Liza’s
Blue Moon by Diane Stevens is what you want it to be – a light read or
a deeply provocative work.
While it might seem to some to be written for the young female
market, the author tempts the reader with much more.
Pubescent Liza faces several significant challenges in her 13th
year and displays budding character in dealing with them, but Ms.
Stevens refuses to surrender to the cliché “ended up” and
substitutes “ended out”.
Think about it, experiences end, up, down, upside down, inside
out, and countless other ways, they certainly don’t always end up.
The choice of out is appropriate when you enter a tunnel, you
most often come out the other end, and in a sense life’s experiences
or vignettes are things you enter into and emerge from at some future
moment in time.
In 183 well written pages, Liza emerges (ends out) as a
developing person with superior intelligence and strength of character,
who is just beginning to emerge as a distinct personality that we want
to follow further into her life’s journey.
We sense the potential of an  interesting
compassionate person, who could develop her own unique journey, not
unlike the pilgrim that Salinger exposed to Frannie and Zooey.
Then there is “Blue Moon”, that Liza plays on her trombone in
and on the family home.
The lyrics are an excellent choice.
While Ms. Stevens quotes the portion dealing with a “prayer for
someone I really could care for”, the reader will certainly supply
others: “you saw me standing alone, without a dream in my heart,
without a love of my own . . . then there suddenly appeared before me,
the only one my arms could ever hold . . . [and] when I looked up the
moon had turned to gold.”
Of course, the moon was gold all along, a fact Ms. Stevens
acknowledges, but we want to know if Liza eventually had a “dream of
my own.”
Many of us who have survived many more moons than Liza in her
thirteenth year, have faced challenges similar to those she faced.
The loss of innocence with respect to parents and those we trust,
sudden untimely death, rejection, misunderstanding, and eventually
acceptance.
It is likely few of us have showed more character than Liza.
Ms Stevens has given us more of Liza in “Liza’s Star Wish”,
which may be reviewed at a later date.
Now we can only wait and wish for more of Ms. Stevens’
fascinating perceptions.
By
J. Thomas Hannan |
|
After I graduated from high school I worked at Lake Tahoe and
then I enrolled at Stanford University, but graduated from the
University of California at Berkeley in 1962 with a degree in
physiological psychology. That summer I got a job as tour
assistant with a Berkeley travel bureau for a 3 month tour of Europe and
Russia. It was the first year Russia was allowing tourists into
the country. It was my job to take 5 women from Helsinki to Moscow
and be their escort, with Intourist, for our stay there.
When we arrived in Helsinki I was approached by a Baptist Minister from
Iowa who wanted me to smuggle Bibles, copies of our Declaration of
Independence, and Bill of Rights to A contact in Moscow. I said
sure. I did not know until after the fact that it was a Russian
crime punishable by prison. At Russian customs the guards with
machine guns searched all the tourist except mine so some arrangement
had been made. Once in Moscow I was contacted by a Russian
who wanted me to go to a church service and bring along my smuggled
goods. That night at a designated spot I waited and soon an old bus came
lumbering along, stopped, and ushered me aboard. All the side windows
were blacked out. And off we went, stopping along the way to pick
up other people until the bus was full. W e eventually stopped and
the driver ushered us out in a desolate, run down, industrial area of
warehouses. We all went into one and ,to my dismay, inside someone
had built a church with pews and a huge ornate gilded alter with
statues. After the service I was introduced to the group and the
priest handed out the stuff I had brought. The parishioners were
so excited and many were crying. When we got ready to leave many
who had not been on the bus with me had to hug and kiss me. It was
very very emotional for me. And I was taken back to the hotel.
On another day I was approached by an Intourist guide who said someone
wanted to talk to me about American cars, hot rods, etc. We got
together and spent hours talking. He spoke good English and asked a
million questions. I learned he was a technician in one of their
space capsule labs. He was willing to take me there and show me
what he did since I had been so informative on cars. A few nights
later he picked me up in a cab and off we went God only knows where.
I was actually very nervous and no sure if I had made the right choice.
Anyway, we arrived and he took me inside. There was no one else
around which I thought odd. Inside were parts of stuff everywhere
and full size replicas of the sputnik and Laika (dog) satellites.
And others that were partially assembled. It was a place where
they did preliminary mockups. He let me take pictures of
everything with a tiny camera given to me by the Baptist minister. When
I got back to the United States someone came for the camera and film,
but I kept 1 roll and for years I had pictures of Russian satellites.
After I returned home from Russia and was working for my
Dad, I received a letter from Allen Dulles, head of the CIA, inviting me
to join his agency. I was flattered but I declined the offer.
The letter did help me to get into Stanford though.
I wanted to live in Europe so I got a
job with Ford Motors in Brussels, Belgium. On the boat trip over I met a
young American gal from Yuba City which changed my life. We were
married in Geneva Switzerland, but she didn't want to live in Europe, so
I declined the job and we headed back to Marin County. We started a
tabletop and fine gift store in San Rafael which I owned until l986 when
it closed. In l970 I got divorced, a year later married my ex's
best friend, and had a beautiful daughter the next year. Diane and
I ran the store with me and in l986 we moved to Santa Barbara,
California where I became national sales manager for a 26 store
chain. Did that until 2005 when I quit to buy an organic grocery
store and 7 acre farm on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada.
Salt Spring Island is a heavily wooded
island of 12,000 people, half old hippie, half artists. I consider
the island a magical place because of the peace and serenity I find
here. My daughter and her husband run everything and Diane and I
play. My hobbies are wildlife photography (have 700 pictures),
writing poetry, and playing with foreign cars. I've owned 35 cars
since Acalanes including a couple of Ferrari's, a Lamborghini, DeTomaso
Pantera, and 6 XKE Jaguars.
Life is good and Diane and I will become first-time grandparents in
September. I cannot think of a better way to spend the next
chapter in my life.
Best
. . . Al |
hear two outfits that I played with in
Wilmington, Delaware. These were recorded a
couple of years before I
threw the towel in. Listen to three selections of "Tex
Windham and the Red Lion Jazz Band ".
The first is a
sort-of 
