Indianapolis 500: The 80's - A Decade for The Ages DVD

A must for Indy 500 fans

Released in 2005.

Part of a series of DVDs produced by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, this collection reviews all of the races from 1980-1989.

The collection features original TV & radio commentary, sound and video and lots of interviews with the drivers and owners. Some of the interviews are from the 1980s and some are from nowadays looking back.

1988 Indy 500: all Penske front row
(Mears, Sullivan, Big Al)

Indianapolis 500: The 80's -  A decade for The Ages is more than mindless promotion of the race - the lowlights (1981 and the ridiculous court case that determined the winner) are exposed as well. Changes with racing technology is highlighted throughout.

DVD features include collecting all of the bits and pieces of interviews with several drivers and some owners and adding a few bonus bits. Rick Mears, Roger Penske and Tom Sneva are especially strong interviews.

Another nice feature is the inclusion of an uninterrupted highlight reel of great duels from the 1980s on the track, such as Mears-Johncock, Danny Sullivan's "Spin and Win" with Mario Andretti and Sneva vs. both Little Al and Big Al.

Well done.

I rate this DVD 5 stars out of 5.

This DVD can be found on Amazon.com here: Indianapolis 500: The 80's.

Reviewed on May 2, 2008.

They Call Him Cale: The Life and Career of NASCAR Legend Cale Yarborough by Joe McGinnis

A NASCAR legend deserves better

Published in 2008 by Triumph Books.

Cale Yarborough is a living symbol of NASCAR from its beginnings to the very creation of the dizzying heights that it has achieved nowadays. Sadly, most of the Johnny-Come-Lately fans have no idea, or at best, only a very dim idea who he is.

Sadly, this biography of Cale Yarborough, They Call Him Cale: The Life and Career of NASCAR Legend Cale Yarborough, only covers half of his career. Indeed, most of the book covers his life before NASCAR. There are only 203 pages in this biography and he joins NASCAR full-time on page 169. Considering that the last 11 pages discusses his retirement years, that leaves 23 pages to discuss his amazing run of 3 championships in a row, the famous fistfight at the 1979 Daytona 500, his decision to run a partial schedule for more than 7 years and his 11 year stint as team owner (just 5 pages for that).

The book could have been tremendously improved if the author had bothered to interview a few people. After all, his stable of drivers include a bevy of current and recently-retired drivers, including Dale Jarrett and John Andretti (his only win as a car owner came with Andretti). All of these drivers are media friendly. I've heard Andretti speak about Yarborough with nothing but praise.

Cale Yarborough's famed 28 car in the 1980s

The author should have included commentary about how Yarborough was able to field competitive cars running a partial schedule (nearly impossible to do today). How about Yarborough's willingness to have in-car cameras when most did not want them? How about Yarborough's involvement in a group that tried to set up an alternative to NASCAR after he sold his race team? Nope. None of that.

The lack of depth is not too surprising, really. The author's notes (p. 261) say that he got "many" of the stories in his book from Cale's autobiography and most of the rest came from 7 internet sites.

A nice feature of the book is the inclusion of more than 50 pages of tables that detail Yarborough's NASCAR and IROC career and his Indy 500 runs.

A disturbing feature is the naming of each of his children, grandchildren and the little towns in which they live in South Carolina. Jeez. There are weirdos out there, McGinnis. Why give out this sort of detailed info?

I give it two stars. The pre-NASCAR part of the book is interesting. It's just too bad the rest of the book couldn't follow up.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: They Call Him Cale: The Life and Career of NASCAR Legend Cale Yarborough.

Reviewed on May 9, 2008.

What Dragons Prefer (kindle) by Dayle A. Dermatis

A very short short story

Published in 2011.

Dayle A. Dermatis' What Dragons Prefer is a Kindle "freebie"from Amazon.com, at least it is at the time of this review. If it were printed in book form it would be 5 pages or less, I am sure.

The plot revolves around a "dragonseeker," a woman who was brought to a small town to deal with a dragon that lives nearby. The dragonseeker knows how to get rid of a dragon, if necessary, but her expertise is really knowing about dragons - how often they eat, what they eat and what they really like.

The mayor of the town is a horrible, lecherous man and once his boorish ways get to be too much for the dragonseeker, she turns the tables.

The story in and of itself is quite easy to read but it telegraphs its punch line early on. It's satisfying, but not overly so. I rate this story 3 stars out of 5.

This short story can be found on Amazon.com here: What Dragons Prefer.

Reviewed on July 29, 2011.

LT's Theory of Pets (audiobook) by Stephen King

Funny story with a grisly ending.

Read by the author, Stephen King
Duration: 1 hour.

Read by Stephen King at a live performance in the UK, LT's Theory of Pets is an entertaining short story about a couple with two pets - a cat and a dog - and what the fact that family pets tend to actually prefer one member of the family over the others.

LT is a friend of the narrator of the story - they work at the same packing plant in Iowa. LT's wife left him nearly a year before and LT has become quite adept at telling the story of how his wife left him and why she took their dog with her and left the cat with him.

LT's telling of the story is quite funny. His wife's "Dear John" note she left him on the refrigerator the night she left him has to be the funniest Dear John note ever written. LT's observations about pets and married life are quite funny.

The end of the story has a hurried feel to it. King prefaces the story with a short introduction in which he notes that this story started out completely humorous but veered into scary, like a lot of his stories do. Personally, I think King did not know how to end the story so he headed for his familiar territory of the gruesome and the macabre.

Stephen King

Nonetheless, this is an entertaining listen. Stephen King reads his story very well and the funny parts of the story really shine. His distinctive Maine accent make it an even more interesting listen to this Midwesterner.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: LT's Theory of Pets.

Reviewed on July 28, 2011.

Young Abe Lincoln: His Teenage Years in Indiana by W. Fred Conway

While it does not feature any factual errors, you start to wonder...

...is this a book that really had to be written?

Published in 1992 by Squire Boone Village

I know that the top-rated, best-selling history authors depend a lot on writers like W. Fred Conway in order to get the more popular, wider-audience histories written. Why? Because Conway is a fan of Indiana history and he has done a lot of research that people like James McPherson would never have time to do simply out of a love for his local area. This is one of the many books he has written about Indiana, Kentucky and/or Ohio and life along the Ohio River. Conway knows his stuff but...

Boyhood of Lincoln
by Eastman Johnson, 1868

Well, I am also a proud son of the Hoosier state and I found Young Abe Lincoln: His Teenage Years in Indiana to be more than a little pointless. The important facts could have been written in about 10 pages, maybe less. A little more than 5% of the book is the hopeful reminiscings of women that Lincoln may or may not have dated and their wishings that they could have married Lincoln (at the time they were interviewed he was the assassinated former President) if only they had really wanted to.

Out of 130 pages of text (Including Appendices showing Indiana state parks that have a Lincoln connection), I would estimate at least 40 pages of the text consists of pictures. Conway likes to include whole poems that Lincoln wrote about his boyhood in Indiana - page after page of poems. One whole page is filled with the creeds of the church that Lincoln attended but never joined. Trivia, not history.

So, I give this one 2 stars out of 5. Too many pictures and too much inane detail. I felt like someone had tried to pump up a large pamphlet into a book. It is not a one star rating because at least the facts he has presented are correct, which is saying something.

Do not buy unless you are a serious Lincoln collector.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Young Abe Lincoln: His Teenage Years in Indiana by W. Fred Conway.

Reviewed on August 2, 2006.

No Promises in the Wind by Irene Hunt

Reviewed by a history teacher seeking reading material for his classes

Originally published in 1970.

Winner of the Charles W. Follet Award.

I picked up No Promises in the Wind without much in the way of expectations since I am not that big of fan of Irene Hunt's most famous novel for the younger set, Across Five Aprils.

However, I am pleased to say that this is a much better book. No Promises In The Wind is about two brothers who leave home during the Great Depression simply because there is not enough money at home to buy enough food to feed everyone. They head off from Chicago with no plan except to try to survive as best as they can.

A soup line during the Great Depression

As a teacher, what I like best about this book is its portrayal of the complete and utter economic collapse that the Great Depression entailed. Most students have no conception as to the breadth and depth of the Great Depression. By looking at this small family, readers gain an inkling as to what went on. Modern readers might question why this family didn't apply for welfare or food stamps, so it could lead to a great discussion about the beginnings of such programs. The book addresses, in passing, the inability of private charities to keep up with the massive need.

When I asked my grandmother about the Depression, her experience as a young woman in the country mirrored what these boys do in this book. My grandmother spoke about young and old men alike coming up to their house and begging for food. Usually, they offered to do a bit of yard work in exchange for the food and the promise to keep moving on. This book echoed that experience wonderfully.

No Promises In The Wind would make a great introduction to the Great Depression as a topic in class. While, in the end, it is not nearly as powerful as more famous books, such as The Grapes of Wrath, it is much more accessible to young people and thus more useful.

Since the book ends just a few weeks after FDR takes office, follow up topics would naturally include the WPA and the CCC as well as Roosevelt's calculated strategies to appear as though he had things in hand in order to provide a bit of hope.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: No Promises in the Wind.

Reviewed on August 2, 2006.

Lincoln Laughed: The Wit and Humor of Abraham Lincoln (audiobook)

A different look at our most written-about  president

Duration: 42 minutes
Produced by Teaberry Tapes

Everyone knows the facts about Lincoln - the 16th president, the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address, his assassination. But, do you really know Lincoln?  This CD offers a completely different look at the myth that the man has become by offering a look at his humorous side.

Lincoln was a master storyteller and he often told his stories to prove a larger point. There are plenty of those types of stories on this CD.  Sometimes he just told stories to disarm an audience - the editor of this collection notes that Stephen Douglas feared the ability of Lincoln's homespun humor to win a crowd more than his arguments. Lincoln's stories were known to persuade juries and sometimes they were just for fun. His wife noted that Lincoln's sense of humor - his quick smile and laughing eyes were never present in his photographs - he always looked so solemn, serious and even sad. This CD goes a long way to presenting the Lincoln that his friends and colleagues knew.

This CD is available is only available online from the company that produced the CD, a company called Tellens (link here) although I have found references to this CD being sold at Lincoln-related historical sites. Mine was purchased at the Indiana State Museum.

Note: there are two small historical errors in the presentation. There was no Lincoln-Douglas debate in Bloomington, Indiana. Instead, the reference would be to a Bloomington, Illinois. But, there was no Lincoln-Douglas debate there, either. Instead, Douglas spoke and Lincoln came from the crowd with a series of prepared questions and comments to challenge Douglas in an effort to set up more formal debates later on - those later debates were the Lincoln-Douglas debates. The second mistake involves mixing up the general who noted that all of his dispatches came from his "Headquarters in the Saddle." The narrator claims it was Joe Hooker, but it was John Pope. Lincoln joked, "General Pope has his Headquarters, where his Hindquarters ought to be."