and seems very nice
I will write you more about him when there are no prying eyes around.
Anyway um so yes they they meet and they they catch each other's eye all the time and then there is a time where they're just chilling on the platform and he comes up to them to like meet the family very bold and she gets very shy
Because he's like, how are you enjoying the train?And she's like, I um, it's terrible.I mean, it's fine.
oh and he like and then all of the loud italian families start getting in and making being italian and and she gets so embarrassed and he just like waves and like kind of walks backwards out of the scene it's very clear that he is a very not italian white boy and i think at one point in time netta says that he doesn't seem like he laughs very much yeah he seems like a very kind of culturally german kind of like
Or English, you know, one of the more stoic cultures.So we've got this John Wilson Anderson and they have like a little trade romance.
It's very cute, it's very chaste, it's very sweet.
It's very appropriately 14.Yeah.Where you're having your crushes and you're like, you know, you're having your smiles and your talks.
yeah i i think it's so cute and okay so the reason what i why i said that about hattie and whether or not she had acted on her romance was because there's a comment later in this where it's like oh i think theresa and jw will get married before we make it to idaho and i was like i this is meta you know reading for a moment uh-huh
I don't think that would ever happen because except for I know for a fact there's a book coming up where it's like main character does get married but um well the awkwardness the coal miner yeah you told me about that yeah um anyway but like the idea of of two people who actually are romantically interested in each other getting married
it within the book leads to so many awkward questions about like how are you going to write about that to a children's audience.
I think that's also why a lot of the characters in these books do not end up having kids.
oh yeah like in the epilogue frequently they're like blah blah blah blah blah blah never did have children because then you would have to imply that they had sex things happened yeah yeah yeah and and that is a hard do you want to know why the most popular Shakespeare play is Julius Caesar even though it is wildly violent
I was going to guess it was Romeo and Julia because but it's not not perform.Oh, sorry.Okay.Yes.Sorry in at least in America.If you are going to put on a performance of a Shakespeare's one of Shakespeare's plays.
Yeah, you are most likely to do either Midsommar or Julius Caesar.Midsommar is incredibly raunchy. But a lot of it escapes modern audience.Maybe it's mostly implied.Yes.And you can change your pentameter so that it's not implied.
You can just change the way you do it.But the other reason is Julius Caesar doesn't have even a whiff of romance.Right.And it's hard as high schoolers to plot convincing romance anyway.
They're all in love with Rome.
All right, so we're trucking along.We have made it to Watertown on page 45.
We're taking a lot of tangents, but we're also trucking through this.I'm trying, I'm really trying.No, I'm with you here.This is one of those where it's like, it just brings up a lot of interesting concepts.
If we were to give you a beat by beat, you know, of the plot, it would be like, yep, and they're still on the train. And they're still on the train.I think the major plot points is they make it to Chicago.They have to get on a different train.
They have to hire people to move Mama's piano and all of their luggage.
And at this point in time, they didn't have spinets.So this piano was probably five feet tall.It was like my piano.Yeah, it's probably an upright.Because my piano was made in 1917.
So if you think about it, that's only about 30 years after this book is being written.
yeah yeah yeah so or this book is set not being written it was written this is this is an artifact um yeah so they change trains in chicago and then they get off the train in the dakota territory watertown which is the end of the line and they meet a new character and he comes in heavily accented oh yes this guy's got a he's got a lot
if for anyone this is a very adult show but for anyone who's seen deadwood oh baby it was it was hitting all those notes besides all the season one of deadwood it's just ah man epileptic minister i love him oh what a yeah that one i that was a hard one it was a hard one but it's a beautiful beautiful storyline um highly recommend that show to adults uh but
Yeah, Dakota Territory, we are no longer in the United States.Technically true.Yes.I mean, the territories are culturally it is settled by Americans slash, you know, they know that they were burgeoning towards statehood.
Yes, they were on the way, well on the way towards statehood at this point.It was kind of like a matter of getting the necessary requirements.Population requirements.Yes.So they're, end of the line, they are changing to wagons.Yes.
So this is our big kind of callback to Hattie's story where we have the drama of like getting the wagon, they get a team of oxen.I love the oxen.They're very reliable.
They seem to have the most reliable team, and they're brought on by a man named Shep.His actual name's James.This is the heavily accented man.So accented.Bottom of page 47.Name's James, he said, and he tipped his hat.Septon, everybody calls me Shep.
And mama says what's this about a ship because she doesn't quite hear what he's saying since he's got this really thick accent So they are moving and again, there's a lot of Italians in their party he shows them how to how smart and reliable these oxen are and
And they start moving through this town of Watertown so they can get to the kind of tent camping site and get familiar with their wagons.The white people who've already settled this area
Watch them go past and they're so obviously different That one of these men who already lives here says well looky here a ruggler heard of Italians and I am embarrassed to say my grandmother definitely says a tie I made a note that this is a
This pronunciation persists to this day, and it is one of my least favorite things about the Midwest accent.My grandma says it all the time, and it makes me nuts.I hate it.I don't know why it makes me so irrational.
It's just like... That one and the word warsh?That is an East Coast thing.
Oh, it's Indiana.In Indiana, they say Warsh.
Okay.And it makes me nuts.Maybe I'm thinking of Wooder.
Wooder is definitely a New Jersey, Baltimore.Boston.Yeah.Eastern seaboard.But yeah, it's Italians.The other one that really bugs me is Chipotle. Oh, who says that?A ton of people.Oh, do you want to go to Chipotle's for dinner?Oh.Yeah.Oh.Yeah.
This is a call out to my father, by the way.And adding S's to the end of things.Oh, yep.We do that.Yep.Anyway.We do that.Yeah, those are some of the quirks of our culture.
One thing about Watertown where they are is she mentions the, she kind of describes the main area that they're walking through.It's not very big, a few brick buildings, but mostly small wooden boxes with big signs over the door telling what's inside.
Some are nothing but tents with wooden fronts.
I counted four saloons, one jail, three dry grid stores, three lawyers, two barbershops, a bank, three blacksmiths, a bakery, three boarding houses, a drugstore, and four real estate offices, plus other stores on some side streets.
There was a hammering and sawing going on everywhere, so there are probably two or three more buildings there by now."Which was, yeah, very, very much how these Western towns
these what were they called uh not the opposite of ghost town a boom town yes yes so yeah fun little when i think i very much imagine your classic old west town pre-ghost town you know where it's yeah everyone is just kind of like running around and there's a jingle jangle coming from the nearest saloon and right sorry i'm just um
Oh, so page 59, Nana meets Mr. John Wilson.And one of the things, the last time that we saw him, he got overwhelmed by the family and casually faded to black.And then he was afraid to look at her or talk to her, it seems, for a couple of days.
and then to here on page 59 he seems to be over that.
This is where he tells her um oh if this one this is a pretty yeah it's a beefy segment go ahead yeah okay should i okay yeah i'm just gonna read all of it yeah okay that'll give me time to look for what we're doing next okay what news i went to town with nana to mail letters
and on the way met john wilson who said hello as if everything was fine at first i ignored him i did not even say hello just nodded this is such a teen girl thing to do yes um but after walking away with him asking what was wrong and me saying nothing i told him he apologized right away it sounds like he kind of
after yeah it sounds like he kind of like ghosted her for a little bit too yes probably because he was overwhelmed um he apologized right away and kept on apologizing all the way into town into the post office and all the way back and ended by saying i don't know what i'd do if you didn't talk to me i know oh my god
I can't wait for you to finish this book, Jeff.I'm so excited.The epilogue is perfection.
This is the most... I mean, Hattie had a big crush, but this is like... Hers was like almost a little unrequited.Yes.This is very requited.Yeah, right away.Right away.They are clearly into each other.
I really look forward to doing part two of this book.Oh my gosh.OK.Nana cleared her throat many times during this trip.I look, still here.I wish she didn't know as much American as she does, but John Wilson didn't seem to notice.
He also said I should call him JW because all his really good friends call him that. There's another example of Toxic Nana.
Toxic Nana, a lot of that deeply ingrained patriarchy, but also one of the ways that things are gonna change in America, kind of getting rid of more of those patriarchal views.
America, if you're on TikTok and you follow people who have moved from the United States to Europe, they deal with a great deal more patriarchy there than we deal with here.
And there are like, patriarchy is deeply ingrained in most cultures.But to specifically gently call out there, I mean, in like New Jersey, you have the Italian culture of guidos. You know like that so like there is kind of a toxic patriarchy.
I'm sure the word guido is aging us I know that is such a specific to our time period Yeah, but in in like Mexican American culture you have like machismo like it's yeah, there's certain pockets of where you have this kind of like particular like
men have to be a certain way toxic masculinity it often in my experience ties very closely with areas that are catholic i think that's very true catholicism pushes women down at every opportunity um i mean even nuns nuns are not allowed to do so many things that priests can do even though technically they're at the same level of the hierarchy by virtue of being
women.P.G. Yeah By virtue of being women they are not allowed to do things like minister to people or testify and to be clear this is not just a catholic issue.
Certainly not.There are still CRC churches who do not support women in ministry.
Do you want to know who doesn't care at all?Who?Atheists.So yeah, but that'll tell you everything you need to know. Yeah, but yeah, so anyway, we'll move on.Speaking of toxic masculine men, let's go to page... 63.Mm-hmm.Where we meet Mr. Below.
Joe Bulo.Joe Below?I don't know how to say his name.It looks like it's spelled B-U-L-L-E-A-U.
Below.Yeah, yeah, we'll go with that.
Joe Below.I love it.But he is the... I think Hattie's Hattie had a leader.Yeah, the Fox or was john something told Joe tall Joe.
Wow.And he Yeah, actually, that's a good connection.So our leaders are kind of these forceful men.They're not, these are not the same as the more charismatic, kind-hearted Mr. John, Mr. Wilson Anderson and William Keel.
Yeah, those are the financiers, the, you know, idealists.Idealists.
Whereas he's the pragmatic.These are the trail guides.Yeah, he's gonna get you up that hill and down that hill.And one of the first kerfuffles comes about the piano.
This piano is kind of a thorn in the side, but it is mama's favorite, favorite, favorite thing.
This was also like a bit of like a narrative device, I felt like.It felt like, you know, Chukov's piano a bit.I was like,
countdown to the piano being left behind because it is such a theme of the comforts of home, of the familiar, the old country, the traditional heirloom.
At the very least, the piano makes it onto the wagon train because William Keel intercedes.And I really want to talk briefly about William Keel because he is a real character.We first meet him, I believe, on page 55.
Um, where we discuss his son, Willie Kiel, who has recently died.William Kiel spends this entire trip in mourning clothes.This very formal, Victorian, heavy woolen mourning clothes.
And they talk about this wagon that's being painted black.And everyone's like, why are you painting this wagon black?What's the point?
It is exclusively to carry the body of his son.
And to me, that tells me William Cullet does have money.
Because he's got multiple wagons.
Yeah, four, I think they say.And one of them is just to carry a dead body.Yeah.We also meet some of the men who are part of the JoBelows team.And one of them is a man who almost never speaks.And he is, he's driving Willie Keel.
Yeah, so Just kind of a sad story, but it is true The the historic person William Keel had his son in a lead-lined alcohol-filled coffin in order to preserve the body and this is before
They had a lot of really standard preservation, so the embalming that we do today would have been heard of.At that point in time, it was called plasticization.A lot of, if you ever go to a
like the museum exhibit that travels around called Bodies Revealed, that is using the same plasticization that became a fad during the Regency era.It's really old.So this being 60 years in the future of the Regency,
um they definitely had it as well but they also were experimenting with new types of embalming as it were.
Do you happen to know this because this was reminding me of uh the Lincoln's body traveling across America.Yeah that started to rot.
But one of the first forms of embalming was applied to the president.
I was wondering if they did the same, like the the lead line coffin with alcohol like rang a bell and I was wondering if that's what they did.For the most part Lincoln was just on ice.
yeah didn't they did they want to display him was that they did they displayed him in a couple different places gnarly yuck um and that's why lincoln has one of the most prolific ghosts his ghost is around and about anyway that's a different podcast that's a whole different podcast you can check out
Um, yes, so where I had stuff.
Oh, there's a there's a boys will be boys from Nana.Oh, that is I started writing just toxic all the time.
Nana has such a big recovery.I can't wait.Oh, I'm so excited for you to say that for Anna is the character that we see the much most growth from the Nana redemption arc.
Nana Redemption art.I knew it.I'm not like, I'm never hating Nana because she is who she is.She is who she is.She's a very kind of, I want to say archetypal, but it's not archetypal because it's just a true to life, you know.
Well, it is almost a trope.But everybody's Nana's like that.But it's a trope because of how real it is that, especially in immigrant communities, you have this idea of the matriarch who just wants to pass on the wisdom and the values of
My great-great-grandmother, who was my grandmother's grandmother, was our family's immigrant.
And the value that she passed on was how to soak tart cherries in vodka so that at Christmas you could have, you could get a little shwasted on cherry vodka.
I never met my great-grandmother but she immigrated, she was like one of the first of her family to immigrate from Belgium and she was one of the oldest of her siblings and she basically immigrated by herself.
Yeah, and well she brought, she was like the anchor.Yeah, anchor baby.Anchor baby for the family.And she, legend has it that one of the first things she did when she landed in North America was have a pint of beer.
And she lived to be over a hundred and she said that was her secret to long life was having a beer every day.Cute.
cute so all right let's keep moving people have been getting sick that this is actually the second round of illness on page 61 i'm telling you every time i'm on pins and needles yeah absolutely i like the solution that is given and this is the first time i got the clue that
more than just the one family was on this train, the Irish Brigade has now switched to wagons as well.And they find out that little baby Tomas and Mama are ill, and Liam suggests equal parts milk and whiskey with a little bit of sugar.
And apparently it's quite effective and it makes us feel much closer to the Irish Brigade.
So we are becoming neighbors with these people who were disparate groups and they really start helping each other and pulling for each other.
That is kind of the story of America. Also, back to the wagon load.Yes, I'm listening.When Mama's like, oh, desperate to get her piano, and William Keel comes by and is like, OK, he offers to take the piano.But he also goes to each wagon.
And he asks, what can't you take?What can you take?And they do a luggage rotation so that they can work together as a community to,
Doesn't it make you feel like he puts his money where his mouth is?
It really does.I really don't want this guy to be canceled because I kind of like him.
From what I can tell, he isn't.Now, I have not started all of the research specifically on that.So I'll start that tonight.
Yeah, but as you know, I come from a town that was effectively brought to prosperity by a cult.And so I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop on William Keel.We're really harking back to the old pod today.
But I thought that was a very beautiful moment of him encouraging this sense of community and communism, to be frank.
uh and neighborliness of like let's work together to support each other and and kind of each according to what they have to each according to what they need and because of that a bunch of them who were being told that no you can't take this heirloom you can't take this treasure it won't fit it's too much a bunch of them are suddenly able to bring those treasured items that
Although that does not necessarily make it all the way down the trail.The trail that they have to walk is very far.
They have a long way to go, but at least to start out they have this hope of like, we're gonna do this.
They're walking into the Black Hills and getting all that weight up and down mountains is difficult. I'm looking at page 76.
We've gotten past some of the... On page 71, we talk about JW.He rides up and walks with Teresa.
They start holding hands and he cleverly, he like has his horse and he puts the horse between them and the family so that they can have a little moment of privacy.What a smooth move, JW.
So cute.Actually, I'm looking for the next point.
Netta makes a friend on the trail named Eddie.
I assume her real name is Edith or something.Yeah. anyway so eddie just seems too modern yeah i like it though yeah um but we learned that ed does not think that horses go to heaven well that's very catholic yeah
That's fair, yeah.Also, I love the things about Netta making comments about JW and Teresa's budding romance.Yeah, she keeps her eye out for things.Don't talk about that.
They go through a spat of bad weather, where it is constantly raining.I'm on page 80, and the pages are too wet to write on.So there's kind of, the author, the real person author, adds in some visual jokes to the book, which I enjoy.
So we've got Wednes, Friday the 18th, dear, and it just cuts off.
Some false starts where she's trying to write, but then can't keep going.
I like that there is so much humor imbued in this book because some of these Dear America books are a suckfest.
They are just a bit grim.
Yeah, they're grim.Yeah.I think so far the grimest has been Mary Driscoll, but Hattie did involuntary manslaughter, so.
Hattie's got some trauma to unpack.
i can't believe they like i think about that wild carrot business all the time and also with um mrs um kanker oh yeah oh man or mrs big drowning oh that one was hard gosh that one was yeah that one might be but i gotta tell you big people usually float so that's true i call shenan's maybe the rapids or maybe the current was so strong or she because she was in her dress yeah yeah
anyway uh oh there's a fun um speaking of uh the guy who is riding the wagon with the coffin in it so we have this is from from netty's perspective perspective um
neta neta yeah it sounded wrong when i said it um so her and her friend edie they are kind of like egging each other on to like you know explore things and they do what they call walking visits
where they meet some of the other neighbors who are also going to Opportunity.
They're also they also have that little girl energy where they're like kind of swapping like tall tales and being like you can't do this.I love these characters.Yeah, so they They they see this this guy riding this wagon and
Coyote Cal is his name, the man who drives Mr. Keel's black wagon.They make a bet that he wouldn't say a handful of words if his pants were on fire because he's so quiet. I think a handful means five words in a row, like five fingers.
So Edie and I went to see if Shep was right.While we walked alongside the black wagon, I asked Coyote how he was feeling.He said, tolerable.Edie asked how the trail was, and he said, not bad.
I asked how he liked driving a wagon with a coffin in it, and he said, it's quiet. It went on like this for a while.We were about to give up when Edie asked him how he got the name Coyote.He looked at us and smiled.Sometimes, he said, I like to howl.
And he did, right there, with little Willie's coffin behind him.But I didn't care because he had said a handful.
So what if the other people that they meet doing these walking visits is Mr. Cross?And Mr. Cross starts off as this kind of mean old man, and they're like cross and mean, cross and demeanor.And then they start, they visit him anyway.
They're not, these little girls are not put off by how cross he is, and he warms. quite quickly and he becomes a favorite.He loves to tell long stories.He's a world traveler.So I love Mr. Cross.He's probably one of my other favorite characters.
I love William Keel because he's real and I feel like he lived his values.But I like Mr. Cross too.Can we read, I think this will be our last thing to discuss.There's entries on page 86. Because we called the halfway point 91, is that correct?
So that I'd like to end on a high note.Would you please read Wednesday the 23rd from Teresa and then Antoinetta?
Okay. Wednesday the 23rd, dear Arya, a perfect restful day with flaps up on the wagons and everything outside to dry.Almost like Sunday at home.We learned last night that once across the Missouri River, the new route will take us through Sioux lands.
Some people are upset, including Mama and Papa, and me.Everyone says the Lakota Sioux are a warrior tribe and very fierce.Netta says there's much talk around the children about being kidnapped and made into slaves.
a brief uh woof yeah just i just wrote yikes for manifest destiny um jw told me his father mr keel and others are annoyed with mr below but there does not seem to be much they can do changing direction again will mean more lost time then jw but i will end here and not say more until i have time to think about it
Fortunately, Netta is right on her heels.
Yeah, same day.Dear Aria, saw prairie ducks today but did not tell anyone.I did not want them to end up in a cooking pot.Teresa spent a lot of time getting water with John Wilson.Edie said they're sparking and that we should keep an eye on them.
So Edie and I went scouting.Little sisters. When we got near the water we crawled along until we could see Teresa and John Wilson.John Wilson had already filled a bucket and was handing it to Teresa and she was giving him an empty one.
At the same time that was when he leaned down and kissed her.
as fast as a thought can enter your head I said it I saw it myself I think Teresa and John Wilson were both embarrassed she looked down at the bucket and John Wilson said they should get back which is when Edie giggled and I did too so we got away from there fast
And then, yeah, it says, Edie said it wouldn't surprise her if they were married before we reach Idaho territory.I do not think Papa would allow it, but Edie said strange things happen out here.
That's the truth. How cute is that?So cute.All right.We should probably wrap it up so you can go eat.Yep, I'm getting hungry.Yeah.
Good.I'm proud of us.We made good time.I think so.Yeah, this is kind of a delightful story.
I feel like we weren't really sure where it was going to go because it doesn't have as much of a defined, like, this is about this era or this event in American history.
But I think it has a lot to say about, you know, family dynamics, about immigrant families and how those generations interact with each other.And about, you know, westward expansion, how America became that melting pot for better or worse.
I also think just from a readability perspective, I feel like this author has actually spoken to a child in his life.Yeah.
like he these i know these kids these kids are relatable and understandable to our 30 some you know year old ears yeah yeah i i'm really enjoying it um my favorite one still picture freedom that one was so for real i love that
Second favorite one Hattie and this is number three.All right.Yeah.
Well, I Am excited to read more.
I know you've already finished it But I've been to refinish it just so I can like be sure I know what I'm talking about And I'll I'll write down what I want to talk about for part two for sure but until then Happy trails happy trails
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