Dot Dead Diary

Up on the Golan Heights

#4 and I have been in Israel four days.  Our luggage has been here one.

 

We’ve been biking along the Mediterranean, checked out a Crusader castle in Acre, done rafting in the Jordan (which was anything but “deep and wide”), and fed #4 what he swears is the best falafel he ever ate.

Today we went up to the Golan Heights and hung out with Israeli soldiers right on the border with Lebanon.  We brought them chocolates and wished them a good Sabbath.  (I wonder if visitors used to stop by American outposts along the East German border during the Cold War.)  Scary stuff.  We slipped into a hardened bunker and inspected an unexploded Katyusha rocket the friendly Hezbollah folks across the border sent over.  We could see a Hezbollah outpost a couple hundred yards away and a white UN truck on the border road even closer.  Then after leaving the outpost, we stopped by an orchard right on the border where an Israeli kibbutznik invited us to taste sun-kissed nectarines.  One of the women on the trip passed out buttons for World Peace Day, which is tomorrow.  Here’s hoping for more fruit-growing and less need for armed defense.

 

(All great stuff for a novel.  Just got to figure out how to use it.)

 

 

 

 

 

The Israel-Lebanon border as of this afternoon.

Packing/Picking Books

#4 and I are off to Israel on Monday for two weeks.  He's busy worrying about what shorts and shoes to pack.  I'm worrying about what books to bring.  I'll be able to read for a maximum of 20 hours from takeoff in San Francisco to landing at Ben Gurion Airport and of course it'll be another 20 hours back.  Plus I'll have an hour or so of reading time before sleep for 13 nights.

My requirements are that the books be mass market paperbacks that I can pass along or leave behind.  The space taken up by the discarded books should be filled with souvenirs and presents on my return.  So to get to the bottom line: what books to bring?  (I'm not the only person with this problem.  See here.)

Here's what I have:

The Alexandria Link by Steve Berry  -- It's set in the Middle East and guaranteed by the author's wife.

Sandstorm by James Rollins -- Am embarrassed to admit never read any Rollins and I want to remedy that before ThrillerFest next month.

Exodus by Leon Uris -- The quintessential American novel about the founding of the State of Israel was a favorite of mine in 7th grade.  I wonder if it holds up.

Little Girl Lost by Richard Aleas -- This one has been on my must-read list for too long.

High Crimes by Joe Finder -- Can't go wrong reading Joe at 38,000 feet.

Celebrating Life by Jonathan Sacks -- A book about finding happiness in unexpected places by Britain's Chief Rabbi.  A spiritual fillip can't hurt on a trip to the Holy Land.

Burr by Gore Vidal -- Deemed a great political novel by many.  I want to do my own evaluation.

The Perfect Crime by Peter Abrahams -- A book of Peter's is as sure a thing as exists in crime fiction.

First Drop by Zoe Sharp -- Gotta find out what everyone's talking about.

Comments anyone beyond the fact that I am being overly ambitious?

I'm bringing my PC with me, so I may be blogging from an internet cafe in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem in the next fortnight.  We'll see.

Crying Over What Happened 40 Years Ago

I was driving to a school meeting tonight listening to Fresh Air on NPR.  Speakers on the show were reminiscing about Bobby Kennedy who was killed on June 5, 1968.  His son Max told the story of how in April of that year, his father went into the poorest area of Indianapolis and broke the news of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.  The police had refused to follow him.  He stood up and spoke with no notes.  In over a hundred cities across the country, riots broke out that night.  Not in Indianapolis.  Take a look and see why they didn't and what we lost those four decades ago.