COVID19 is still with us
By Owner: Bonnie Meier

Whoever would have guessed that we are still dealing with this more than four months after it first started. In the beginning I thought maybe social distancing would last about six weeks and then we could go back to normal. Actually, it is hard to know when normal will be coming. Iowa is one of the states where it is really coming back. It is not unusual anymore to put on our masks and to think twice whether we really need to go someplace. Almost all the organizations I belong to are meeting through Zoom. If we do meet in person, we sit far away from each other and often wear masks.

However, our little store is still open. We have actually had several sales in the last several days including a UPS delivery. I hadn't done one in so long I was afraid I wouldn't know the password, but, thank heavens, I had it saved, so it worked. So we can still process UPS, we can send things, in some cases we will deliver, and people can still come here and shop. Last week we had some people from Texas visiting and they wanted some wooden shoes. Another young man from Colorado came in last Saturday. He found us on Google. He had lost three discs in the Alton pond and needed some replacements. He was thrilled when he walked in the Dutch door and found what we had. He even bought one of the collector discs we have with Juliana Korver's signature and a record of all her championships. (She has actually added more championships since the disc was printed).

Book Reviews
By Owner: Bonnie Meier

Besides puzzles we have been doing a lot of reading. We still have all the books that we had when we had our brick building downtown. Some are new by local authors or about the Dutch, but most are used. The two softcover books I'll review sell for $3.00 each and the hard cover for $4.00. I only have one copy of each book, so if you are interested please email me at jubonjuweelen@gmail.com or call 712-737-8920. First come first served (better to call then because I usually only check my e-mail once a day).

The first book is entitled "Double Down" by Tom Kakonis. This is the hard cover book at $4.00. This is a thriller crime novel set in South Florida. It has a lot of fast action and is hard to put down as you get to the end. The language is a little rough, but the story will keep you interested. The author is a professor of English at Michigan's Ferris State University.

I didn't care much for the second book, but I rarely put a book away without finishing it and it may appeal to some of you. It is entitled "Not the End of the World" by Kate Atkinson. It is actually a series of short stores which become more interesting toward the end of the book because several of the stories come back to some of the previous stories from another angle. Some of them are kind of science fictiony. The author lives in Edinburgh.

The third book I loved. It is entitled "Any Human Heart" by William Boyd. The book is written like a journal and is the life story of Logan Mountstuart and starts in 1923 when Logan was in his last year of what would be high school in the United States. However, he is going to school in England. The book takes you all over the world. Logan was born in Uruguay and goes to school in England. Throughout the course of the book he lives in Paris, New York, London, the Bahamas, and Nigeria. It takes you through World War II and his capture as a spy for the Navy in England. I love books where you feel you've actually made a friend and can't wait to see what he's going to do today. The author was born in Accra, Ghana and attended university in Nice, Glasgow, and Oxford. He currently lives in London and southwest France.

Freestyle Frisbee competition
By Owner: Bonnie Meier

We mentioned the Tiny Room Battle Challenge 2 in our last newsletter and this past weekend the Challenger bracket was contested. The top 3 competitors move on to compete this weekend in the Pro bracket. Juliana was ranked high enough even among the men that she bypassed the challenger bracket. The competition starts back up on Saturday, July 25th at 12:00 p.m. EDT on frisbeeguru.com. Juliana will be competing in both the open and the women's division. The contest will be held both Saturday and Sunday. If you want to read more about the Challenge go to last month's newsletter. You can find all 12 years of our newsletter on Jubon Juweelen's website at jubonjuweelen.biz/jubon-journal.

Christmas Catalog
By Owner: Bonnie Meier

It seems hard to believe, but I received an e-mail last week saying that our Christmas Catalog was on its way. We have to have our order in next month. We don't keep any chocolate on hand throughout the summer, but we will again have our Dutch letters and some other Dutch chocolate candies for the Holidays. Even though we order early we probably won't receive the Christmas items until about November (maybe a little earlier). I'll let you know in the newsletter when we get our order. I sure hope this Covid is a thing of the past by then. I'm hearing really positive news about several vaccines that are being tested. I saw that volunteers are being sought out to help test.