Books for the kiddos

 Per usual, I gifted books to the kids this year. I try to tailor them to their interest, some of which may be of interest to the fine readers of this blog. Or not.

For my son-in-law Stetson:

Greenlights by MatthewMcConaughey

“I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

“Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges—how to get relative with the inevitable—you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.”

“So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops. 

“Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

“It’s a love letter. To life. It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights—and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too. Good luck.”

 For daughter Rylee:

The Boys ofRiverside: A Deaf Football Team and a Quest for Glory

“In November 2021, an obscure email from the California Department of Education landed in New York Times reporter, Thomas Fuller’s, inbox. The football team at the California School for the Deaf in Riverside, a state-run school with only 168 high school students, was having an undefeated season. After years of covering war, wildfires, pandemic, and mass shootings, Fuller was captivated by the story of this group of high school boys. It was uplifting. During the gloom of the pandemic, it was a happy story. It was a sports story but not an ordinary one, built on the chemistry between a group of underestimated boys and their superhero advocate coach, Keith Adams, a deaf former athlete himself. The team, and Adams, tackled the many stereotypes and seemed to be succeeding. Fuller packed his bags and drove seven hours to the Riverside campus.

 “The Boys of Riverside looks back at the historic 2021 and 2022 seasons in which the California School for the Deaf chased history. It follows the personal journeys of their dynamic deaf head coach, and a student who spent the majority of the season sleeping in his father’s car in the Target parking lot. It tells the story of a fiercely committed player who literally played through a broken leg in order not to miss a crucial game, as well as myriad other heart-wrenching and uplifting narratives of players who found common purpose. Through their eyes, Fuller reveals a portrait of high school athletics, inspiring camaraderie, and deafness in America.”

 For daughter-in-law Kayla:

Buffalo Girls byLarry McMurtry

“A strange old woman caked in Montana mud pens a letter to her darling daughter back East—the writer's name is Martha Jane, but her friends call her Calamity... I am the Wild West, no show about it. I was one of the people who kept it wild.

 “Larry McMurtry returns to the territory of his Pulitzer Prize–winning masterwork, Lonesome Dove, to sing the song of Calamity Jane's last ride. In a letter to her daughter back East, Martha Jane is not shy about her own importance. Martha Jane—better known as Calamity—is just one of the handful of aging legends who travel to London as part of Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show in Buffalo Girls. As he describes the insatiable curiosity of Calamity's Indian friend No Ears, Annie Oakley's shooting match with Lord Windhouveren, and other highlights of the tour, McMurtry turns the story of a band of hardy, irrepressible survivors into an unforgettable portrait of love, fellowship, dreams, and heartbreak.”

 For my son Luke:

A Field Guide toWhisky: An Expert Compendium to Take Your Passion and Knowledge to the NextLevel

“A Field Guide to Whisky is a one-stop guide for all the information a whisky enthusiast needs. With the whisky market booming all over the world, now is a perfect time for a comprehensive guide to this popular brown spirit. What are the basic ingredients in all whiskies? How does it get its flavor? Which big-name brands truly deserve their reputation? What are the current whisky trends around the world? And who was Jack Daniel, anyway? This abundance of information is distilled(!) into 324 short entries covering basic whisky literacy, production methods, consumption tips, trends, trivia, geographical maps and lists of distilleries, whisky trails, bars, hotels, and festivals by an industry insider. Boasting 230 color photographs and a beautiful package to boot, A Field Guide to Whisky will make a whisky expert out of anyone.”

 For my daughter Katie: 

Like Mother, Like Daughterby Kimberly McReight

“When Cleo, a student at NYU, arrives late for dinner at her childhood home in Brooklyn, she finds food burning in the oven and no sign of her mother, Kat. Then Cleo discovers her mom’s bloody shoe under the sofa. Something terrible has happened.

 “But what? The polar opposite of Cleo, whose “out of control” emotions and “unsafe” behavior have created a seemingly unbridgeable rift between mother and daughter, Kat is the essence of Park Slope perfection: a happily married, successful corporate lawyer. Or so Cleo thinks.

 “Kat has been lying. She’s not just a lawyer; she’s her firm’s fixer. She’s damn good at it, too. Growing up in a dangerous group home taught her how to think fast, stay calm under pressure, and recognize a real threat when she sees one. And in the days leading up her disappearance, Kat has become aware of multiple threats: demands for money from her unfaithful soon-to-be ex-husband; evidence that Cleo has slipped back into a relationship that’s far riskier than she understands; and menacing anonymous messages from her past—all of which she’s kept hidden from Cleo …”

For my son-in-law Kwinn:

Bad Boys of the BlackHills … And Some Wild Women, Too by Barbara Fifer

“The lively romp details some of the Wild West's most engaging stories, specifically in the Black Hills and Deadwood, home to prostitutes and poets, desperados and dancehall girls, fortune tellers and fugitives. Readers will meet a host of rowdies ranging from madams to stagecoach robbers, from tall-tale tellers to killers.

- Profiles more than 95 bad boys, wild women, and engaging events from the 1870s Black Hills

- Features foreword by Jerry Bryant, research curator and historical archaeologist, Adams Museum and House, Black Hills, South Dakota”

 For granddaughter Josie:

Sesame Street ElmoManners Books for Kids

“Featuring Elmo and friends in 8 different storybooks that teach manners. Colorfully illustrated Sesame Street Elmo Manners Books join Elmo as he teaches sharing and caring.

“The perfect books to teach the concept of manners. Includes the following titles: (1) Let's Share; (2) Be Polite; (3) Please and Thank You; (4) Good for You; (5) Taking Turns; (6) Be a Friend; (7) All About Feelings; (8) Working Together.

“Sesame Street Elmo manners books for toddlers and kids are 16 pages each and measure 5x5 inches, soft cover. This Sesame Street manners books set for kids is durable and high quality.”

 

The Christmas Letter

 Having survived two assassination attempts, four federal lawsuits and never-ending criticism from the ladies on The View this past year, I'm still around to deliver the annual, free-of-charge, organic, free-range Haugen Christmas letter. It is not, however, hormone free. So, like sand through an hourglass, these are the days of our lives, the 2024 edition:

First, the bad news. Nancy's mom, Monica, passed away last February. It left a big hole in the heart of Nancy and all the family. While I was the leader of the mother-in-law jokes, I think about her often. She was a force of nature. My favorite, most-recent memory of her was during a visit and we attended Mass in Hermosa. During the Lord's Prayer at our church it is common to hold hands with your neighboring family member. On that day it was Monica. On the drive home she told me: "You have the softest hands I've ever held." I took it as a compliment, a result of my life-long quest to avoid manual labor, and a reminder that real men moisturize.

On the brighter side of things, we gained a son-in-law in March, when Katie married Kwinn in a beautiful ceremony on the beach in Clearwater, FL. He's a great guy, treats her like a queen, and is a handy guy to have around when I need some manual labor done. They live just outside Keystone, where he is president of the S.D. Mining Association, and she continues to direct things west of The River for our state's lone congressman. They soon there-after added a member to their family (scandal! not) by the name of Gilmore, a Golden Retriever puppy, who is turning into a good friend for Finn.

Rylee and Stetson relocated to Redding in northern California, where she teaches fifth grade and he took a job with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Rylee and daughter Josie visited us for a couple weeks last summer, where Josie once again proved to be in the 99th percentile of cuteness. They'll do Christmas here in early January.

Luke and Kayla are still in northern Virginia, where both work in DC - Luke catching bad guys and Kayla keeping people from catching food-borne pathogens. Their German Shepard, Klaus, continues to keep an eye on them and pity the fool who crosses them. I visited them during a work trip in March and Nancy and her sister, Pam, visited a few months later. They're doing well.

I'd be remiss in not mentioning our other foreign "daughter", Burcu, who we hadn't seen since she returned home to Turkey twenty-some years ago. But she flew in for Katie's wedding and brought tears to everyone's eyes. All the family has stayed in touch with her over the years and she fit back in with the gang like she'd never left. She's a jewel of a young woman.

Nancy continues working for the back-cracker. She's teaching Sunday school and other stuff at our church (I'm not really sure what-all, but it frees up the TV for my football watching on Sunday afternoons). Speaking of, how about them Vikings?! I've been around long enough to know they'll eventually break my heart but it's been fun so far.

I'm coming up on 20 years with the now Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate. That far exceeds my previous long of five years at the same job. Of note for me this past year, I visited Las Vegas for the first time (with Nancy and my in-laws Jay and Pam). I'm pretty sure God said: "Okay, you're 60 now, how much trouble can you get in?" This summer my tomato crop was unsatisfactory, but like the Twins, there's always next year.

My mom is doing well at the assisted living center in Milbank. She watches a lot of football, enjoys her BINGO nights and wine Wednesdays. Send her a note or give her a call, she'd love it.

And, lastly, we had to put down ol' Huckleberry the Basset Hound a few weeks ago. His antics are missed, but none more-so than during Vikings games when it's been my habit to holler "Touchdown!" when they score. Then he would "woof! woof! woof!" along as I got him a treat. Now I holler "Touchdown!" and Finn just looks at me. No replacement is imminent (on orders of the boss lady), but I'm a weak man and don't always listen well (hey, I'm 60, the ears ain't what they used to be); so in a moment of weakness I may surprise her. If you don't get one of these updates next year, you'll know why.

Anyway, thank you to all my rag-tag friends and family who provided the good moments of 2024. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of ya.

Mark

The best-of lists coming in hot

 The best crime novels of 2024 from CrimeReads.

Another terrible year for the world and another great year for books! While we have plenty of spinoff lists to come before the end of the year, it’s time to share the CrimeReads editors’ picks for the best crime and mystery novels of the year, full stop.