Herald* Lantern 15 August '84 67

I — G^unty ^j0 Library | - j by Kathleen Duffy

Returning to the theme of vicarious travel through reading, will bring us some more excellent recommendations. 'MacKinlay Kantor's Missouri Bittersweet explores the fascination which Missouri has always held for him, together with his ardent views about the current scene. With his wife, he traverses the counties and villages he first knew long ago. The tradition is extolled — or demolished, as the case may be. The people whom he encounters along the way are described and also evaluated, complimented, despised or loved tenderly. Mel Marshall's Sierra Summer is a book for all those drawn to primitive and unspoiled, mountain settings — the camper, backpacker, fisherman, ecologist. In an easy narrative style the author unRx

folds the cycle of nature in an isolated pocket of the Sierra Nevada. FROM SPRING snowmelt to the first winter snowfall, the hidden life ql-^* the forest gives up its secrets in these pages. Animals big and small, nocturnal prowlers, songbirds and predatory hawks, mountain hawks, mountain trout and insects, plant life and trees all play out their role. Sierra Summer is an intimate but unsentimental portrait based upon 25 years of one— man's exposure to a pu rposely unnamed mountam lake and meadow. His isolated pocket is a microcosm of the untouched natural life still to be found throughout the Sierra. Christian Miller's book is entitled Daisy, Daisy; A Grandmother's Journal Across America on a Bicycle. Who would have imIVA

agined thae an English grandmother would even have thought of bicycling acroe^fhe United States or -^«s this delightfully off--beat travel proves — that she would actually do it? BUT CHRISTIAN Miller — born in a castle in Scotland to a father who believed that children should not be allowed to think that life was easy — had no hesitation in setting out to pedal from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Daisy, Daisy is the marvelously entertaining story of her meeting with thelu.S.A. and its people, viewed over the handlebars of a small folding bicycle. Looking at America with a completely fresh eye, she is able to paint a picture that we are rarely able to see for ourselves. ' ' T h e R e a^l Williamsburg," she writes, "could never have looked like the rebuilt one," and goes on to say why. For Mrs. Miller, the trip - was a unique opportunity to learn: about our countryside (there always seemed to be an unexpectedly large amount of it between where she was and where she wanted to be), about our habits and manners (pretty good, if you don't count drivers of coal trucks in the Kentucky mountains), about the ethnic and regional differences that make up America (she has some pithy things to say about Salt Like City), and about the hopes and fears, values and aspirations of the dozens of Americans who befriended her. This is a book that is informative, witty, perceptive — and irresistible. IN i979 >Jonathan Raban's brilliantly praised Arabia was hailed as a classic of travel literature. The New York Times Book Review called H "one of the most delightful traveler's tales of the last 30 years," and Edward Hoagland, writing in the New j Republic, said of Raban: "No other writer alive could be better company." In Old Glory ; An American Voyage, he takes us deep into the heart of America, as he travels down the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to New Orleans, in a 16-foot boat. The voyage began in September of 1979, but for Raban it had really began as a marvelous dream thirty years before, the first time be read Huckleberry Finn. As the Mississippi rolls by places like Red Wing, Prarie du Chi en, Hannibal and Natchez, or larger ones like St. Paul, St. Louis, Memphis, and Baton Rouge the joys and hazards of this magnificent legendary river unfold, a river with an everchanging character all its own. RABAN ENVELOPS us totally in his journey, giving us a strong, rich sense of history of people. Tradition that is resistant to change. He takes us to pig roasts; to church on Sunday; to strange, onceelegant hotels, to sleazy bars; to a state fair that will linger in our memories; and reveals the people be meets along the way in encounters that are both strange and tragic. Reporter Slim Randies nurtured visions of

mushing toward the North Pole back when he was a fan of Sergeant Preston of the Mounties. Grown, he moved to Alaska, came by a dog team and sled, and set about realizing his childhood wish. A tale in the grand tradition of Jack London and Piers Paul Reid, Dogsled; A True Tale of the North, traverses Alaska, from the streets of Anchorage to Prudhoe Bay above the Arctic Circle. Filled with the wit and wisdom of the Alaskan bush, tall men and women and taller tales, the story brings us at last face to face with the cold white death that is the legend of the North. LIKE THE great polar explorers, Peary, Amundsen, and Scott, Slim Randies found the limits of his survival. His is the modern journey of discovery. But more and larger than himself, lie found an enormous, scarcely touchable, -uncompromisable frontier. It may receive a man at times, but machines and techology can not conquer the Arctic waste. The dairy entry records the beginning of one of the most unusual and courageous journeys ever made in modern times. Mesannie Wilkins, five weeks shy of her 63rd year, alone and destitute, had been told by her doctor that she had from two to four years to live. She set out on horseback from her farm in Minot, Me., and traveled nearly 7,000 miles enroute to California. The Last of the

Saddle Tramps (by Mesannie Wilkins) is a warm, humorous true story that is filled with adventure, courage and one woman's determination to fulfill a dream. WHEN MESANNIE left Maine she had only her horse, her dog and the clothes on her back But one thing she had above all — a deep and abiding faith that God would watch over and direct her on the long trek westward. Mesannie traveled through all kinds of weather — heat above 100 degrees in the Red Desert and freezing ice and snow in the mountains — but her determination never faltered. Along the way, Mesannie met all kinds of people from all walks of life — rich and poor, young and old, they opened their hearts and homes to her and gave her new courage for the next leg of the journey. The adventures of this modern-day pioneer were often humorous and sometimes near-tragic, but never dull. She slept in barns, jails, a fine hotel, motels, homes — and under the stars. She was greeted by a governor and proposed to by a goat herder. SHE WAS FETED in a Town Hall and was the honored guest in parades. She just missed being bitten by a cottonmouth in the South and was nearly arrested in Philadelphia. Here is a modern odyssey— full of rich, exciting and rewarding exi periences It is a story that i will touch your heart and

leave you with the feeling expressed by Mesannie Wilkins that kindness and charity are as evident today as they were in the past. Gary Smith's Windsinger is something different— photographs, lyrics, tales and poems by a Renaissance man: moun taineer, folksinger writer, photographer, advocate and champion of the Canyonlands of Utah, naturalist wilderness patrolman of the Sawth tooth Mountains in Idaho. The songs and tales transmit, powerfully and unsentimentally , the record of a life rooted in the earth, the testament of a man who has spent his best years in the wilderness heartland. It reaches beyond simple experience to realize a form of "spiritual ecology"

by Dr. Robert G. Beitman /

In each Health Watch I try to convey at least one • pearl of knowledge." Today's pearl is that you are doing a disservice to yourself if you tell your physician that you are allergic to a drug, when you may not be. Unless you have been told by a physician that you are allergic, when asked about allergies, say fhat you suspect you had an allergic reaction to a drug and list specific symptoms. Why? Lei's take antiboitics as an example ^Last week a patient told me she was allergic to almost - every major nonexperimental antibiotic Although she was sincere. I found myself skeptical. The incidence of drug allergies is very low, estimated at only six to ten percent of all adkerse drug reactions. f Since each antibiotic is designed to kill a specific collection of bacteria, by claiming multiple drug allergies you may force your doctor into selecting for you unnecessarily potent drugs, or you may have to go through a costly and time-consuming desensitizing procedure unnecessarily. ADVERSE DRUG reactions take many forms other than allergies.* A „ commong one is due to an accidental or intentional over-dose. You may forget that you took your pill already and take an extra one or more in a given day. Your body jnay then develop a concentration of the medication greater than can be handled in a healthy( way< leading to adverse drug reaction symptoms. In the case of kidney failure this can occur due to the body's inability to flush out the daily drug intake. With liver disease, the drugs may not be broken down or metabolized rapidly enough and their / levels will accumulate. .) Side effects often are mistakenly considered to be allergic reactions by the public. Side effects are usually designated as symptoms caused by a drug that are undesirable

a(id occur due to the chhpiical make-up of the dru£-Many side effects are toj^rated by people seeking fcTacnieve help by certain drugs. ONE EXAMPLE is the sid£ effect of sleepiness caused by antihistamines in cold capsules. Side effects in chemotherapy are well-known complications of these sometimes lifesaving drugs. Side effects of some antibiotics may include a rash, hives, nausea or stomach irriation. Some patients conclude this means they have an • ellergy. when it may actually mean they are suffering a side effect Indirect effects of drugs which constitute an adverse reaction would include an antibiotic killing off the good bacteria in the system as well as the bad This might lead to an overgrowth of certain bacteria, like staph, to yeast infections and sometimes even to a form of colitis. Drug interactions may cause symptoms which the public mistakenly interprets as allergy. The more drugs you take the greater the chance of such an interaction. Some drugs weaken or wipe out the effects of other drugs, while some strengthen the effect of others Some will create a new chemical compound when exposed to others. THIS IS WHY it is essential that persons being treated by multiple physicians report to each physi cian precisely which drugs they are currently taking. This is also why you should never start yourself up on a drug you have had lying around your medicine cabinet. You never know that kind of interaction might occur with another drug. Get clearance from your physician first. Report all side effects of drugs to your physician. Next week: Symptoms of drug allergy; do you have one? Health Watch is a Public Education Project of the Cape May Unit of the American Cancer Society of which Dr. Beitman is President-elect.

a word the wise

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