By Clyde Noel
“By Thanksgiving It’ll be Funny” covers eight decades of life from a woman’s perspective. Polly Tooker, a Los Altos resident, writes about her memoirs with humor and a keen perception of the people she encountered during her years as a farm girl in Vermont and right up to her current California experiences.
Tooker’s book is an autobiography in five parts. The best way to know and understand the author’s life is to read Part 5 first. Then go back to Part 1, starting with her wonderful New England family life.
If you ever lived on a farm in New Hampshire or Vermont, you will smile as you read Part 1, “Always the Green Hills.” It recalls her childhood days during the 1920s, down to milking a cow.
I found enjoyed the way Tooker captured farm life that could have existed in any eastern state. Any historian studying the period 1920-1930 can learn what life was really like with hardships.
Tooker’s memoirs are presented in a variety of family settings, but one of the more interesting is her description of the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. It’s Part 3 in the book, the shortest, but the description of the damage in her home and the Bay Area provides a masterly description of how earthquakes can disrupt life.
Nearly 30 chapters describe family life with three daughters, uncles, aunts and cousins and the friends that make life pleasant. Most of the characters are discussed in bits and pieces throughout the book.
Most of Tooker’s writing originated during an advanced group in memoir writing at the Los Altos Senior Center, with Colleen Watson providing enthusiastic encouragement.
Tooker wrote three or four stories each quarter.
On her downsizing, “Now having lived for several years in Los Altos, are we happy here and still glad we came? A resounding yes because we live on the edge of the village, with library, senior center, bank, dentist and numerous eateries within easy walking distance.”
Tooker will sign books, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Friday, in Room 17, Los Altos Senior Center, 97 Hillview Ave.
The 324-page paperback is available from Main Street Cafe & Books, 134 Main St., in downtown Los Altos.
