Southern notions

"Life Is Short, but It's Wide," by Ann Ipock (Carolina Avenue Press, $14.95)

"My career as a dental hygienist ended abruptly the day I got the mayor's mustache caught in my tooth polisher," Ann Ipock writes in the forward of her second book, "Life Is Short, but It's Wide."

That incident is enough to keep a lot of folks reading, and the complete story, so to speak, is in Chapter 5, "Fighting Technology and Other Culprits." Another chapter is titled, "You Talk Funny, Guess You're Not Southern."

The Pawleys Island resident writes about growing up in North Carolina, her grandmother, "Granny Pinky," and the everyday adventures (she calls them oddities) she experiences with her husband, Russell, a church administrator, their two daughters and others.

The stories have appeared as columns in the Georgetown Times, Pee Dee Magazine and Sasee, a bimonthly women's publication.

They are pleasant, gentle stories. They have an Erma Bombeck flavor, but without that Bombeck edge.

By D.G. Schumacher,
The Sun News