If it had not rained on a certain May morning, Valancy Stirling's whole life would have been entirely different.

Isn't that a good way to start a book?  It makes you want to know what happened because of the rain (although my sister, the writer, said never start something with the person's whole name -- I'm not sure why but I think she thought it was trite).  The Blue Castle, the book I mentioned that I have read so many times, has a pretty big place in my family.  My mother received it as a gift when she was a young teenager.  (It was hot off the presses then, in 1926!)  When my mom started to read it and found out it was about a 29 year old "old maid", she thought "why would I want to read this?" but she kept at it, books being quite a rare and wonderful gift in a little town in the middle of Saskatchewan in those early days.  And she discovered a wonderful story that would stay with her for the rest of her life.

In 1962, when my sister was 12, my mom wanted her to take part in an oratorical contest (speech-making).  Unlike her little sister, little Rickey didn't like making speeches, but she did it anyway and Mom presented her with a copy of The Blue Castle as a reward.  Now that very copy, with my mom's precise printing in the cover, has ended up with me.  Here's one thing from the book that often pops into my head.  "Fear is the original sin.  Almost all the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that someone is afraid of something.  It is a cold, slimy serpent coiling around you.  It is horrible to live with fear, and it is of all things degrading."

I think that's true.  I am afraid of lots of things but I try not to let fear rule me.  I try to barrel through.  My sons and I were talking about the whole caffuffle with Sony pulling the movie, "The Interview".  What should they have done?  My sons think they were right in their decision not to release it.  I think you can't throw out your belief in free speech because of threats.  Of course, it takes a lot of guts to defy the threat of attacks on theatres and innocent people.  My sons said, "if someone threatened the school and said if you kept teaching drama, they would bomb the school, what would you do?"  I imagine I would give in to the threat because I don't want to die or see my students die.  But a better person than I would go on teaching and that would be the right thing to do.  People on the news last night said we all have a duty to see the movie now, even if you aren't crazy about Seth Rogen or James Franco, because you want to stand up to the forces that would shut us up.  What do you think?