Local author to appear at library May 23

Sex. Money. Mur­der. Drama. House­wives. No, it’s not the “Real House­wives of Orange County,’ but the “Real House­wives of … Ohio!” These out­landish house­wives are fea­tured in a new novel, Coun­try Club Wives, a satire about women, money, and home­less ani­mals set in an afflu­ent Ohio town.

Author San­dra Gurvis will be at the Delaware County Dis­trict Library (Main Library) on at 7 p.m. Wednes­day to share the dirt behind the book and its fic­tional city, New Welling­ton. Was it all just a fig­ment of the author’s over­ac­tive imag­i­na­tion or were actual peo­ple and ani­mals involved?

San­dra Gurvis (sgurvis.com) is the author of 14 books and hun­dreds of mag­a­zine arti­cles. Her titles include Day Trips From Colum­bus, Careers for Non­con­formists, America’s Strangest Muse­ums, and Ohio Curiosi­ties. Her books have been fea­tured on “Good Morn­ing Amer­ica,” “CBS Up to the Minute,” “ABC World News Tonight,” in USA Today and in other news­pa­pers, on tele­vi­sion and radio sta­tions, and have been excerpted in dozens of magazines.

Ms. Gurvis will be sell­ing and auto­graph­ing her novel, with pro­ceeds from the sale ben­e­fit­ting the Humane Soci­ety of Delaware County.

You are cor­dially invited to come hear local author San­dra Gurvis dis­cuss and read from her new novel, Coun­try Club Wives, at 7 p.m. Wednes­day at the Main library.

What is the dif­fer­ence between muskmelon and cantaloupe?

Muskmelon is com­monly known in the trade as a can­taloupe. How­ever, no can­taloupes are actu­ally grown com­mer­cially in the United States, only muskmel­ons. Can­taloupes are a rough warty fruit while muskmel­ons have the char­ac­ter­is­tic net­ting on the fruit rind. For more infor­ma­tion, check in Food Lovers Companion.

How did John­ny­cake Cor­ners Ele­men­tary gets its name?

It seems that the area known as John­ny­cake Cor­ners (inter­sec­tion of Cheshire Road and 3 B’s & K Road) derived its name from the John­ny­cakes that the chil­dren car­ried to school for their lunches. A one-room school was once located in the area; cur­rently, one of the Olen­tangy School District’s ele­men­tary build­ings is located nearby the cor­ner. Ref­er­ence Librar­ian Sara Kennedy researched this ques­tion, ref­er­enc­ing a mem­oir in the library’s local his­tory col­lec­tion titled “Ups and Downs Around John­ny­cake,” and an arti­cle from The Delaware Gazette dated March 14, 2006.

How did Jim Hen­son die?

James Maury “Jim” Hen­son (Sep­tem­ber 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) was an Amer­i­can pup­peteer, best known as the cre­ator of The Mup­pets. As a pup­peteer, Hen­son per­formed in var­i­ous tele­vi­sion pro­grams, such as “Sesame Street” and “The Mup­pet Show,” films such as “The Mup­pet Movie” and “The Great Mup­pet Caper,” and cre­ated advanced pup­pets for projects like “Frag­gle Rock,” “The Dark Crys­tal,” and “Labyrinth.” He was also an Oscar-nominated film direc­tor, Emmy Award-winning tele­vi­sion pro­ducer, and the founder of The Jim Hen­son Com­pany, the Jim Hen­son Foun­da­tion, and Jim Henson’s Crea­ture Shop. He died on May 16, 1990, of organ fail­ure result­ing from a Group A strep­to­coc­cal infec­tion caused by Strep­to­coc­cus pyo­genes. Jim Hen­son: The Works, The Art, The Magic and The Imag­i­na­tion is the source for this information.

If you have a ques­tion that you would like to see answered in this col­umn, mail it to Mary Jane San­tos, Delaware County Dis­trict Library, 84 E. Win­ter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call 740–362-3861. You can also email your ques­tions by vis­it­ing delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delaware library.org . No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked!

Posted by Mary Santos on May 18 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.