Granny D
Walking Across America in My Ninetieth Year
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $4.99
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Publisher Description
"There's a cancer, and it's killing our democracy. A poor man has to sell his soul to get elected. I cry for this country."
On February 29, 2000, ninety-year-old Doris “Granny D” Haddock completed her 3,200-mile, fourteen-month walk from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. She walked through 105-degree deserts and blinding blizzards, despite arthritis and emphysema. Along her way, her remarkable speeches — rich with wisdom, love, and political insight — transformed individuals and communities and jump-started a full-blown movement. She became a national heroine.
On her journey, Haddock kept a diary — tracking the progress of her walk and recalling events in her life and the insights that have given her. Granny D celebrates an exuberant life of love, activism, and adventure — from writing one-woman feminist plays in the 1930s to stopping nuclear testing near an Eskimo fishing village in 1960 to Haddock’s current crusade. Threaded throughout is the spirit of her beloved hometown of Dublin/Peterborough, New Hampshire — Thornton Wilder’s inspirations for Grovers Croner in Out Town — a quintessentially American center of New England pluck, Yankee ingenuity and can-do attitude.
Told in Doris Haddock’s distinct and unforgettable voice, Granny D will move, amuse, and inspire readers of all ages with its clarion message that one person can indeed make a difference.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
On January 1, 1999, Haddock, an 89-year-old retired executive secretary and lifelong activist from Dublin, N.H., began walking from Pasadena, Calif., to Washington, D.C. Outraged by the power big-money interests exert in Washington, she carefully planned to cross the country on foot to rally support for national campaign-finance reform. Accompanied by an ever-changing entourage of relatives, friends, strangers, politicians and journalists, Granny D (her "walking name") traveled 10 miles a day, camping out at night or sleeping in private homes. Ignoring her bad back, arthritis and emphysema, she completed the 3,200-mile trip in 14 months, shortly after her 90th birthday, arriving in Washington on February 29, 2000, to the tune of 2,200 supporters chanting, "Go, Granny, go." In this account of the journey, written with Burke, the director of Arizona Common Cause, she chats about the places she saw and the people she met, reminisces about her childhood and vents her anger at corruption in government, with letters from well-wishers thrown in for good measure. But behind the folksiness lurk sharp observations, including sly criticism of one of Bill Bradley's speeches, and even fiery proclamations: outside the Louisville, Ky., office of Mitch McConnell, chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Haddock denounced the senator's opposition to campaign-finance reform; the speech alone is well worth the price of the book. Photos not seen by PW.
