The People, Places, and the History of The Northern Neck of VA

A Book and A Movie

Five Smooth Stones & One Potato, Two Potato

So here we go with “The Book and The Movie,” sometimes referencing the music, the cast; whatever made it memorable to me.

The Informal Women's Book Club book of the month
long phone calls, burnt food, and excitement over characters that deserved discussion.

Five Smooth Stones

There was an informal book club on “The Neck.” The members were my mom, her best friend from childhood who was also our next door neighbor, my mom’s youngest sister, one of my dad’s sisters, sister-in-laws, and a host of other women. Someone would have the book and it was passed around. Sometimes you were lucky and got your book back. It became easy to eliminate some of the members.

The second book I read while living in Ancostia, SE Washington, DC was the book that necessitated hours long discussions with different members of the book club, leading to burnt meals, and a curiosity as to what the excitement was all about.

The book “Five Smooth Stones” by Ann Fairburn was a checkout from the Dunbar library in the Good Hope Road neighborhood where I was living with my first cousins. Finally, I was going to find out all the excitement was about…boy, did I ever!

Enjoy a book that easily can make you burn your casserole.

Love...and the hurt it can cause.
A movie that screams for courage to change.

One Potato, Two Potato

As to the movie: I don’t know when and why I saw the movie “One Potato, Two Potato.” I think I was living on The Lower Peninsula, Newport News and the new channels Turner Classic Movie and American Movie Channel, all commercial free movies, were the channels to watch. The why was probably because it starred Barbara Barrie, an actress whose performances never failed to ripped your heart out or having you rolling in laughter…all with those big expressive soft eyes.

Also giving wonderful performances were Bernie Hamilton, Richard Mulligan, and Robert Earl Jones.

It is a hard movie to find, I could only find clips but if you can find it, please watch this film.

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