This book used to be in the library and on Google books for free. Things have changed. Of course. But I have just discovered that this blog post from Jan 26 2010 still has a link that works that lets it be read for free.
You can read this book here on Google Books for free.
It is a selection of weekly columns I wrote across thirteen years ( 1977-1990) for the Georgetown Independent. (152 in this book)
I enjoyed doing them for many reasons : a record of that time of kids and homes and a husband and – well, adventures; a motivation to express in words with a weekly deadline; public exposure in small town(s) Ontario and wider horizons when the columns appeared in publications like Reader’s Digest and Homemakers magazine and on CBC Radio’s Fresh Air Neighbourly News; the Homebody book came into existence during that time; there still is ongoing feedback as the book is in libraries, doctor’s offices, restaurants, shops and on Google Books.
It has been nearly twenty years since I wrote the last Homefree column but the experience has had a lasting effect.
For years the deadline of Friday at noon would give me pause until I remembered – and that was before I could shoot off copy via email; the column was delivered to the newspaper office by hand.
And a way of seeing develops when you write a column over a period of time – a heightened awareness, somehow.
In a way this blog has filled the space of that column.
(And today I have written this blog since January 2003)