Scent of Lilacs and News from Hollyhill

April 14, 1965

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Not much to report this week. Dad says that's good because it means nothing bad has happened. And I say why can't something good happen that we can report. 

But in the newspaper business, bad sells more papers. Like the wind blowing the roof off of Mr. Dexter's barn last week. Everybody wanted to buy a paper to see that picture. Of course, plenty of people had already driven out there to see the barn roof sitting over in the field instead of on the barn with their own eyes. I took the picture Dad put in the paper. I like taking pictures, but Dad says I have to be careful about using too much film. He's been thinking up ways to pinch pennies ever since he filled out those tax forms last week. So I can't take a picture of every flower I see even if they are signs of spring. And that's good news! But not the kind that sells newspapers. 

But I think spring is good. That means summer is not too far away and school will be out!! Yay!! This time of the year, school just gets too long. Way too long. They start wanting you to take tests every other day and by now, your poor old brain is so tired you can't squeeze one good answer out of it. But you have to anyway because you sure don't want to fail and have to do it all over again next year. I'd run away to Jupiter if that happened. 

Trouble is, Wes tells me they have school all summer up there. That's why they know how to build space ships that run on bug juice. Jupiter bug juice. I think even Wes has spring fever, not coming up with anything but rerun Jupiter stories. You want to know about that one just check back a few issues to the story he told me in February about Jupiterian Fropples. 

Since we're talking about stories, how about those two book covers up top? That's the book where you can come visit us here in Hollyhill and find out about all our secrets. That writer didn't keep anything back. The book cover on the right is the first cover the book had back when it was published in 2005. But now it's back out with the new cover, the one where I'm reading on the steps. Both covers have lilacs. Guess that had to be since the title talks about smelling lilacs. I like lilacs, so that's okay. They budding out here, but haven't bloomed yet. We're supposed to get some cold weather. Redbud winter, Miss Sally says. I'm going to cry if it freezes the lilac blooms. Really, I am. Loud, so Mother Nature can hear and feel sorry.

Anyway, back to those book covers. Which one do you like best? I like the bike, but I guess I have to like the new one best since that's me on it. It's not every day you get to have your picture on a book, now is it?

Oh, and if you have some newfangled way of reading that I can't even imagine, you can get it for free. I thought you had to go to a bookstore to buy a book or order one from a book catalog and then it came in the mail. But Wes says in those science fiction books he reads that they send books right through the air sort of like t.v. shows. I don't know if they have antennas or what. Sounds crazy to me, but if you are way out there in the future and know what he's talking about and you have one of those futuristic gizmos, you can read all about my adventures in Hollyhill without paying a dime. It costs nada, nothing. At least for a while. That's better than the books in the dimestore.

So, till next week when maybe the lilacs will be blooming, happy reading.