Robin Agnew
One of the standard titles on my re-read list (i.e., books I read right before I fall asleep) is Betty MacDonald's wonderful The Egg and I. Unfamilar with Betty MacDonald? But you are, if you were a child that read books (which I assume is anyone reading this blog) because Betty MacDonald also wrote the wonderful Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books, variously illustrated by no less than Maurice Sendak and Hilary Knight of Eloise fame. So it was a delight to me as an adult to discover The Egg and I which, at the time it was published (1945) was a giant bestseller.
"Egg" spawned spinoff titles - The Plague and I, most notably, about Betty's experiences in a TB hospital on the west coast. But "Egg" is a true classic, as impressive a document about American life in it's way as Little House on the Prarie. The book begins with Betty's childhood quite literally in the wild west - her father was a mining engineer, and the family moved all over the country living in various mining towns. En residence was her upside down corset wearing granny, who was so protective she made the children shut their eyes when they passed a saloon. As Betty points out, in western towns at the time, that meant the children never saw anything.
Betty, raised in the 20's, was told by her mother to be supportive of whatever her husband chose to do. She pointed out "it's depressing enough for a man to know he has to work the rest of his life without the added burden of knowing it will be work he hates." For Betty, this meant embracing the life of a chicken farmer.
Her husband Bob thought moving into the wilds of the pacific northwest, renovating a remote cabin, and raising chickens was heaven on earth. Betty, thankfully for us, did not agree with Bob. There's a chapter in the book titled "I Learn to Hate Even Baby Chickens." Betty hated the endless work, the getting up at five a.m., the attempts to keep her floors clean when skunks actually strolled into her kitchen on a regular basis.
Her most famous neighbors were (really) Ma and Pa Kettle, who may be familiar from movies but who, encountered in print, are even funnier. Ma explains to Betty how she could never change Pa so she just adapted to his ways. Betty tries to take this advice to heart but it's difficult. Ma proves to be one of her better friends on the mountain (something she also hates - she was raised in the west and she feels closed in).
This book is so funny, so interesting, and at times, so heartbreaking that I always look forward to picking it up again and re-visiting Betty. It's a unique look at a specific life in the Pacific Northwest and a look at the way families used to live together, multigenerationally. Betty's lonlieness on the mountain is almost palpable. The humor leavens it, but it's bittersweet. If you've never read this gem I recommend hunting up a copy. Betty will stay with you for a long, long time.
