Anna gave a semi-apology for West with Giraffes, my Mother’s Day gift book, saying she hadn’t read it yet, but it had been recommended by readers she trusted. I had to smile a bit, remembering the days when I pre-read the books I passed along or gifted to her. We have come to know each other’s tastes and seldom miss the mark any more.
West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge didn’t miss the mark either, in spite of not being pre-read. A 105-year-old man begins with “I’m older than dirt.” That premise sifts its way through the book as do the telegrams from travel stops along the way, skipping meals, and hurrying to write an account before his time runs out about his youthful adventure in a coast-to-coast effort to rescue two giraffes. With the unlikely name of Woodrow Wilson Nickel, which comes out in jokes as “Woody Nickel,” he deals with historical events in his own escape from the Dust Bowl, the threats coming from Hitler in Europe, and the Great Depression as well as the day-to-day decisions of whom to trust as he becomes the assistant in the effort to get two giraffes to the San Diego zoo. This entertaining book is a fictionalized account of a very real happening with two giraffes and the world’s first female zoo director.
With a five-hour train ride ahead, I put the book aside until I could read it on the ride without interruption. That turned out to be a very good decision.
And about that bookmark that accompanied the book – unfortunately, Anna had already learned how good cookie dough could taste before I read the warnings about salmonella and E. coli when it was eaten raw. Being a cautious mother, I immediately stopped allowing my children to lick the bowl and spatula with uncooked dough. Protests about my parental failings have continued with all three into adulthood, including such things as this bookmark, which was part of her present. (In my defense, none of them ever had salmonella or E. coli.)