Give It to Me Plain

As a columnist for the Ashland (Ohio) Times-Gazette, JoAnn Streeter Shade has been writing about small town life, family connections, and social issues of all kinds for eight years. These short essays on social concerns and political order and disorder first saw the light of day on the pages of the newspaper, and are now offered as an assortment of reflections from an opinionated lady. In this collection, Shade searches for life lessons in the exploits of the Cleveland sports teams, the gleaned truths of children's picture books and films, the ups and downs of social media, and the notes emanating from the high school musical stage. Shade offers her opinion on topics such as domestic violence, mass marketing, suicide, the Affordable Care Act, and world hunger, while managing to weave in a mention or two of her grandaughters, the lovely Madelyn Simone and her new sister, the delightful Elizabeth Holiday. Previous collections have been published under the titles of Only in Ashland: Reflections of a Smitten Immigrant; Family Connections: Reflections of a Smitten Grandmother; Christmas Memories: Reflections of a Smitten Believer, and At the Bend in the Road: Reflections of a Smitten Corps Officer. In this volume, Shade retires the smitten label in order to claim the moniker of "an opinionated lady."