Destination: British India. Must start by escaping during a sub-zero blizzard from a Siberian gulag 450 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Travel arrangements include six companions from the gulag, little food, and only the clothes on your back. Trek 4,000 miles over the frozen Siberian tundra during the winter time, through Mongolia, then the Gobi Desert in July, over the Himalayan mountains, Tibet, and finally ending in India. Survival depends on going weeks on end without toiletries or baths or much water; on dining (when lucky) on small game, fish, and snakes; on the kindness of strangers with whom you cannot communicate due to different languages.

Cost: nothing — except your desire for freedom and your endurance to gain it.

If this were an ad on Travelocity, would you jump at the opportunity to participate in this travel excursion? No?

Then, the second best thing would be to read The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Slavomir Rawicz. This is the true account of a young Polish officer captured in 1939 by the Russians. He was cruelly tortured in an attempt to get him to admit he was a spy. When he refused to admit it (because he really wasn’t a spy!), he was sent to the Siberian gulag from which he escaped.

Would I have the strength to endure the torture that he did? Would I thirst for freedom so desperately that I would be willing to escape from a prison into a wild ferocious Siberian winter? Would I have the discipline to get up day after day after day despite hunger and eternal tiredness to walk thousands of miles? What would I willingly endure to gain my freedom?

The Long Walk is an incredible book. I highly recommend that you read it — and count your many blessings for the freedoms that you enjoy.

Becoming a well-read,
Digi-Gram

I recently finished reading The World is Flat:A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman. Now, to know me is to know that I do not particularly like history. However, my reading tastes are maturing (finally . . . it’s only taken half a century!) and I totally enjoyed this book. In fact, that was about all I could talk about for a week!

There was one section in Friedman’s book that was geared toward parents. If you stick with me, I’ll point out how Friedman’s comments can apply to grandmothers, too.

Friedman states that parents need to practice tough love. Back in the 1980s (or whenever tough love was first made popular), tough love was meant more as a way for parents to deal with children who were out of control behaviorally, who were using drugs or alcohol, or who were in other similar situations. Parents would take tough stands against their children’s behavior in an effort to stop enabling their children and to help their children deal with their out of control behaviors.

However, Friedman’s tough love is slightly different — yet no less tough. He calls on parents to turn off the TV. To put away the Game Boys. Shut off the iPods. (And I might add, unplug the Wii games.)

“We are a society of me, me, me,” states Friedman. If children want something , they want it now. They don’t want to have to wait for it. Youth and adults alike ‘just want to have fun.’ Instant gratification. If something isn’t fun, kids don’t want to do it. (Nor do their parents.)

Parents feel more obligated to enroll their children in gymnastics, or join a soccer team, or take voice lessons, or participate in a local children’s theater group rather than stressing priorities in education and doing well in school. Parents feel that if children are doing okay in school and if their children are enjoying school then their kids are getting a good education.

Friedman states that American homes are devoid of books and printed material. Parents do not help their children recognize that hard work is associated with an education and that doing well in school is a top priority. Parents don’t enable (or should I say allow) their children to suffer some short-run pain (studying instead of playing) for longer gain. Parents just plain don’t have high expectations for their children’s success in this new millennium.

Now, these claims are fairly generalized. I’m sure that there are parents out there who don’t pamper their children with whatever their children want. Parents who make their kids work. Parents who make their kids study — and study hard and study hard subjects.

In other areas of his book, Friedman explains how technology is being outsourced to other countries. Those other countries can produce items cheaper than it can be made in the U.S. However, the edge that the U.S. has over these other countries is that Americans are innovative. They think creatively. They come up with new ideas for technology, new ideas of things to make, new ways for doing things. That’s Friedman’s take on things.

So what does all this have to do with grandmothers, you ask? Several things. First, you can help to provide books and printed reading materials in your grandchildren’s home. Like many of my readers have suggested, give books to your grandchildren. For birthdays. For Christmas. For Ground Hog’s Day. Make sure your grandchildren have good quality reading material in their homes! Provide your grandchildren with a wide variety of subject matter to read (so they won’t be such an intellectual pygmy like me when it comes to history or political science or geography . . .).

When your grandchildren visit you, read, read, read, with them. And, in case you missed my point, read whenever possible with your grandchildren!! Make sure that you make it fun and not a drudgery. If you made it feel like school, your grandchildren would feel resentful and then things would backfire on your good intentions. Have a huge dollop of love generously sprinkled with tons of fun while reading with your grandchildren. (You might want to ask them what other things they are reading, express an interest in it, and have them share their thoughts on their reading.)

Another suggestion is to give your grandchildren puzzles. Create a grandma kit that contains puzzles of several varieties to take when you visit your grandchildren. Give them sudoku books. And, when they come for a visit, put puzzles together with them. These activities help develop spatial intelligence. Maybe you could create a puzzle together with your grandchildren by gluing a picture on a piece of cardboard and then cutting it into random shapes.

Give your grandchildren logic problems to solve. Problems similar to the story math problems we had in elementary school. You know the kind — if a train leaves New York City traveling 55 miles per hour and a train leaves Chicago traveling 75 miles per hour . . . Bleah! BORING!!! However, if you made it more pertinent to their life today, they would have more ‘buy in.’ They wouldn’t roll their eyes at you and groan. Instead, ask them how many songs they could buy in iTunes if you gave them $15 for their birthday? Or how many songs could fit on a 4 gig iPod shuffle if the average file size was 5.1 MB?

The Kid’s Game Page has lots of strategy games for kids to play. Of the games that I played, I only won the Rush Hour game. (Is that because I have the blessing of ‘playing’ that game twice a day, five days a week as I drive home?? Naw, I just didn’t spend that much time playing the other games!)

Be a discriminating video/computer game player with your grandchildren. Does the game Doom improve critical thinking skills? Not hardly. Avoid games with violence, blood, and killing. Instead, play computer games with your grandchildren such as Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego, The Oregon Trail, SimCity, or SimCoaster.

If our edge over the third world countries is our ability to be innovative and creative, find ways to encourage your grandchildren to be creative and to think — but make it fun. You are not their school teacher. You are not their mother. You are their loving grandmother — who just wants to have stimulating fun with her grandchildren as you help them develop their creativity.

Keep On Thinkin’!
Digi-Gram

Since I am now riding the bus to work, I have about 40 minutes in the morning and 40 minutes in the evening for reading. It’s amazing how much more I get read — more than in the past when I would climb in bed, plump up my pillow, snuggle the covers to my shoulders, and read before I fell asleep. For about 3 minutes (on a good night!). I have read about 2.5 books in the last 2 weeks. At this rate, I might finish reading all of the books on my ‘to read list’ in about a year and a half instead of a life time and a half.

One of the books I finished was Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton. I highly recommend this book!

Now, when you first pick this book up and start reading it, don’t be deceived by the apparently simpleness of the writing. Its strength lies in the simplicity. There is power in its simplicity. It is profound! At times, I wiped away a tear from my eye. One mustn’t be caught crying over a book on the bus. One must appear collected, put together, dignified while riding public transportation. I learned to blink rapidly and swallow quickly to squelch any sign of outward emotion.

Set in apartheid South Africa , the main character, an old black rural priest, searches for his son in the big city of Johannesburg. He finally locates his son but . . . . but I don’t want to tell you much more because I would give the plot away.

( What?! you exclaim. You, Digi-Gram, are worried about giving the plot away? You? Who ALWAYS reads the last few pages of the book before you start at the beginning? You who knows the end before the beginning?) Yes, dear reader, even though I read the last of the book before the beginning, I don’t want to ruin anything for those who proceed naturally through a book from beginning to end. Can you trust me that it is worth it to read this book without giving you much info about the plot?

But I will say this about the book. Pain, suffering, redemption, forgiveness, love. It’s all there in the book. Especially the forgiveness. This is a moving story about segregation and its affect on the people in South Africa. Its about how one white young man — and ultimately his father — learns to go outside the expected apartheid norms to reach out to improve the situation of the Blacks.

I read a review by a young girl who read the book for school. She said it was an OK book. (I bet no tears surfaced on her tear ducts . . .) She thought that there should be ‘more’ to the story. I think in her naivety and youth she totally missed the point of the book. She hasn’t had a child so she cannot understand the pain a parent feels because of his children’s actions. She probably hasn’t seen too much suffereing. She probably has never done anything seriously bad in her life that needs to be rectified or redeemed.

So, if by any chance that you read it, please pay attention to what the white father does. Ponder it. Considering that this book was printed in 1948, his actions are pretty amazing.

A becoming well-read,
Digi-Gram

I recently finished the book Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell. My son, who also read the book, thought that I wouldn’t care for the first half because it detailed the training that Marcus went through to become a Navy SEAL. Au contraire! I was thoroughly intrigued about the grueling things they had to learn/do/endure. Almost motivated me to do something to get in better physical shape. Almost. (We met a SEAL while we were in Costa Rica. I was really impressed with him — especially his humility about his straining and skills!)

I did come to understand one thing. Something that wasn’t explicitly mentioned but was an ‘aha’ moment for me. I have seen (mostly through movies) how drill sergeants are in your face, yelling obscenities, and dishing out not very nice treatment to those under him. I came to understand that that type of treatment is meant to toughen up the soldiers. In the event of being captured by the enemy, the soldiers will be able to withstand (especially mentally) the cruelties that their captors might inflict upon them.

I do not necessarily condone the practice. I just understand it now.

In the second half of the book, Luttrell explains how, in June 2005, he led a four-man team of Navy SEALs into the mountains of Afghanistan on a mission to kill a Taliban leader thought to be allied with Osama bin Laden. He didn’t have a good feeling about the mission but went ahead with it anyway.

Not too long into their mission, they came across 2 men and a teen-aged boy. His team had a heated discussion about whether or not to kill them. They did not like the idea of killing innocent, unarmed people. But they also knew that if they didn’t kill the three people, those people would tell the Taliban and then the SEAL’s would have the Taliban after them. The decision was left up to Marcus. He chose to let them live.

Part of his decision was based on his Christian beliefs. But part was also because he knew how critical the media would be if those three civilians were killed. His insight and explanation about how manipulative the media is was excellent! (I agree with his assessment! Hate the media that manipulates events to sway people’s opinions.)

Because of his decision to let them live, those three people did indeed go to the Taliban. The Taliban did indeed come after the SEALs.

The second half of the book details the heroism of the team — how a 4-man team fought against a 150 man Taliban force wiping out at least half of them but at the expense of 3 Navy SEAL’s lives.

It also details Afghani humanity. Luttrell, wounded and severely dehydrated, was found by an Afghani village doctor. The doctor took him in, tended to his medical needs, and committed himself and his entire village to protect Luttrell against the Taliban. Amazing!!

This is a griping tale. If you’re reading habits lean toward Pollyanna tales, don’t read this. If you want a spellbinding, inspiring, heartbreaking story of courage, patriotism, and sacrifice, then this book is for you. I highly recommend it!

Always reading,
Digi-Gram