Last Call

As often happens, my library reserves are arriving all at once.  Last Call by Daniel Okrent is on my Kindle, so I can set it aside for now.  The political process toward  Prohibition was slow, and reading about it is not speedy.  My son chose the book for me because he lives in small-town Ohio, the incubator of the Eighteenth Amendment.

I'm getting a refresher course on Nebraskan William Jennings Bryan, the Great Commoner aka Boy Orator of the Platte.  Bryan was a perennial presidential candidate like Harold Stassen, Ralph Nader, and Eugene McCarthy.  What I remember most about William Jennings Bryan and his Lincoln home, Fairview, is the umbrella stand made from an elephant's leg.  That item creeped out generations of Lincoln schoolchildren.  I think of it whenever I teach an elephant-related art project!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder