At the time of this writing, Russian troops were inside the eastern borders of Ukraine, the fighting that broke out over night resulted in three deaths.  Putin called for dialogue and caution even as he is accused of fomenting the unrest and instability.  Diplomats   from the US, Russia, and Europe were due to summit, again, to discuss matters. The Ukrainian crisis is so fluid it is difficult to know what the news will be on the morning this column appears in the paper. But I suspect, whatever the news, it won’t be good.

The parallels between the taking of Crimea and the ceding of the Sudetenland  in 1938 are instructive. You will remember the Munich Agreement. Hitler expressed concern for the safety of the German-speaking people living in a the Sudetenland—a large swath of central Europe that encompassed Czechoslovakia–and in an effort to appease him and help stop his meanness, it was decided to just give it to him.

The German-speaking Czechs, it must be noted, were not in danger and needed no protection. Crimea is populated with many native Russians, Russians who have lived and worked with Ukrainians for decades with no unrest or upset. Yet, the excuse Putin used to invade was to “protect” the native Russians. From whom, from what, remains a mystery. But as excuses go, it will do, and there is uneasiness in Central Europe as they think about the Munich Agreement while events in Ukraine unfold.

I am often asked what is going on in Ukraine. I am no expert, although I have traveled there on several occasions and I can tell you what my Ukrainian friends tell me. The country is divided, not physically, but ideologically. Ukraine is the largest country in Europe and is the gateway to Russia from the west. The western part of Ukraine wants to be in the European Union and it has an affinity for Western Europe. The eastern part of Ukraine identifies with Russia, and wants to reunite with Russia. It is more complicated than just this, of course, but this gives you some framework.

Ukraine is important strategically, with eighteen pipelines traversing the country carrying Russian oil and natural gas to Western Europe, just as the Crimea is important to Russia because it is the only warm water port to which Russia has access. And Ukraine is poor. Very poor. I haven’t the space to tell you about the tragedies that have befallen this country, but I can tell you that today it is reminiscent of a third world country.

The roads are cratered and pocked-marked. In the countryside    Ukrainians drive their cattle down the roads, switching their bottoms with a stick. Women who look seventy but could be fifty spend all day this time of year up on the steep hillsides cutting and stacking hay, using scythes and pitchforks. Then they walk down the mountain to prepare dinner for their families in centuries-old houses with no electricity or running water. There are few cars, but lots of mules and wagons.

There is no medical insurance. There is no healthcare, period, unless you procure it under the table. If you need an operation the doctor sends you to the apothecary with a list of everything you will need: sutures, scalpel blades, bandages, pain medication. You might be in the hospital but your family must feed you, sit with you, change your dressing. And it is expensive. Your child’s bronchitis might cost six months’ salary.  So much, that a young mother telling me this can’t do so without tears of desperation in her eyes.

And there is corruption. Everywhere, corruption.

Yet, the Ukrainians are generous. Full of life. They dance, they feed you, what little they have. They make an effort. But they need help. While diplomats do what diplomats do, while power mongers do what power mongers do, while ineffectual political leaders do what they do, the everyday Ukrainian suffers.

There was recently a benefit concert held in Owensboro, KY, to help with Ukraine relief.  Donations are still welcome through the following link or mailing address.

http://www.ukrainebenefit.com

Or, by sending a check directly to:

Owensboro Sister Cities and Regions

2901 Western Parkway

Owensboro, Kentucky 42303

Your money will be given to Caritas Charities, which works  within Ukraine.   I have traveled there with Caritas humanitarian workers.   Here is who your money will help. It will help elderly Ukrainians who have no family and who come to a community center twice a week for their only hot meals—soup, rice, bread, an egg.

It will help my boys in the orphanage, beautiful boys, in their cast off clothes and lob-sided smiles. It will be used to ease suffering and it will be used wisely. It will buy cabbages, potatoes. At least a little something.

Ten years ago  Owensboro Community and Technical College began the Common Reading Program.  The idea was to choose one book each semester that could be used in as many classes as possible across the curriculum, in a effort to promote the value of  literature and to introduce the first-time college student to the works of writers across genres and themes. 

Which is college-speak for this.  Let’s find some wonderful books, all sorts of wonderful books, and have our students read them. Let’s find books that students will just “get,” books that they might not even know are out there, and let’s see if some of our teachers can use these books in creative ways in their classrooms.  Let’s pick one book a semester and have as many students as possible read it.

And let’s not just use them in  English classes, they said.  Let’s pick a variety of books so that over the course of a few semesters  just about every class might find something of interest.   And you know what would be really cool?  What if we could get the author to come and speak to our students about the book they just read?  OK, let’s do it.

Now, that is how the Common Reading came about, and these conversations took place in cramped faculty offices and around lunch tables.  The humanities teachers who came up with this idea did it on their own, without a grant, without being named to a committee.  They just dreamed it up, and then went about making it real for all of us.

In the beginning the books centered around Kentucky authors.  Silas House was the first writer whose book was chosen, A Parchment of Leaves.  Between classes you could see students stealing a few minutes with their paperbacks, polishing off another chapter.

During the Silas House semester I happened to be standing at the desk of an office assistant in another building, and I had to wait to get my business done while she and one of our students finished their discussion of A Parchment of Leaves.  Apparently the student was troubled by one of the turns in the book, and he needed some literary hand-holding while he came to terms with the new plot twist.

Silas was our first speaker, filling the lecture hall with students and community guests, and every semester following, students have had the rare opportunity of meeting the person whose words they have read.   The  Common Read was off and running.

The committee works to feature a Kentucky writer at least once a year, and we have enjoyed the poetry of Davis McCombs and George Ella Lyon, and the prose of Wendell Berry and Bobbie Ann Mason.  Each semester the committee finds books that explore a theme that will be relevant and fresh for our students, and so they read  “The Most They Ever Had” by Rick Bragg, a book that explores the lives of hard-working men and women in a mill town, “Buffalo Dance:  The Journey of York” by Frank X. Walker, and books set on reservations, or in Mexico, or India.

I tell you all of that to tell you this.

The OCTC Common Reading is celebrating its ten years of success with a huge event next week, beginning on Wednesday, with Frank X. Walker reading at 11:00 a.m. in the Blandford Lecture Hall.  He is the first of our friends to read for the homecoming, and later in the day, Davis McCombs will read with Joe Survant.  George Ella is bringing her children’s books and will read, so bring the family in the afternoon.

And just like a family reunion, there will be a reception for the authors in the evening.  This is a fundraising event  to help keep this program going,  and tickets may still be available.  You can call the college to find out.  But if you go, I bet you could get a couple of selfies with your favorite wordsmith.

The celebration will go on until Friday, with readings that are free and open to the the public.  The authors’ books will be available for purchase and after their readings I know they will be happy to sign them for you.

Silas House will conduct a writing workshop on Friday, and this, too, is a ticketed event, but worth looking into if you want to hone your craft.  Or get a craft in the first place.

Please check out all the events by going to the OCTC website, at www.octc.kctcs.edu/academics.  From there just click on Common Reading and all the events of next week will be there for you.  Come to the reunion.  Your reading family is waiting for you.

I had an occasion to run to run a few weeks back.  It has  bothered me ever since.

I had left for lunch early, or I wouldn’t have been in that exact spot to witness that exact accident.  I heard it before I saw it, and then I took off running toward it, cell phone in one hand, purse swinging wildly, yelling to whoever might hear to “call 911” while I was attempting it, too, on my dying phone.

The accident was a good one hundred yards or more away.  I was doing that adrenaline thing, but even so, it came to me that I didn’t think I could actually do it.

Run, I mean.  It seemed I had forgotten how.

It was as if my entire body had never run before, not my feet, not my legs and certainly not my lungs.  I am pretty sure I looked like a Kabuki dancer, but without the grace and the white make-up.

A few more steps and it began to come back to me, slowly, and I managed to get all my parts moving in the same direction.  I did this for few yards, still dialing, still yelling.  But I just couldn’t keep it up, couldn’t keep running and speak to the dispatcher, couldn’t get there any faster, couldn’t believe how impotent I felt, because I couldn’t run.

I used to run.  Never enjoyed it, but I could do it, especially if a game was involved, like tennis.  In college I managed to get up to the requisite two miles of jogging, but after I ran two and a half miles, and only once, on the concourse of Diddle Arena, I decided I had conquered that sport and was ready for new horizons and so I hung up my Adidas for good.

Now I am wondering if I could–safely–get back to running a mile.  That’s all, just  a mile.  Is that possible?  It seems that it would be a good thing to be able to run at least  that far, to respond to trouble, to save yourself.

Not that I might be required to run a solid mile, but if I  could run a mile, then clicking off a hundred yards to escape a swarm of bees, say, should be a cinch.  I asked a colleague about this, one who runs.  She is younger than I, and I am now sufficiently old that I don’t even mind if she thinks it’s the stupidest question she’s been asked all day.

She said, yes, of course, I can.  Start slow.  Start smart, but start.  She even recommended the running program called “Couch to 5K”, and all you have to do is google it.  It’s genius, really.  The program, which is geared to take you from..ahem…,the couch to running a 5K race, takes you through a series of walking/running segments.

It seems so sensible.  Walk for five minutes to warm up, jog for 60 seconds, walk for 90 seconds, and alternate this for a total of 20 minutes.  If you think about it, this is what we would do anyway, when we get all hyper-excited about undoing years of sloth with an unrealistic goal of running a mini-marathon six weeks from now.

We warm up, take off like a puma, only to stop about a minute later, holding our sides and all doubled up, gasp and spit for a couple of minutes before we try it again.

This program builds that right into the plan, but without the shame.

I think I can do this.

I will confess, though, it scares me a little.  I managed to try this scheme only once, and that was at night, because I didn’t want anyone to see me.  So, please don’t mention that I have told you.

I am thinking on it, though, you all.  I found a picture on Facebook of a friend who runs…she is finishing a race and she just looks so healthy and fit and cool that I wanted to be her.  Okay, a much older version of her, but still.

I might could do it.  Run a mile. If I ease up on it, after I ease off the couch.