What is so rare as a day in June?

"...Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Heaven tries the Earth, if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
And whither we look, and whither we listen,
We see Earth sparkle, and hear it glisten..."
from The Vision of Sir Launfal, by James Russell Lowell (?)

It took about a minute to remember who wrote that. All I could remember was "Lowell," and the old jingle, "Cabots speak only to Lowells,/ And Lowells speak to God."

Well, children, Mable had a great Book Club meeting at the library Friday afternoon. The book was Evidence of Things Unseen, which reminded me of one of Ralph Hammond's light poems. Susan has been too busy in recent months to do the newsletter, so I volunteered to revive it.

I just finished re-reading Mile High by Richard Condon. Brutal. It struck me that the first two-thirds of that book are pretty dense, being a detailed account of how Paddy West's son E.C. created Prohibition, then the stock market crash and the Great Depression. And in the process(es) became the richest man in the world, a psychopath and a murderer. It's really only necessary to read Book Two and Book Three, which make up the last third of the volume, to get the results, how West's two sons became good sane people, and the romance and marriage of the younger son. I don't know whether Condon had any factual basis for E.C. West, or made him up altogether, but for the last 30-40 years, when I think of the Depression or Prohibition, I shudder to think of E.C. West.

Yesterday I shipped the Andy Warhol book to a customer in Amherst, Mass. If I ever have to go back to work, I'm qualified as a box-maker. I get stacks of cardboard boxes at the stores and cut them down to fit odd-size volumes.