Puget Sound

Puget Sound is out there --probably some ships, Bainbridge Island, the Olympic Peninsula and Olympic mountains..... but not today! All fogged in and misty. We had our book club today in this friend's condo overlooking this fabulous western view. The train runs along the shore several times a day. What you CAN see are the grain elevators. Usually there would be at least one big freighter here, loading up, but the longshoremen are on strike, so even it looks desolate.

Our book discussion was very lively tho'! Destiny of the Republic, A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, by Candace Millard. A meticulous researcher, the author started out to write a book about Alexander Graham Bell, but got caught up with his relationship with James A. Garfield, our 20th president, and so we have the tale of a crazed person's failed attempt to assassinate a President in his first months of office. Bell was trying to perfect an electrical instrument that would detect the location of a bullet. But it was the medical doctors who killed him with their arrogance and disregard for the theory of germs and Lister's solution, already saving lives in Europe. The one with the Ignorance is Bliss, his doctor (his name: Willard D. Bliss) :-) The high school some of our book club ladies and many of our children went to here in Seattle is Garfield HS, but none of us knew what a wonderful man James was -- we can only speculate what kind of president he didn't get the chance to be. A good read for anyone fond of American history.