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Building my own backyard mini golf course  

The yard course is more reminiscent of the British Open than Augusta

By Cort Reynolds

ADA–Having been a lifelong athlete and gamesman, I was looking for something constructive and fun to do this summer to help fill some of my sports void.

The regular basketball game at ONU that I organized and played in for years came to a screeching halt during the pandemic and has yet to be resuscitated despite my so-far fruitless efforts to start it back up.

I decided to put an idea that had been gestating for over a year in my head into action and create something the area lacks, something which used to be a fixture in many towns. An activity to add to my backyard basketball hoop and croquet set-up that would sharpen concentration skills.

Armed with a small spade, my imagination and determination to make up something fun and challenging, I created my own backyard miniature golf course this past month. 

I was only going to make 18 holes, but I am up to 22 and counting, although I am starting to run out of good real estate spots despite the fun of creating them. I might get to 27 holes, but not 36.

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Book review: Station Eleven

This is not a new book by Emily St. John Mandel (“The Singers Gun,” “The Last Night In Montreal,” “The Lola Quartet”). It was written in 2014, long before Covid-19, but not as long as apocalyptic dystopian stories have been around. Think about Noah's story, and the end of the world as he knew it. And all the dead unbelievers after the end of civilization. So many lives taken away in so short a time. It is unconscionable.

While the concept isn't new, this author has a new, modern story written in a new and interesting way. It is a brilliant telling of a now all too believable scenario in our modern age of air flight and a pandemic disease from which there is no hiding .

“Station Eleven” (Thorndike Press, ISBN 978-4104-7417-9, ISBN 1-4104-7417-8) is such a tale.

A swine flu mutation originating in Georgia, Russia spreads so easily and quickly that there is no time to avoid it. It spreads everywhere, killing anybody who comes close to it. The disease kills 99 percent of the human race and leaves the survivors in a place without any modern civilization to guide them; no police, no phones, no computers, no food after the stores have been robbed of anything edible. Nobody that was in the world they used to know, much like Noah's old tale of woe.

Book Review: The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman

Book Review by Robert McCool

I'm back with a classic. It’s been quite a few weeks since I've submitted a book review for the Icon. It's been quite a few weeks since I have had the motivation to read a new pop-fiction release.

Book Review: Our Missing Hearts

Review by Robert McCool

Words can be weapons; whether written or spoken, or the more dangerous implied threat by authority.

Poetry has to be words too; a light illuminating the darkness in some human souls.

Such is the premise in the new masterwork by Celeste Ng, titled Our Missing Hearts ($34.00, Random House ISBN978-0-593-63267-3).

The story begins after the collapse of the United States economic system (which is blamed on the Chinese, of course). This is the time of PACT (Preserving American Culture and Traditions), a totalitarian authority that controls the whole country. PACT has the power to suppress any activity that is considered UN-American or seditious. PACT has the power to read all mail, wiretap any phone, or impose an ongoing curfew, which the breaking of brings down the law. Big time.

They also have the right to remove any child from its family if the parents do not follow PACT constraints faithfully to protect American values. These PACT laws were passed unilaterally by the House and Senate in an effort to bring America out of the Crises.

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A book reviewed during a storm

By Robert McCool

After a spell of ill health, I find myself back at the books and the keyboard during a winter storm, ready to talk about a book I wanted to hate, but couldn't.

Barbara Kingsolver is a great writer who presents her stories as plain-faced as a tale can be. This leads to some unpleasant topics sometimes when a story absolutely must be told. Such is “Demon Copperhead” ($34.50 ISBN:987-0-06-326746-6), an Oprah's Book Club 2022 selection.

The book is all about a boy (Daemon) with red hair (Copperhead) growing up up in the Apalachicola South, with all its poverty–which means plenty of teen mothers and drugs, among other things like high school football, drinking excessively and having not much future to look forward to. On the other hand, family is tight and most important in life.

This is what Demon faces.

And this is why I wanted to hate this book. Not for the writing, which is brilliant, but for the subject matter. It hurts.

As a teenager in an alcoholic white-trash family, I was faced with one future with the Ford Motor Company. College was out of the question unless I alone did something about it. I moved out, and then worked for a university while I studied there. I did it, so why couldn't anybody try? I know from experience it's not that easy, and this book shows the dark side of futility. That's why it bothered me. I wanted to  stop reading at times, but instead I couldn't put it down. It's a big book, 883 pages in large print, but I read it in three days. It's that good.

Professor Parquet on the underrated Chris Ford

The former Celtic player and coach hit the first 3-pointer in NBA history and won three rings in Boston

By Professor Parquet for www.celticsblog.com
A.k.a. Cort Reynolds

Ford died at age 74 Tuesday of heart failure, the latest in a long line of Celtic champions to perish recently.

Known as a very smart and fundamentally sound player, Ford was the starting off guard for Boston when they won the 1981 NBA title, also against the Rockets. He later served as a Celtic assistant coach for seven seasons and was a key staff member under K.C. Jones on the 1984 and 1986 championship teams.

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