Missive #22

Read Will Rogers column 88 years ago: January 20, 1935

It is winter again here. The low this morning was 26° which is the first day in a week of forecast lows to be in the 20s. We could see a low in the upper teens next Tuesday, not good news.

I have poor circulation in my hands and when the temperature goes below freezing the hands are painful even when wearing insulated gloves. The morning walks in these colder temperatures are going to be shorter for that reason. Maybe increase the noon and afternoon walk distances a little; or maybe not.

Born of the Storm is a socialist realist novel written by Nikolai Ostrovsky during Joseph Stalin’s era. The novel, begun in January 1924 and concerning the Ukrainian–Soviet War, it remained unfinished due to Ostrovsky’s death in December 1936.Because it was published from the unfinished manuscript it reads as an unfinished work so don’t expect much. It received one customer review at Amazon and five at goodreads.com which gives you a good idea of how in demand it is to be read.

The action of Born of the Storm goes on in autumnal days of 1918 when Poland was regaining its independence after 123 years of partitions. German occupational forces moved away from Ukrainian territories while local Polish legioners had been formed with dreams of adding some Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian lands to the Polish state bordering on the ruins of Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian empires.