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Over the W.A.A.V.'s

by Elaine Lagerstrom

197 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0374; ISBN 1-55369-561-5; US$21.50, C$25.10, EUR17.50, £12.50

Human Relations Vignettes given with humor and insight.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book This book is a collection of radio vignettes given on various topics, all with a bias towards human relations. The author tweaks herself, her husband and family along with praise when she feels it is deserved. She writes on subjects as diverse as learning to be on time to romance in the seniors circuit. You will find her riding her moped to work, a bicycle in Italy, and borrowing her father's car at l6 and facing three angry adults when she returns. Some stories are serious and some are amusing, but all show the human condition in one form or another.

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About the Author Elaine Lagerstrom is a native of Chicago, Ill. When she married in l956, she moved to Elgin, Illinois, then Dubuque, Iowa, where she worked on the Telegraph-Herald newspaper briefly while her husband was sports editor at the same newspaper. Elaine was on the Human Rights Commission in Dubuque and when they retired to Wilmington, N.C., she represented League of Women Voters on the Human Relations Commission in Wilmington beginning in 1999. As a commissioner she was asked to do short vignettes on WAAV radio by Don Ansell, host of the early morning show. Her vignettes became a popular spot on Don's program and it was suggested she put her stories into a book. This represents that work. Trained in office skills, Elaine worked at Chicago Bridge & Iron and the Midwest Stock Exchange, both in Chicago, then various jobs in Dubuque when the children were older, finishing her career at Interstate Employees Credit Union in Dubuque, from which she retired. As her friends will tell you, writing was always Elaine's first love and it seems no accident that the husband she chose was also a writer who honed her skills.

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Sample Excerpts

PREVENTING FAMINE

I keep my extra canned goods in the bottom of one cabinet. I started with about 6 cans when we moved here 8 years ago and graduated to about 35 cans crammed into the limited space. I am annoyed trying to find a little-used item in the back. I end up sitting on the floor, taking out all my cans searching for the one I knew was there.

I'm glad when the Boy Scouts have a campaign for families to donate canned goods. I can go through my supplies and those that I haven't used in a while, donate to the cause. I've wondered if I have a problem with keeping too many supplies in my home, but I think I am probably only one of the mass of Americans who have enough food on hand to last an entire year, if they are frugal about it.

Back in Dubuque years ago, I went into canning pickles but was worried that I hadn't used up last year's supply when I had a new batch of cucumbers in my garden. How long can you keep home- canned goods, I asked my neighbor, Rosie. She assured me they will keep for years-- "Come over and I'll show you," she said.

So I followed her across the street to her considerably larger home. She took me to the basement and showed me the rows and rows of shelving her husband had made and there were enough jars on them of various canned goods to feed an army division. She pulled out jars of pickles that were 8 years old and showed me how the color was still good -- in fact she opened one to prove that they were as tasty as ever. But what stuck in my mind was what on earth was that retired couple going to do with all the food she had stored there. She also opened her huge freezer to show me boxes and boxes of coffee cakes and donuts they had gotten on sale, again enough to keep our neighborhood in breakfast food for a year.

When I toured some condos recently, I opened the storage cabinet and there on deep shelves were enough packaged and canned goods to open a mini grocery store. I wondered why they hadn't used up some of the supply--they were planning to move, weren't they? Another condo I looked at had a small kitchen and I didn't see any canned goods when the cabinets were opened. I asked where the lady-of-the-house kept them. So she opened the adjoining door to the garage and there was an 8 foot tall cabinet which she opened to reveal a bonanza of canned goods. I just knew they'd be there someplace.

While some countries have had trouble keeping food in the stores, I doubt that has happened in America. All my friends confess to having their freezers brim full, plenty of canned goods, and yet most of us like to eat out. Some friends and I were discussing this phenomenon. I don't know how it got into the American mentality. My friends say it's because the stores put things on sale and they buy because of the price. But my neighbor who canned 3000 jars of whatever, didn't do all that work on sale.

That poor woman died and the husband remarried. His new wife donated the canned goods to a food pantry. That was l2 years ago -- they are probably just running out.

I recently bought cabinets for over the washer-dryer and found the top shelf was a wonderful place to store those six cans of tomatoes I bought while Harris-Teeter had triple coupon week. The installer warned how, however, not to pile canned goods on all the shelves -- they weren't made for the weight. So that knowledge will keep a rein on my desire to, like most Americans, prevent famine.

Maybe when they say American is the Land of Plenty, they are looking into our pantries.

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Catalogue Information

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