By Alison Gibson
Director, Union Township Public Library
The scarecrows on the Ripley library fence continue to garner comments and compliments. In the comment column, several people have said that they didn’t know about the project until the scarecrows were up. We try very hard to spread the word about our different events/projects but if you have any suggestions as to how we can better reach you, we are all ears. Currently, I write this column that The Ripley Bee graciously prints, we send “public announcement” bits to the local newspapers and we have a very active Facebook page that you can read online without having to have a Facebook account as well as our own website.
This Saturday is filled with events. Shaheen Miro will return to the Ripley Library 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct, 10, this time to discuss the differences between ghosts and spirits, and what a haunting might really be. This is a free program and open to everyone. From noon-3 p.m., Shaheen will be available for short 10 minute tarot card readings. He did this the last time he was at the library and the time slots were quickly filled. There is a fee for this reading, but it is reduced from his normal charge. The sign-up sheet is at the Ripley library, so if you are interested, please call or stop in soon 937-392-4871.
Looks like it will be chilly Saturday evening, and maybe a bit spooky, with our resident Hollywood star David Gray telling historic local stories of murder, mayhem and maybe ghosts down in the Parker House amphitheater on Front Street from 7-8 p.m. This will be geared more for adults, so no young children please. We’ll have some light refreshments, hot chocolate sounds good. If the weather doesn’t cooperate, we will hold this storytelling at the library.
Books out this week and next have some familiar authors. John Sandford, known for his “Prey” books joins with author Ctein and creates a futuristic adventure novel titled “Saturn Run” that takes place in 2066—a race for a new technology in space, filled with espionage, heroics, and strong characters.
The flood of Christmas books are also hitting the shelves, everything from Country Living’s “Christmas Joys: Decorating, Crafts and Recipes” to Debbie Macomber’s annual short holiday novel “Dashing through the Snow,” to the myriad of Amish Christmas themed-books including Wanda Brunstetter’s “The Lopsided Christmas Cake.” We have also added a bunch of how-to books, “The Backyard Homestead Book of Kitchen Know-How: Field –to-Table Cooking Skills,” “Microshelters: 59 Creative Cabins, Tiny Houses, Tree Houses and other Small Structures,” and “The Apple Cookbook: 125 Freshly Picked Recipes.”
Some books come to us in unusual ways. “At Home-Charleston: Traditions and Entertaining in a Charleston Home” by Catherine H. Forrester is a pretty book with delicious recipes and a Ripley connection. Via a genealogist’s visit to the library, I was told in the book the author talked about her grandmother, Juliette McCague Wiles, born in Ripley in 1906, and her grandmother Juliette Hathaway Wiles, who was the head of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in Ripley. Small world.