Munro stories....added link in These titles mean nothing.

I am reading Alice Munro stories. Dear Life. I had read them before - in the book I suppose, maybe just in the New Yorker but it feels like I read them all at once - like in a book. They are different/odd in a mild way. Examples? Sure.

1. Young woman who is a poet is married to an engineer. They have a young daughter. It’s set in Vancouver with bridges. She has several poems published in an obscure magazine. She is invited to a party in association with the magazine. She goes alone and drinks too much. She is taken home by a man. She remembers the man’s name. She later finds out he writes for a Toronto n(ewspaper. Later she is offered a chance to stay in the house of a friend in Toronto while the friend is traveling. Her husband can’t go, so she takes her daughter on the train. Before she leaves she writes a note to the man at the newspaper giving the date and time her train is to arrive. While on the train she has sex with an actor - she loses her daughter, then finds her. When they arrive in Toronto the man is there to meet her. End.

2. Young woman comes to a tuberculosis sanitarium in British Columbia. She is to be a teacher for the children. The doctor in charge is attracted to her, is attractive to her. They have sex (she was a virgin - lovely quote about enthusiasm making up for experience. They agree to get married. They go, get license, and wait for the justice of the peace, and he gets cold feet. He says he will send her back to Toronto on the train and send her possessions later. He does, she goes, etc. Later after she is married and has children, she meets him on a city street. They greet each other and go their separate ways. End.

3. A young man comes home from the war and takes a night course. He falls in love with the teacher who is married and somewhat older than he is. She divorces and married the ex-soldier. She is going to continue teaching until he finishes college and gets a job then they will have a family. She gets a heart disease and cannot work. He becomes a policeman in a small town. One of his duties is walking a girl home from her job taking tickets at the movie theater. Just on Saturdays when there are two shows and she has to stay later. Her family is very strict religiously. The girl disappears. Turns out she has eloped with the son of the minister. The man’s wife’s health has ups and downs. The girl comes back with two kids, and no husband. Later, she has an affair with a different minister - not her fatherinlaw. The wife’s health declines and they go to a city hospital. He gives up his police job and sells their house and gets a maintenance job at the hospital. Eventually the wife is in a coma and no longer knows him but she keeps living. One night he finds the girl from the movie theater who is working at the hospital too. She has lost the minister boy friend and lost custody of her children to their father’s parents. The wife dies. The man is happy to know the girl is there. End.

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Here is a link to a bunch of photos of the Womens’ March in Des Moines. They are sweet photos - you get to see Iowa’s 1870s era Capitol building and a some really nice people.

http://www.bleedingheartland.com/2017/01/22/44-photos-from-the-iowa-womens-march/

Try this.

Last updated February 02, 2017