Dancing Under the Moon

__DANCING UNDER THE MOON__ contains a number of Al Martinez's column which cover a myriad of subjects that alternately make you laugh, cry, get angry, feel empathy, feel good, feel bad, just shake your head, or experience any of a hundred other emotions. Some examples of the above follow: In one column, he tells the story of a young woman who tries to come to the aid of a young man in an East L.A. barrio who is being severely beaten by several gang members. She is the only person who tries to help him while several people at a nearby fast food joint just watch while she tries to protect him with her own body. Sad to say, she only temporarily brings the beating to a halt before one man stabs the victim 11 times and kills him. In another, Martinez tells of a local bank which has a dress code requiring women to wear panties but has no uch rule that requires men to wear undershorts. He tells of the uproar among teens at one of the wealthier local high schools when a City Councilwoman suggests that alternatives to proms which cost over a thousand dollars (including the prom itself, limo's tuxes, etc.) which might make it possible for the less affluent students to attend too. In another teen oriented column, he talks about how some teens feel that they are being denied their constitutional rights when their high schools attempt to remove unhealthy foods from the campuses. In another column he tells of the patients in a Hospitalh emergency room waiting room diagnosing one another's ailments with all the authority of trained physicians. For example, the man who diagnosed another's stomach ailment as the result of eating peanuts even though the man with the stomach problem hadn't been eating peanuts. He talks of his personal sense of loss when his pre-school grand-daughter and her parents move out of his home into their own. He had dreaded the thought of a child in diapers living in his home, then felt even worse when, after a couple of years she left. These are only a few examples of the dozens of columns included in _DANCING UNDER THE MOON__. It's one of those books that you can pick up at any time, read for a few minutes, put down, pick up again later, and not worry that you've lost your train of thought.

I enjoyed reading this collection of columns very much. I am sorry it is out of print. It is worth searching for. You won't be disappointed.