SURFNETKIDS GROWN-UP NONFICTION BOOK CLUB Got shopping? Get discounts! Visit Surfnetkids: Coupons, Deals and Bargains for hundreds of discounts from dozens of online stores. This week's book: THE LAST GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER by Edward Beauclerk Maurice *New to the book club? Just click on the Missing Read link below for any emails you may have missed. Go to: (Today's book starts after the "Dear Reader" column.) Dear Reader, There was a notice in the church bulletin: "Take communion to shut- ins. Classes starting soon." In the beginning my only mission was to take communion to Amy every Tuesday and I'd bring along a copy of the Sunday church bulletin. Amy had been a member of the church for years so she liked listening to me read the bulletin, because she'd recognize a lot of peoples' names mentioned. Amy and I made quite a pair--both of us were creative souls, whose body parts weren't cooperating with them at any given moment. Amy had terrible eyesight because of her age, she was 96, and I'd recently been diagnosed with an eye disorder that left me walking with a red and white cane. It was a weird eye disorder, ironically one that usually only affects people Amy's age. But I was only 27 and wasn't able to keep my eyelids open, which might not sound like a big deal, but when your eyelids won't stay open, you bump into walls and walk off of porches. There was a religious script to follow for communion; same order and words every time, but it wasn't too many Tuesdays before Amy and I were ad-libbing a bit and I don't think the "Big Guy" minded at all. After we finished the communion prayer making sure the "Be Thous" were in their proper places, Amy and I would add our own personal requests: Amy had a doctor's appointment Friday and was worried about getting down the long flight of steps in the back of her apartment. I was a frustrated because I couldn't make a decent pie crust. I realized there were a lot more serious things to be worried about, but baking seemed to be good therapy for me while I was waiting to find out if my red and white cane was going to be a permanent way of life. "You want to learn how to roll a pie crust?" Amy asked after the "Amen." So the following Tuesday Amy taught me how to roll a pie crust. It was simple following her step-by-step instructions, or maybe it was because the dough knew better than to argue with a 96-year-old pie crust veteran. After sampling the pies we decided we liked the eating part of our get-togethers, so every Tuesday after communion we started having lunch together. And after I discovered that Amy used to play piano in a swing band, we started making music--she played piano and I sang along. Amy's eyesight was so bad she could barely see the piano keys, but it didn't matter because she'd always played by ear anyway. A relationship is give-and-take, if it's a good one. Looking in from the outside someone might have thought my relationship with Amy was one-sided, taking communion to a shut-in. It was not. I met a woman who'd led a life that I could only hope for and she was coming down the homestretch with finesse and grace. I'd been visiting Amy for over a year and I could tell that it was getting harder for her to do things. So it wasn't a complete surprise when I got a call from her son, "You should come for your last visit with my mother." I don't know what other people were thinking as they were sitting in the pew at Amy's funeral, but I could see her playing the piano in the swing band, baking and serving meals to be remembered by her family and I could see Amy down on her knees in the pew, hands folded, thanking the Lord for one heck of a special life. And I was fortunate to be part of it. Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends. Warm regards, Suzanne Beecher *Author Barbara Bretton reads along with us every day at the book club. Sample her book "Just Desserts" and enter the free book giveaway. Go to: *Read the Classics: THE OUTSIDERS by S. E. Hinton and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: Surfing the Net with Kids: Email me: Missing an email? Go to: =====TODAY'S THE LAST GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER Coming of Age in the Arctic by Edward Beauclerk Maurice (nonfiction) Published by Houghton Mifflin Company ISBN: 9780618517510 Copyright (c) 2004 by Patricia Maurice Foreword copyright (c) 2005 by Lawrence Millman To reference this email: GENTLEMAN (Part 2 of 5) *This book contains adult language. (continued from Monday) As children we were happy enough, fitting ourselves, as children do, into the circumstances that surrounded us, but mother had to sup- press much of her natural jollity, acting as a buffer between her often noisy children at the top of the house and the solemn, easily disturbed downstairs of our grandmother. Grandmother did not believe in the classless society. Indeed, so convinced was she of her own social superiority that there was not one single person in that Somersetshire township who could justi- fiably be invited to take tea with her. Ranged behind her in de- fence of her position were several dukes and other aristocrats, closely followed by admirals, generals and the like, some of whom gazed down at us from the walls of the stairways and downstairs rooms. This meant that there was very little social life to enliven the dull days for mother. A room at the top of the house was set aside to be used as a school, and armed with a selection of rather aged textbooks, the young widow began the education of her children, my eldest brother being already over four years old. The knowledge contained in these textbooks was rigorously drummed into our heads, for mother was aware of the ne- cessity of obtaining an education of a higher standard than that offered by the free schools, if one was to prosper, and the only way to do this would be by gaining scholarships or similar awards. One day a visitor called who had heard about a well-known boarding school that had been established with the sole aim of educating suitable children whose parents did not have the available funds. A great number of good people contributed money to the school, and if their contribution was sufficiently large, they were allowed to place an approved child there. I think mother must have written to every single benefactor in order to gain places for her children, and she eventually succeeded in obtaining one for each of us, three boys at the boys' school and our sister at the girls' establishment. The schooling provided was sound, practical and aimed at producing adaptable adults, able to use such common sense as they possessed. Aware of the undoubted benefits of such an education, I would like to be able to record that this was a happy period of my life. Alas, this was not so. From the very start, the school was like some sort of prison. On my second day I quite unwittingly broke some obscure rule, for which the housemaster, no doubt a brilliant mathematician, but lacking in any noticeably human attributes, accorded me a public beating. A suitably sour start to a relationship which was to lack warmth for the next seven years. As time went by, my mother began to think increasingly of escape from the situation which had trapped her for so long. The atmosphere in the old lady's house was not a happy one and my mother longed to go to the other side of the world and start afresh. We had no money, but could work hard and New Zealand sounded like a land of oppor- tunity. My brother blazed the trail by setting off just after the General Strike of 1926, helping to stoke the boilers of an ancient coal burner as it steamed across the Pacific Ocean. He was to work on farms in New Zealand, and two years later my other brother followed him. The three of us who were left at home were to wait until I had finished school, then set off together. As the time loomed near, however, my prospective life as a farm- worker lost its appeal for me. We wrote letters to everybody we could think of to see if they could squeeze me in somewhere else, but the reply was always the same--too young and no qualifications. Christmas 1929 came and went with the problem no nearer solution, but early in the New Year, a chance happening at school provided a possible answer. A week or two after the start of term, a visitor arrived to take up a long-standing invitation to spend a weekend at the school as a guest of the headmaster. He was the archdeacon in charge of the missionaries working in the Canadian Arctic territories. The news that the clerical visitor was to give a Saturday-night talk was received with some resignation by the boys, but the archdeacon, whose diocese spread from the tree line right away up to the last few humps of ice at the North Pole, had brought reels of film with him and caught our interest and attention immediately when his operator put the first one in backwards. It was the run of a visit by some Hudson's Bay officials to a post above the Arctic Circle. A solitary white building crouched beneath towering black cliffs. A door flew suddenly open and two portly city executive types marched smartly out backwards, skilfully negotiated a short but steep slope then performed an incredibly agile backward leap into a motor boat waiting at the water's edge. After this entertaining start, the film's chief interest centred on the activities of the Hudson's Bay Company. Incorporated by Charles II in 1670 as the 'Gentlemen Adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay' and led by Prince Rupert, they had been inspired by the thought of getting into Hudson's Bay and establishing trading posts ahead of the French. In this they had been successful, so they later extended their field of operation over the whole of Canada and later still to the islands north of the mainland. The remote Arctic establishments could only be supplied by sea and it was the voyage of the tough little "Nascopie" that the archdeacon had recorded on film. There were hunting scenes, trading scenes, pictures taken under the mid- night sun, of polar bears and walrus, of far-away places and people, enough to titillate the imagination of any schoolboy. Moreover, from what our speaker said, it was fairly obvious that this great company employed young people who did not have any special qualifications. I summoned up my courage to confront the authorities and request fur- ther details. An interview was arranged with the archdeacon himself. It was to take place in the headmaster's study on the Monday morn- ing. (continued on Wednesday) =========ABOUT THE After serving in the New Zealand Navy during World War II, Edward Beauclerk Maurice became a bookseller in an English village and rarely traveled again. He died in 2003 as this, his only book, was being readied for publication. =========BUY Use this link to get the best price on this week's book: To locate or purchase OTHER BOOKS use this link: =======SHARE THE You can forward this email to your friends and relatives. Encourage them to join our book clubs. It's a great way to stay in touch even if you live thousands of miles apart. Questions, comments or book suggestions? Contact me, Barbara J. Feldman, at: Inc., 991C Lomas Santa Fe Dr. #415 Solana Beach, CA 92075 You are currently buy onlined to surfgrownup as: To purchase send a blank email to To join any of the free Surfnetkids Book Clubs, visit:

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