A colorful portrait of the rhythms and textures of Zonian life, with little investigation of the underlying politics.
An evocative account of growing up in the Panama Canal Zone during the last years of U.S. control over the key waterway.
Deep in the Panamanian jungle, the Panama Canal Zone was a small slice of America, where U.S. workers employed in operating and maintaining the key isthmian waterway lived with their families. In 1970, about 45,000 “Zonians” lived amid a total Panamanian population of 1.5 million. Judy Haisten’s poignant memoir describes her experience growing up a Zonian between 1964 and 1977—the year President Jimmy Carter signed the treaty ending U.S. control over the canal. For Haisten, the Zone was a tropical paradise in which “[l]ife patterns...were planned, organized, and structured, while the jungle promised chaos, confusion, spontaneity.” With wry humor and vivid detail, she presents a series of Zonian-life vignettes, from dodging bats in the only movie theater in her town to chasing a stray parrot, staring down a crocodile and running away from a boa constrictor. Her prose is as steamy as the humid Panama climate: “Mealy water bugs” skim the surface of a pond where alligators breed, and “[f]oamy masses of frog eggs [float] close to the bank.” There are also visits to the primitive settlements of two indigenous tribes, including the half-naked Choco Indians. “I felt as if I had stepped into the pages of the National Geographic magazines we received at home in the mail,” Haisten recalls. The idyll ends abruptly with the canal treaty, under which the Zone, as a political entity, ceased to exist on Oct. 1, 1979. “America had lost a piece of herself,” Haisten laments, her dreams of raising her own children in the Zone dashed. But like the water bugs, the author skims the surface: Her focus on Zonian life is so tight that she doesn’t explore the palpable tension of the U.S. presence in Panama, which was established under a 1903 treaty that many Panamanians viewed as imperialistic. The host country is just “a welcome part of our lives,” while her encounters with Panamanians are limited to her family’s housekeeper, bus drivers and salesmen at an auto dealership she visits with her mother. She chastises President Carter for going back on his word to protect Zonians, but she fails to acknowledge that they always lived in Panama on borrowed time.
A colorful portrait of the rhythms and textures of Zonian life, with little investigation of the underlying politics.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2012
ISBN: 978-1614930853
Page Count: 290
Publisher: The Peppertree Press
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Down-to-earth, Christ-inspired advice on leading a congregation.
FitzGibbon draws on Scripture, the life of Jesus and 25 years in the ministry to give a wise, sometimes entertaining and always practical guide to growing a ministry from the ground up.
From the pews, a minister might appear infallible. But FitzGibbon cuts through the illusion to speak minister to minister, with foibles and pitfalls laid bare and readily applicable advice on how to avoid them. Proverbs—not hackneyed adages, but the holy wisdom from the Bible’s Book of Proverbs—and examples from Jesus’ life inform this guide, and on that bedrock rest anecdotes from the author’s own experience that illustrate what to do and what not to do to build a church that can help bring people closer to God. The author’s life straddles both the ministry and a career in business, so the wisdom tends to touch upon administration, public speaking, anger management and personal responsibility, all with a decidedly Christian spin. Many of the ideas here show how to effectively deal with people: in the words of James, quotes remind readers to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger; in the words of Moses’ father-in-law in Exodus, delegate our duties; and, in the words of Paul, beware of pride, haughtiness and stubbornness. New ministers filled with youthful exuberance yet untested in the field might find the solace here that they need to keep their ministry afloat when their dreams collide with reality. A dozen PowerPoint illustrations help visualize the concepts discussed in the text.
Down-to-earth, Christ-inspired advice on leading a congregation.Pub Date: June 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0692017500
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Non-Profit Leadership Publishing, LLC
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A Western on the business side of things, deftly supported by engrossing melodrama and inimitable characters.
A rancher looks into his late father’s past and may learn more than he’d intended in Ochs’ Western drama (The Boathouse, 2008).
Oliver Walsh, despite being the only son and the oldest of three children, receives the smallest chunk of his father’s vast inheritance. But what he finds most jarring is the inclusion of a weathered rifle that his father had deemed valuable and an apparently abandoned ranch of which Oliver was not even aware. A little research finds a connection between the two—both were formerly owned by Malcolm Duffey Jr. Years before, Malcolm had moved west to Montana, where he made money hunting buffalo before going into business with a man that he didn’t completely trust—C. Charles Walsh. Ochs takes a unique approach to telling his story. Though scenes with Malcolm are flashbacks and form the bulk of the novel, they’re not the narrative interpretation of what Oliver has learned through researching land records and newspaper articles. What he ultimately exposes is a significant but condensed version. The dual timelines maintain a high level of anticipation. The prior knowledge of Malcolm’s death (much earlier than Charles’) and the crumbling of the two men’s personal and business relations fuels curiosity about the story leading up to those events. There’s little humor, but Malcolm’s education of the West by way of dime-store novels is a highlight, especially with titles such as Jesse James and the Soiled Dames and Buffalo Bill Plays the Death Flute. The hardships of the Old West are shown with an unblinking eye, which may cause animal lovers to flinch—buffalo, horses and cattle fall prey to hunting, severe weather and harsh conditions.
A Western on the business side of things, deftly supported by engrossing melodrama and inimitable characters.Pub Date: April 29, 2012
ISBN: 978-1463592806
Page Count: 192
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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