The Elder Statesman

By BILL DUNCAN
The Elder Statesman

I think it started in 1982 when seven people died of cyanide poisoning after containers of the pain reliever Tylenol were tamper and the poison injected while on the store shelf. Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceutical Co immediately recalled all its products at a cost of $100 million dollars.

This product tampering danger, however cause the entire drug industry to improve packaging to prevent tampering. These packaging changes had a domino effect in packaging everything.

Childproof caps for prescription medicine came quickly after the Tylenol incident. Since I am in my 80s, I have a hard time getting my head around why a childproof cap comes on all my prescription medicine, the kind you need a hammer and chisel to open, or have a child close by that can get the cap free in seconds.

If that were the only irritation that comes with packaging today, I could live with it, but sadly not so. The other day I bought some metal hand sprinklers for my garden hoses. The product came attached to a cardboard backing. In order to free the sprinkler gun, I had to use scissors and a knife just to free the cardboard. Then I had to use needle nose pliers to extract a plastic plug that prevented use of the gun’s handle. I ended up with a pile of waste.

We are told to trash Douglas County less, yet all this unnecessary packaging is trashing the environment filling up the landfill. Overpackaging wastes raw materials. Most of the plastic that comes with the packaging is not recyclable and in some future eons, archaeologist with dig away layers of garbage and wonder what sort of inhabitant lived on this earth in the 21st century.

I am not opposed to reasonable packaging, but when you order a tool, as I did recently, and it comes in one of those Post Office boxes that if it fits it ships that was apparently oversized for the product.

It could have fit in a smaller box that would not need to be filled with Styrofoam popcorn, then wrapped in plastic bubble wrap. The only part of the extra garbage that was recyclable was the Post Office box.

(Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470.)

By BILL DUNCAN
The Elder Statesman

As of Tuesday, my calendar says it is summer. It’s true we’ve had several days in the 80s. I always marvel at Oregonians. After a long hard winter and a rainy, wet spring Oregonians come out of their caves to soak up every ray of sunshine.

They seem to want that sun to reach every part of their body and they get as close to nudity as the law will allow. Some of them should look in the mirror before they strip tease, or better yet lose about 20 pounds.

I have to agree with Marion Young, a nonagenarian, a title well earned since she is 90 plus. Marion, the Myrtle Creek matriarch, is outspoken on most subjects, but she is particularly incensed over what she calls “the fashion of displaying as much skin as possible without going completely nude, and believes it is out of place” in public.

Marion also wonders why young men and women wear pants riding so low on the hips that you have to hold your breath they won’t fall down around their ankles. When you can see the “crack in their behind,” that’s indecent exposure, she believes.

Apparently, she is not alone in this way of thinking. Last week, 20-year-old Deshon Marman was arrested and removed from a U.S. Airways flight at the San Francisco International Airport because he refused to hike up his pants, which were described as down around his knees by a flight crew member, who asked him to pull up his baggy pants. He refused.

The plane captain became involved and threatened him with a citizen’s arrest if he did not comply. He refused. The San Francisco police arrested him and charged him with resisting arrest among several other charges.

U.S. Airways admitted it has no official dress code policy, but that passengers are required to dress appropriately and follow flight crew requests. Police Sgt. Michael Rodriguez explained that “being on board an aircraft and being disruptive to the aircraft crew interferes with their duties and that could be a safety factor.”

I am not necessarily advocating a return to the public decency laws of the 1800s and early 1900s in this country when women were expected to wear cumbersome dress and pantaloon combinations while swimming. In 1907, Annette Kellerman, an Australian swimmer was arrested for public indecency on a Boston beach because she was wearing the one piece swimsuit she designed.

Speaking of dropping drawers, men’s and women’s bare buttocks are considered differently in many of the public decency laws. Women’s bare buttocks are considered sexually obscene, while the male bare buttocks are considered as merely rude conduct.

In an Indiana public indecency law testing the first amendment, then Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist ruled that the law was clearly within the state’s constitutional power because it furthered a substantial interest in protecting societal order and morality.

When I was teaching on the faculty at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, a new president joined the college. He was shocked at the dress of the faculty members, mind you, not the students. He issued a mild memo asking the faculty to dress appropriately. Suddenly there was open rebellion among some of the faculty, who called a meeting to rant that this newcomer couldn’t order a dress code for the faculty. The one doing most of the ranting was dressed in a pair of camouflage pants with holes in both knees and a shirt with one elbow worn through.

I was dressed in my usual teaching attire, a coat and a tie. I spoke out, saying to the chief complainer, that I felt the new president was talking about him, not those that were dressed properly for the job.

It didn’t change his dress code.

Seems to me that common sense should be the reason people dress appropriately, but it appears that common senses isn’t so common today.

(Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470.)

By BILL DUNCAN
The Elder Statesman

Have you ever read those scare sheets that come with prescription medications? Or tuned an ear to those glowing wonder drugs that come on by the dozen day after day in TV commercials, only to get a fast talking voice at the end telling you the gloomy side effects?

Honestly, I just consider the paper that came with each prescription filled by a pharmacy as so much pharmaceutical mumbo jumbo, that is until working too long in the garden at the end of a shovel handle. I don’t like pain medicine because it makes me goofy, but I was hurting so badly, I took a chance.

After a sleepless night of my eyes being wired wide open and experiencing weird dreams, I decided to dig out all those warning sheets to understand what was happening in my head, because that was not where the pain was.

I understand the printed scare sheets are to cover the pharmaceutical company’s fanny by warning the pill taker of the dangerous side effects. The side effects of the pain medicine I took were everything and more that happened to me and enough other side effects to make me a faith healer.

That led me to a reading frenzy of the scare sheets on other medications I take morning, noon and night. Shakespeare was right when he wrote: ”I find the medicine worse than the malady.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes’ dictum on the drug illusion, was “that if 99 percent of all drugs we possess were thrown into the sea it would be a good thing for the human race, but rather hard on the fishes.”

For example, these are the side effects of one of the drugs prescribed for me. “It may cause nausea, loss of appetite, drowsiness, vomiting, headache, sore gums, frequent urination, a rash, swelling, yellowing of the eyes or skin, bruising, bleeding and lower back pain.” And what else, pray tell.

Another drug prescribed for me said that I might experience dizziness, lightheadedness, drowsiness, diarrhea, unusual dreams, trouble sleeping, dry eyes and vision problems. Additionally, it warned the drug may reduce blood flow to your hands and feet and make you seem cold despite the temperature.

My question is, how can you feel drowsiness and have trouble sleeping? A side effect, according to WebMD, is an unintended occurrence and can be good or bad. I didn’t find anything good about the possible side effects listed in the meds I take and certainly not that weird nightmare I had after ingesting the pain medication, was an unintended occurrence on my part, because the pain persisted, as did the side effects.

What worries me, is the DrugWatch.com report that certain medications may interact with other drugs. I saw no warning to that effect in the scare sheets. Drugs by law must be prescribed by a doctor, but it has been my experience that a pharmacist is the best source to get information about the drug a doctor prescribes.

We all have to remember there is no magic bullet, regardless of all the actors and actresses who appear on the drug TV commercials touting the wonder drug cured them of some horrible disease. Remember they are paid to read a script to peddle the product.

(Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470.)

By BILL DUNCAN
The Elder Statesman

Libraries across the nation are in trouble. Not because there aren’t enough patrons. More than ever readers are flocking to the libraries during what is now called the Great Recession. However, as a fall out of the nationwide continuing recession, government is slashing budgets. Government always slashes what the public benefits from the most, a way of reminding taxpayers not to gripe about tax increases.

The Douglas County library system is caught in that economic squeeze and is facing shorter hours for public use. Marilyn Johnson a staff writer for Life Magazine, tackled the current library story in her new book, “This Book is Overdue.”

She writes: “Those who predicted the death of libraries forgot to consider that in the automated maze of contemporary life, none of us – neither the experts nor the hopelessly baffled – can get along without human help.” In other words we need librarians, those kind faces that answer the question a patron may ask and they do it without charge.

Johnson said the public underestimated how quick these dedicated, underpaid people, have adapted to the digital age. Johnson says the librarian of the future may be called a “cybrarian.”

They will still be librarians to me and I have to confess I would like to see the restoration of the old card file, rather than having to look up a book on a computer screen, but there is always the reference cybrarian who can navigate it for me.

I became a reader at an early age. I quickly discovered I could learn about new places, new things and new ideas from books. Even today I find pleasure in reading the encyclopedia.

In some ways, all that reading led me into a lifelong writing profession. Tony Hillerman in his autobiography, “Seldom Disappointed,” describes a writer as “a bag lady going through life with a sack and a pointed stick collecting stuff.” If you dug around the places I live and work, you would immediately agree with Hillerman’s analogy. I am a collector of bits and pieces of information that I hope someday to use in the books and columns I intend to write.

I have notebooks filled with that sort of information. Notebooks filled with miscellany.

I have spent most of my life in the world of books. I have written them and I have edited them. The book inevitably begins with the writer, who must fill blank pages with words and sentences that become paragraphs, then pages of words. Libraries become the most important resource to any writer and librarians, an indispensable resource.

Johnson said she gained a new respect for librarians when she was researching her first book, “Dead Beat,” about being assigned to write obituaries for Life magazine, and she discovered that librarians were a valuable resource, free for the asking. She says in her book on the changing face of the library that the profession was once the quiet gatekeeper to discreet palaces of knowledge has found itself “wrestling a raucous, multiheaded, madly multiplying beast of exploding information and information delivery systems.”

With that, she questions, who can we trust in a world of information free-for-all? Her answer: librarians.

In this age of hackers and the ability to digitally change photos and documents, we have to trust someone for authentic information.

Sadly, there was more of an uproar over proposals to limit hours at the county dumps than over the limited hours for the library.

(Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470.)

By BILL DUNCAN
The Elder Statesman

America celebrated Memorial Day on Monday, a celebration dating back to 1866, then called Decoration Day, to honor the fallen in the bloody Civil War. It continues today on the last Monday of May to remember the fallen in all American wars. To some it was just another holiday and for students a free day from the classroom.

It became more than that this past Monday for several hundred Roseburg high school students, who on Thursday, May 26, were immersed in history more deeply than just a brief mention in a history textbook. They took part in the 8th annual Living History Day on the high school campus, coming face-to-face with the men and women who fought in wars since World War II.

History teacher Brian Young organized the event when he learned that World War II vets were dying at a rate of 2,000 per day and their stories about battles and events in that war was being lost to his young students. Brian has since moved up to an assistance principal job in another school district.

The program he started lives on through Gwen Bartlett, a U.S, history teacher at Roseburg high school since 1998, and one who is equally enthusiastic about the program. Today the program includes veterans not only from World War II, but Korea, Vietnam and now veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. This year about 60 veterans were part of Living History Day on the campus, although the ranks of the World War II vets grows thinner each year.

I have been part of the program from its inception. I was there as a Marine who served with the Fifth Marine Division. This year, I shared a table with Bill Plummer, who served with the Third Marine Division. Between us, we had many stories to share with a rotating number of boys and girls who participated in the unique Living History Day program in the high school gymnasium.

At this year’s event, veterans from all the Armed Forces, gathered to share stories and memorabilia from those wars. Amazingly, two old GIs from World War II came dressed in their uniforms, circa the 1940s, complete with a chest full of combat ribbons and medals.

Leo Kraft, a much-decorated Marine tail gunner on a SBD Douglas dive bomber during several Pacific theater campaigns, had so much memorabilia to share, it took up an entire table, but he drew the largest crowd of students wanting to hear his stories. The students gathered at his table even before the event officially started.

One the most interesting presentations was from Fred Smith, who served in the British army throughout the dark days of the war when Great Britain literally stood alone against the Nazi juggernaut until America joined the fight after Pearl Harbor. Fred gave the students a different perspective on World War II.

One of the unique features of this year’s program was the number of World War II spouses who accompanied their husbands and were able to share what is was like on the home front during those war years. Both the men and the women of that era lived through the Great Depression and shared those stories too.

Living History Day is a credit to Roseburg high school’s faculty and administration for a unique history program that becomes a primary source of information beyond the pages of a textbook for their students.

(Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470.)

By BILL DUNCAN
The Elder Statesman

There is an old farmer’s saying that when corn is knee-high on the Fourth of July, there will be a good crop. My ground is plowed and waiting. Waiting for May to act more like May than February. It will be June next week and if I am lucky my corn seed will go underground.

I sincerely doubt it will be knee-high by the Fourth of July. However, in last year’s disastrous garden weather, I didn’t get my corn planted until mid-June and it proved to be an excellent crop.

I did get my tomatoes planted this year two weeks after Mother’s Day. The plants look healthy, but don’t seem in too big a hurry to put on growth. The onions and potatoes are delighted with the cool, rainy days of this May, but the squash, cucumbers, peppers just shiver in place. The strawberries wintered over and are coming on strong.

I was cautious this year in not planting early after the failed crops last year when you couldn’t tell what season it was from day to day. The greenhouse served its purpose in getting plants started, but before I could risk planting the starts, many became root bound.

The Chamber of Commerce advertises Douglas County has about the most mild climate in America. For years it was the banana belt, but the last two years the bananas turned black from exposure to frost, snow, hail and windstorms.

George H. Taylor, the state climatologist with the Oregon Climate Service, says July is consistently the driest month throughout Oregon. I might wait until July to plant that corn. He said Western Oregon receives the bulk of its annual precipitation during winter, with the wettest months being November through March. I assume we are still in the midst of winter since today it is expected to rain and probably will continue raining until June comes around.

But then Taylor says in summer, there can be 10 to 15 percent of rainy days. I wouldn’t complain about that. It would save me a few days of watering the garden. Taylor added that although rain can occur during the warm season, average totals during those months are generally lower than during winter.

Maybe I’ll wait until July to plant my corn, but then it just might snow.

Do you think this is all a sign of a new Ice Age?

(Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470.)

Lily
By B.J. Bassett
iUniverse Press
Softcover $14.95

By BILL DUNCAN
The News-Review

B.J. Bassett practices what she teaches. The Umpqua Community College writing instructor, writes. She writes newspaper columns, magazine articles, inspirational pamphlets and books. Her novel, “Lily,” is her latest literary achievement.

“Lily” is the story of a girl whose mother dies moments after Lily is born. The setting is in Laurel Springs, a town on the northern California coast in the early 1900s, where her father, William, is the minister of a small church. He dotes on his daughter, who is under the maternal care of her grandmother, Anna, and her spinster aunt, Agatha. As she grows up, Lily is a headstrong, high-spirited child who is overly pampered by her father, but reined in by her Aunt Agatha and chafes under her Victorian strictness.

William, as the church’s pastor, befriends George Ramsey, who because he has broken the settlement’s taboo by marrying a Kickapoo Indian, Running Cloud, is shunned by Laurel Springs Caucasian community. Rev. Blair is the exception and he values the friendship. The Ramsey’s have a daughter, White Dove, who becomes Lily’s playmate.

Lily, faces a similar barrier as that of the Ramseys, when she meets the blacksmith’s son, James Condi and the two are in love. She is the daughter of the town’s Protestant minister. James is a Catholic. Marriage is out of the question, unless one or the other converts.

When the United States becomes embroiled in World War I, James decides to end the relationship by enlisting in the Army. Lily accuses him of running away and in her fury rushes away in a fierce rainsquall. James chases after her. She had taken refuge in a cabin where James finds her wet and shivering. Both of them are soaked. That interlude ends with Lily getting pregnant and James leaving for the war after he has written her a note that their marriage would never be accepted in Laurel Springs.

Lily feels abandoned and angry. She marries, Harold, a man she causally knew and she doesn’t love and she has a son, Luke. Harold believes the child she has borne is his. White Dove becomes not only her best friend, but also a confidant.

James comes home from the war blind. Lily wants to tell him that Luke is his child and she will divorce Harold to marry him, but she can’t face him. She resolves to remain a wife to Harold and she bears his child, Willy. James marries a Catholic girl and becomes a teacher of the blind.

This may sound like a soap opera, but the intrigue Bassett weaves into the story makes it a readable slice of life novel. Bassett uses the fictional techniques of conflict and resolution effectively as Lily takes on life with one disastrous outcome after another until the surprising ending.

Bassett has created believable characters — White Dove, Aunt Agatha and James, but especially in Lily herself. Bassett continues to write and teach. She is currently working on a second book, also of fiction.

She’s hoping the work in progress will not take as long as the 27 years it took her to write and publish “Lily.” In defense of her time line to complete “Lily,” she says she was teaching in the California state college system, as well as working on newspapers in Eureka, Calif. prior to moving to Roseburg. She is now teaching writing courses at UCC.

By BILL DUNCAN
The Elderstatesman

Capital Press correspondent Craig Reed, is convinced I inherited my genes from Methuselah, the Hebrew patriarch, who according to the Book of Genesis lived 969 years. Reed bases that hypothesis on the fact that 30 plus years ago I survived terminal cancer without chemotherapy or radiation and despite medical science predicted that I had three months to live.

That was just the beginning. In 1997 I had a massive heart attack and a heart surgeon at Sacred Heart hospital in Eugene told my wife and daughter I was too far gone to risk surgery. Wrong again.

Even before the heart attack, I fell off my roof and shattered both ankles. The orthopedic surgeon at Mercy said I would never walk again. Wrong again.

In February of this year a VA outsourced patient to Mercy I underwent emergency surgery followed by kidney failure. My condition was so critical that Dr. Neal Kumar, a kidney specialist, considered dialysis for me. My kidneys healed themselves and I was released from the hospital.

John Harris of the International Longevity Center, an affiliate of Mount Sinai School of Medicine says “we all know that genes are immortal.” In his absorbing “Intimations of Immortality,” he says, “If cells weren’t programmed to age … our bodies could repair damage due to disease … we would certainly live much longer and healthier lives.”

Harris explores the pros and cons of medical science’s ability today to extend life. The subtitle of his study is, “The Ethics and Justice of Life-Extending Therapies.”

In my own case, I am part of the VA telemed program in which a VA registered nurse knows when I get up each morning, what my blood pressure is, how much I weigh and the percentage of oxygen in my blood. Likewise, my cardiologist in Eugene, knows when I go the bed each night. All with space age machines that monitor my vital signs daily.

In Harris’s study, he quotes Steven N. Austad, who wrote “Why We Age,” that the average life expectancy for “immortals” might be extended to 1,200 years.

The idea of immortality is nothing new. You can find those references in the Bible, the Koran and in classic literature, such as “The Illiad,” “The Odyssey,” and in Shakespeare’s plays. In modern literature, Douglas Adams in his five-art trilogy, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” has one of his characters achieving immortality.

The Bible says the span of life is “three score and ten,” or 70 years. Harris said in his study, “…that is a fair allocation of life, but after that threshold is reached, (those who live beyond 70) should be considered to have had more than their fair share of life.” I’ve lived more than a decade beyond “three score and ten.” The question is: “Do I want to live to be 1,200 years old?”

As an old newspaper hack who longs to fill the blank pages of newsprint with life’s unpredictable happenings, I’d love to live to see how it all turns out, but the way things are going, I think I’ll let someone else write that Second Coming headline.”

If some of Harris’s predictions are right, such as cloning human cells to replace diseased cells, maybe Craig Reed will write that headline.

(Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470.)

Oregon Favorites
Trails and Tales
By William L. Sullivan
Navillus Press
Softcover $24.95

By BILL DUNCAN
The News-Review

If there is one nook and cranny in Oregon that has not been explored and written about by William L. Sullivan of Eugene, I would be surprised. His specialty is describing places off the beaten path as in his latest outdoor guide, “Oregon Favorites.” Sullivan has chosen a month-by-month guide to places in Oregon.

He warns that “some of the adventures can be difficult” and reminds readers to “choose a trip that matches your abilities” and to tell someone your itinerary, particularly when you expect to return home. He also reminds those planning trips to take proper equipment. He describes each location with that kind of presentation.

Sullivan said he is often asked to name the “best” Oregon adventures, but he writes, “Oregon is such a diverse state, ranging from desert mountains to coastal rainforests,” therefore it’s hard to choose a favorite spot. Also, he said, Oregon has such different seasons, a variety of snow, rain and sun, that it would be difficult to choose a best single month for one of these adventures.

With that in mind, Sullivan wrote the book by seasons, starting in January and going to December. Each site he features has been visited and researched by Sullivan, who includes boxed information on how to get there and tips about exploring the region.

A trademark of all of Sullivan’s guidebook adventures is his love of wildflowers native to that region. Each chapter will have a photograph and a description of a particular wildflower. The photography in this and other Sullivan books, is worth the price of the book. The cover of “Oregon Favorites” is a stunning photograph of Mount Hood taken from Trillion Lake. The back cover is showing the Phantom Ship in Carter Lake equally grand.

The adventures told month-by-month feature the out of the way places throughout Oregon. For example, in July Sullivan urges readers to visit Mt. St. Helens just over the border in Washington state, and return to ground zero to see how nature has healed this devastated area after the May 18, 1980 volcano eruption. The sight of that recovery gives one hope about all the current disasters in the world, Sullivan suggest visiting Steens Mountain in Oregon’s High Desert Country twice, once in October to tour the Riddle Brothers Ranch National Historic District, now owned and restored by the Bureau of Land Management. Later in the book, Sullivan features a ski trip to Steens Mountain in December.

Closer to home, Sullivan recommends touring Shore Acres Park in November to see the light show at Shore Acres gardens near Coos Bay. The light show is from Thanksgiving to New Years when more than a quarter million lights decorate the gardens.

Sullivan covers almost the entire coast of Oregon beginning with the historic city of Astoria and moving south along Oregon’s rugged coastline.

Sullivan doesn’t spend all his time exploring the state’s back country. His memoir, “Cabin Fever,” is about building a log cabin near Tillamook, a quiet retreat for he and his wife, Janell, who live in Eugene. He has written three novels and 12 guidebooks to exotic places, mostly in Oregon and the Northwest.

In “Oregon Favorites,” he concludes the book with a section called “Farther Afield,” suggesting travel to California sites, as well as Alaska, Victoria, British Columbia, Italy, The Great Barrier Reef, and Australia’s mainland.

But why go elsewhere, when there is so much to see within the borders of Oregon?

(Bill Duncan can be reached at bduncan@nrtoday.com or by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470.)

Lincoln on War
Our Greatest Commander-in-Chief Speaks to America
Edited by Harold Holzer
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Hard cover $24.95

By BILL DUNCAN
The News-Review

More books have been written about Abraham Lincoln than any president before or since, however Harold Holzer, a Lincoln scholar, who has written 40 of those many books on Lincoln, has created a unique volume in Lincoln’s own words. Holzer compiled a collection of speeches, letters, and memoranda into a single book, “Lincoln on War,” for the 150th anniversary of the bloodiest war in American history – the Civil War.

Holzer traces the chronological metamorphous of Lincoln as a middle-aged dove congressman who spoke against the Mexican-American war, to a hardened hawk as the Union’s commander-in-chief, determined to heal America’s deep war wounds.

Holzer’s book comes as America painfully remembers the war that divided a nation and set brother against brother in a fight to determine the fate of the United States. On this sesquicentennial of the Civil War, it isn’t just another book on Lincoln and that war, but one in which Lincoln is speaking to the American people.

Holzer allows Lincoln to speak for himself through letters, telegrams, speeches, and memorandums. Included are Lincoln’s personal thoughts during the dark days of the war.

The collection is so unique that it appears as if Lincoln is talking about the troubles America has today.

The third listing of these official recordings makes that clear. On Dec. 22, 1841, Lincoln, a congressman from Illinois is serving his one and only term in Congress. He makes a daring, politically risky speech, questioning President Poke’s decision to go to war with Mexico over some border incidents.

In that same war, incongruously a West Point general named Jefferson Davis becomes a national hero for his brilliant military tactics. Lincoln, as president of the Union and Davis, as president of the Confederacy, were destined to clash in a war of wills.

When Lincoln rose to present that anti-war resolution, he was challenging the presidential powers to declare war, an issue still debated in Congress in the Bush-Obama era. Holzer notes this in his brief explanation before each of the Lincoln contributions. His detailed introduction, reflecting on a lifetime study of Lincoln, adds significantly to the text.

Lincoln was elected president at a time of national upheaval over the issue of slavery, state’s rights and was a nation on the verge of a war that would test the union of states. On that fateful day of April 12, 1861 when rebels fired on Fort Sumter, near Charleston, S.C., that war was inevitable.

“The collection attempts to gather, present and interpret Lincoln’s words by illuminating the most engrossing theme of his beleaguered presidency and ultimately, of the nation’s imperiled existence,” Holzer wrote in his introduction. Continuing, he said, “using his own weapons – his words – Lincoln fought the Civil War as brilliantly as any general who took the field.”

Mild-mannered Lincoln was no coward when it came to giving orders, or firing generals who would not follow those orders. Yet he remained a modest man, often taking a backseat to history. For example, Lincoln was not the principal speaker at the dedication of the soldier’s cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. That honor went to Edward Everett, a famous orator, who rambled on for two hours before Lincoln rose to give his closing remarks in two minutes, an elegy, The Gettysburg Address, considered the greatest presidential speech in history, and one that can be recited by most every school child in America.

“Lincoln on War,” lends itself to book club discussions, small group discussions and certainly in classroom discussion as part of American history. Lincoln’s words are spoken directly to Americans today as if they were then when the United States was in such turmoil.

(Bill Duncan can be reached at bduncan@nrtoday or by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470.)