Garden Gnome Dispatch, Feb. 17, 2012

Greetings, Lantana residents!

I am pleased to share with you some news of our Library’s garden.

Last fall the Lantana Casuarinas donated a soil composter maker to the Library –
it can be found on our library building’s east side.  We thank the Casuarinas for their generous gift — the composter is already in use and is much appreciated.

We hope before long to be able to make organic compost for the garden.  
Donations of leftover salad and vegetable greens, grass clippings are needed to keep the composter working! 

We ask that donors with grass clippings contact the Library Director in advance in order that space can be found for them.

We also recently received a donation of a giant ponytail palm from a Hypoluxo Island patron that now graces our library building’s south side.   It is a beautiful sight!  Come and enjoy it!

In the spirit of going green,

The Lantana Public Library Garden Gnome 
                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Volunteer Appreciation Breakfast at Dune Deck Cafe…

Today, February 2, 2012, is Volunteer Appreciation Day for the Town of Lantana, Florida.

Library employees and other town volunteers (including Chamber of Commerce office holders, Casuarinas, Nature Preserve, and Police Department volunteers) were treated to breakfast at the Lantana Beach Dune Deck Cafe and thanked for all their hard work and commitment.

Here is the roll of Lantana Library volunteers — I just received a more complete list from the Library Director, Sid Patchett.  Thanks to all of them.

Louise Barfknecht
Pat Beebe
Arminta Burns
Cathy Burns
Tabitha Burns
Russ Campbell
Sara Carlisle
Eileen Dario
Maureen Dean
Dan Dratch
Steve Flum
Sherry Goldberg
Jane Hand
Anne Johnson
Bob Little
Carol Mitchell
Abby Ofsink
Palens Pacius
Peggy Pezzuto
Catharine Rambeau
Dorothy Richter
Grace Scarberry
Carol Thomas
Maria Torres
Ellen Tuggle
Marie Vreeland
Teresa Wilhelm
Alireza Yami

Lantana Lou (aka Lou Canter, formerly of the Town Council and Library Foundation) was also on hand enjoying the breakfast.  Lou, of course, along with his trident, are known around the town for annual kick off beach swims to mark the beginning of spring.

Presiding over ceremonies was Mayor Dave Stewart.

WiFi available now at Lantana Public Library!

Lantana Public Library now is a WIFI hotspot for adult users aged 18 and up!
Users need to have their  laptop batteries charged before they arrive as the Library has no electrical outlets for  public use.

Reading in times of distraction…

The Lost Art of Reading:
Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time
by David L. Ulin
ISBN-13: 978-1-57061-670-9 [Hardcover],
Sasquatch Books, 2010, 152 pages
Lantana Library Call No. 028.9 Uli

Good readers of Lantana! Do not disregard a desire to read books, yes books, even if you feel embarrassment or disquiet that you read books far less now than you did ten to twenty years ago.  David Ulin, LA Times book critic, may have some insights for you.

Picking up Ulin’s slight, hand-sized last month, I intended to speedily read it as if for sport.  Distractions of all other kinds won out, just as they did Ulin.  I picked it up again, though, and on arriving at page 9, found Ulin confessing that,

Sometime in the last few years—I don’t remember when, exactly—I noticed I was having trouble sitting down to read. That’s a problem if you read, as I do, for a living, but it’s an even bigger problem if you read as a way of life.

That resonated with me, as I’m a teacher, a librarian by educational background, and a reader for enjoyment, too.  I also like Ulin’s insight that reading is really a journey of discovery, an excavation of our inner world, even if it doesn’t seem to be ours (the readers’) at the beginning.  Ulin observes it’s important to “take the plunge” and to remember that the writing we read is a kind of interaction.  A sort of give and take, perhaps, a push-pull relationship, a lurking played out in silent intimacy?  Hmmm-hmm.

Ulin sets forth the sources of his distraction (much of which will be familiar to you as it is to me — internet, the 24 hour news steam, etc.).  Then he narrates, albeit meandering at times, a personal essay of how reading can be rediscovered.  He seeks to help his technology-savvy teenage son enjoy Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.  His son in turn helps Ulin recognize a kind of interactivity and connectivity in the on-line chatting, lurking, browsing, and scanning of search engine results, websites, Facebook posts, e-mails, and e-readers.

Beyond that, though, Ulin is able to rediscover the pleasures of reckoning with time and slow, long form reading, for he claims that what we read inhabits us and we animate it in turn.  He also enlists the help of Fitzgerald, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, and a host of other modern writers and thinkers to help him (and us) rediscover reading for pleasure.

Fall/Winter 2011-2012 Newly Arrived Bestsellers

Below is our new flyer announcing some Fall/Winter 2011-2012 newly arrived bestsellers at the Library.  Come and check them out and others available now.  Click on the image to enlarge it.

2011 Holiday Concert Update

Hi everyone.  The Annual Holiday Concert held here at the Library on Thurs. Dec. 15th, 2011, was enjoyed by everyone.

The concert commenced at 8pm, with Ms. Theresa Wilhelm, Friends Director and Mistress of Ceremonies, welcoming guests.  The Symphonic Band of the Palm Beach’s Woodwind Ensemble performing several pieces, ranging from classical to latino. (I liked the latino piece, with a tango beat.)

Ms. Dorothy Richter, master puppeteer and long-standing member of our community, delivered a wonderful speech with wise and humorous advice for all. (This year, her focus was on Genesis, Chapter 6 — Noah, the Ark, and the Flood.)

Mike Bayer and his colleagues of the Brass Ensemble then treated the audience to several arrangements, concluding with a medley of carols and audience members joining in the singing.

The food and refreshments were delicious and more than ample.  Thanks to the musicians and especially to Teresa Wilhelm for her organization and coordination of this event.

Meet Mr. A.C. Brooks, author of Foul Hooked: A Shagball and Tangles Adventure

The Friends of the Lantana Public Library invite you to meet
Mr. A.C. Brooks
Local writer and author of
FOUL HOOKED: A Shagball and Tangles Adventure

There will be also be a book signing of his newly released book.
When: January 26, 2012, at 7 pm.
(See the reviews on Amazon.com…)

On Russia: Robert Massie’s Catherine the Great

A Russian friend once told me she always thought of her country as a motherland.   I wonder if the historical roots for such a view lie in the beginning of modern Russia — in the Romanov rulers after Peter the Great, several of whom were women — including Catherine II (the Great, born Sophia Frederica Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst).

I knew a bit about Catherine from high school history: that she was a German princess originally who came to Russia as a child bride of Peter III of Russia, that she transformed Russia into a great European power (both continental and maritime) in the second half of the 18th century, and that she famously took many lovers, including Gregory Potemkin.  There were many curious legends about her sexual prowess.

Robert Massie’s book, Catherine the Great: A Portrait of a Woman, reveals her as complex, intelligent, well-cultured, and enlightened, although an autocrat who depended on the nobility for her power.  Her younger years were spent reading and studying the Enlightenment thinkers and awaiting marriage, as a pawn of other’s ambitions.  Her later years as a mature Empress transformed her into a wise, benevolent, yet also ruthless autocrat and ruler.  Catherine was truly one of the greatest of early modern European rulers, influencing the 18th century as her counterpart Elizabeth I of England had the Renaissance.

She was a woman never allowed to mother her own biological children (her son, Paul I, was raised as a ward of the state); she did, however, find love and possibly even marriage with Potemkin. She wrote an ambitious treatise inspired by Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Becarria to guide her subjects closer to democratic rule of law (the Nakaz), and she was a patron of many artists, scientists, and thinkers of the time.  She also founded the first university for women (the Smolny Institute), and she was the first modern ruler to preside over a widely succesful national innoculation campaign against smallpox.

Readers will be interested to learn more about serfdom in Russia, which wasn’t a holdover from the Middle Ages or medieval times (as I previously thought), but an institution formalized in the 16th century — the Renaissance.  Serfdom had many parallels with American Slavery, and yet it differed as well.  There is also a detailed account of the Pugachev Rebellion, centering around a pretender to the Russian Throne and a long, brutal civil war, which Catherine ruthlessly fought and won.

I picked up a copy of Massie’s book after attending a reading he gave at the Miami International Book Fair last month.   The book has been favorably reviewed by the New York Times on Sunday, Nov. 16, 2011.

Lantana Public Library currently has Massie’s Peter the Great: his life and world (Call No. B Pet).  This earned Massie the Pulitzer Prize in 1981.

Friends Annual Holiday Concert on December 15, 2011, at 7 p.m.

Annual Holiday Concert, December 15, 2011

 Have your social secretary mark your calendar for the Friends Annual Holiday Concert at the Library on Thursday, December 15 at 7 P.M.  Mike Bayer and his colleagues of the Brass Ensemble of the Symphonic Band of the Palm Beaches will be here to lead us in a medley of Carols.  The Friends will provide its famous spread of shrimp, dips, salads & cheeses.  We invite you to come and bring your friends for an evening of holiday cheer.  All are welcome.

Health News: Free and Low Cost Health Care in Palm Beach County

Hi Everyone!
As an middle aged, uninsured woman, I’m currently researching affordable health care resources available to me here locally.

I found a helpful article, Help for the Uninsured, by Phil Galewitz and Christine Stapleton, in the Palm Beach Post on March 9,2009.

Here’s a short list of places the uninsured can go for help either getting coverage or getting free or reduced cost care:

*Health Care District (HCD) of Palm Beach County
Apply for low-cost or free health coverage if you are a county resident.
(561) 659-1270

There is a local HCD of PB County Lantana-Lake Worth Center located here in Lantana:
1250 Southwinds Drive
Lantana, FL 33462
(561) 547-6800
Hours: 7:30 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Friday
2nd Saturday of each month
9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Website: http://www.pbchd.com/centers/center_lakeworth_lantana.html

Directions:
If going west on Lantana Road, turn right on Andrew Redding Road, at the Florida Highway Patrol Office/Dept. of Motor Vehicle Registrations.
If going east, turn left onto Andrew Redding Road.

*Palm Beach County Medical Society’s Project Access
A program of volunteer doctors who treat the uninsured.
(561) 433-3940

*Florida Department of children and Families’ ACCESS Florida
Apply for Medicaid.

Galewitz and Stapleton  also list a number of clinics in our area, and programs with sliding/varying fees:

Other Free Clinics

*Caridad Center
A free health clinic based in West Boynton Beach.
(561) 737-6336

*Community Health Center
A free health clinic on 2823 N. Australian Ave in West Palm Beach.
(561) 840-8681

*Carelink International
Free health clinic in Jupiter at 412 Center Street, located immediately east of Beacon Baptist Church.
(561) 818-4937

Sliding Fee Scale

*Palm Beach County Health Department
Provides primary and dental care on a sliding fee scale. Family planning and prenatal care also available, as are testing and treatment of communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDs, hepatitis C. Clinics are located at various locations within Palm Beach County, including Belle Glade, Delray Beach, Jupiter, Lantana/Lake Worth, Pahokee, Riviera Beach and West Palm Beach.
(561) 840-4500

*Florida Community Health Centers
Provides primary care on a sliding fee scale. Centers are located throughout Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, including Ft. Pierce, Pahokee, Port St. Lucie.
In Palm Beach County, there is a center located at
4450 South Tiffany Drive
West Palm Beach, Florida 33407
Phone: (561) 844-9443

*FAU Wellness Centers
Provides primary care services on a sliding fee scale. Locations in Delray Beach and West Palm Beach:

Delray Beach Full Service Center
(Satellite at Carver Estates)
S.W. 14 th Avenue
Delray Beach, FL 33444
Phone: (561) 243-1573
Fax: (561) 279-1765

West Gate Community Wellness Center
1650 Osceola Drive
West Palm Beach, FL 33409
Phone: (561) 616-4101
Fax: (561) 616-4179
Director: Susan Beidler, PhD, Mbe, ARNP, BC
 Specific Types of Health Care

*H.O.P.E. Project Mobile Mammography Van
To schedule a free mammogram, call (561) 659-4278

*Hanley Center
Hanley offers free substance abuse screening for adults and adolescents and a free program for children of addicts and alcoholics. (561) 841-1000 or 866-4HANLEY.
Call(561) 841-1000 or 866-4HANLEY.

*Pparx.com
Pparx.com, a partnership between doctors, pharmaceutical companies and other health care providers, patient advocacy organizations and community groups to help qualifying patients who lack prescription coverage get the medicines they need through the public or private program that’s right for them. Many will get them free or nearly free. 1-888-4PPA-NOW (1-888-477-2669).

There are also low cost/free health insurance programs listed in the article.   I’ll provide more information on some of these in another upcoming posting.

Take a look also at Lantana Public Library’s Help in Hard Times web page!