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Granny D: Walking Across America in My Ninetieth Year
In 2000, ninety-year-old Doris 'Granny D' Haddock completed her 3,200-mile, fourteen-month walk to Washington D.C. Along her way, her remarkable speeches, rich with wisdom, love, and political insight, transformed individuals and communities and jump-started a full-blown movement.
"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.
"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.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
13 people are currently reading
192 people want to read
About the author
Doris Haddock
8 books2 followersDoris "Granny D" Haddock was an American politician and liberal political activist from the state of New Hampshire. Between 1999 and 2000, over a span of fourteen months, Haddock walked 3,200 miles across the continental United States to advocate campaign finance reform. In 2004 she ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic challenger to incumbent Republican Judd Gregg for the U.S. Senate.
Haddock's walk across the country followed a southern route and took more than a year to complete, starting on January 1, 1999, in southern California and ending in Washington D.C. on February 29, 2000.
Haddock requested a name change of her middle name to "Granny D", the name by which she had long been known. On August 19, 2004, Haddock's request was officially granted by Judge John Maher during a hearing at the Cheshire County probate court.
Haddock's walk across the country followed a southern route and took more than a year to complete, starting on January 1, 1999, in southern California and ending in Washington D.C. on February 29, 2000.
Haddock requested a name change of her middle name to "Granny D", the name by which she had long been known. On August 19, 2004, Haddock's request was officially granted by Judge John Maher during a hearing at the Cheshire County probate court.
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December 30, 2010
There is a small band of people who walk long distances for peace or justice. They confront the unjust world one step at a time. Doris Haddock was one of that band and Granny D is her story. She was 89 when she started out from Pasadena, California. She was 90 when she arrived in Washington, DC, fourteen months later on February 29, 2000.
There are others:
Granny D has an Appendix with selected speeches of Doris Haddock. If you want to read how the issue of national campaign finance reform is presented in formal statements from Granny D, you can read these 23 pages at the back of the book and experience her educating and inspiring statements directly. The preceding 261 pages have a different flavor: the calls to action are brief and surrounded with the life of a woman walking for a cause. Speaking with passion, Granny D says:
But what do people commonly do? And how do we begin to take an active role?
Doris says, “I was trying to remember my Gandhi: Attack the ideas, not the man.”
Sometimes you have to take the next step as Granny D did:
And what is her impact on others? Here is just one example:
With the recent Supreme Court decision, Granny D is, as they say, rolling over in her grave.
So here we go on a desert morning, bound for the Texas line: The friends are ready. Test the shoulder of the road to see if the gravel will roll under foot or hold firm. Begin the walk, raising the old flag high. Find the curve of each foot that works best the sharper pains. Keep a straight posture and land easy to keep the dull pains of the spine from spiking too often. Keep an eye to traffic, but scan the ground in front of each step – a fall could be a great disaster, as we ancients are made of china. Wave a hand to the people passing by. Breathe deeply, for old muscles need their oxygen, as old trains need their coal. Remember to take a sip of water from the backpack’s plastic tube. Another step and another, chugging along now, with the far horizon sometimes visible from atop a rise or around a bend. Be a good sport and chat it up downhill with today’s companions, but save precious breathe going uphill. Keep going. One-half mile already down. Above all, grasp that we are here now, in this beautiful place and moment. And so it goes, with always a new plant or new animal to discover and the clouds of the sky forever presenting a changing gallery of sublime colors and shapes beyond imagination to distract us from our pains.
There are others:
On Monday, the 28-year-old Denver, Colo. resident (Jonathon Stalls) left on the home stretch of a 235-day journey that started on March 1 (2010) on the Delaware coast and will end Saturday, Nov. 13 in San Francisco.
The 3,000-mile trek is to promote the efforts of Kiva, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that partners with micro-lenders worldwide to alleviate poverty and help small business entrepreneurs who ordinarily would not qualify for traditional loans. His goal is to raise $400,000 for the cause.
Steve Young is walking across and throughout America to draw notice to a camp he supports, which helps kids who have chronic or terminal illnesses. Steve has traveled 14,000 miles as of today, September 29, 2010 and has walked 10,000 miles.
Rob Bonora and Anthony Greco walk along Bloomfield Avenue in Verona (NJ) as they complete the final leg of their "Coast-to-Coast for a Cure" cancer-awareness walk. Bonora pushes a stroller. To his left is state Assemblyman Fred Scalera (D-Essex). Bonora and Greco, both of Nutley, left Morristown at 9 a.m. last Thursday and arrived in Verona about 3 p.m. They were welcomed in Nutley at 5:10 p.m. to a huge crowd of family, friends and supporters.
KEY WEST, Fla. — Nov. 8, 2007 — Matthew Gregory, the Washington state man who's spent more than a year walking across the nation to benefit Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, expects to conclude his odyssey today at the southernmost city in the United States — Key West.
Today, Arasteh and the Porter twins, all Berkeley residents, are gearing up for an eight-month cross-country walk, called “Peace-by-Peace,” which will begin Jan. 21, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, at Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Park, and end on Sept. 11, 2002 at Lafayette Park in Washington D.C.
Granny D has an Appendix with selected speeches of Doris Haddock. If you want to read how the issue of national campaign finance reform is presented in formal statements from Granny D, you can read these 23 pages at the back of the book and experience her educating and inspiring statements directly. The preceding 261 pages have a different flavor: the calls to action are brief and surrounded with the life of a woman walking for a cause. Speaking with passion, Granny D says:
We must replace this bribery with the full public financing of our elections, so that the candidates may speak as freely to the community as they did in the days of the Fourth of July candidate’s picnic in the park. We must get big money out of politics before it destroys us utterly.
But what do people commonly do? And how do we begin to take an active role?
You sit back most of your life, and you assume that there are grown-ups somewhere running the show. If you really get out there, if you look behind the curtain, you see that it is just a bunch of tired people like yourself, needing help, trying their best and not doing half as well as they would like. That is the moment when you have an opportunity to grow up and take your part. I was feeling that now, at my late age. Yes, I had been involved in civic work through my younger years, but it was always with the feeling that there were responsible leaders somewhere to be appealed to – parents, almost. Now I was starting to get it. What a late bloomer!
Doris says, “I was trying to remember my Gandhi: Attack the ideas, not the man.”
Sometimes you have to take the next step as Granny D did:
I was arrested the next morning for reading the Declaration of Independence in a calm voice in the Rotunda. I did so to make the point that we must declare our independence from campaign corruption. My wrists were pulled behind me and cuffed. I was taken away to jail along with the others. When you jump fully into the river of your values, every moment glows with a blissful joy, even when your arms hurt behind you.
And what is her impact on others? Here is just one example:
I walked with my nine-year-old daughter behind Granny D from Arlington to the steps of the Capitol. While I am a longtime campaign finance reform advocate, the personal value of this march was not standing on the steps of the Capitol roaring with approval as Doris issued her challenge to Congress. It was the challenge she issued to all of us by taking the first step in California. Her actions sent a message that resonated deeply with my daughter. If Doris Haddock can take that long grueling trek across this country at the age of 90 to fight the scandal of special interest money in our political system, each one of us must take our own steps to combat injustice. It is that image that will continue to inspire my daughter Jane, and that make Doris a hero for all of us.
With the recent Supreme Court decision, Granny D is, as they say, rolling over in her grave.
The US Supreme Court has struck down a major portion of a 2002 campaign-finance reform law, saying it violates the free-speech right of corporations to engage in public debate of political issues.
In a landmark 5-to-4 decision announced Thursday, the high court overturned a 1990 legal precedent and reversed a position it took in 2003, when a different lineup of justices upheld government restrictions on independent political expenditures by corporations during elections.
“Government may not suppress political speech on the basis of the speaker’s corporate identity,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the 57-page majority opinion. “No sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations.”
Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/...
August 22, 2010
It seems kind of cheesy to describe a book as inspirational - but it is impossible to read this book and not feel that inspirational is the word that best fits Doris Haddock's story.
While a great deal of this book is about her walk across America in an attempt to draw attention to the need for campaign finance reform, it is also a wonderful story about never being too old to fight for your beliefs and how our passions keep us young in our later years. And it is about the love that citizens have for America, and the lengths that the people should be willing to go to ensure the continuation of a true and free democracy.
Granny D's writing is interesting, engaging, persuasive, and often very funny. You admire her spunk, of course, but you also have to admire the incredible sense of dedication to her mission.
This book includes, in the appendix, a selection of Doris Haddock's speeches. They are sharp, straight-shooting, and absolutely right on every time. Her march to the Capitol is a very emotional climax, and then when she goes on later to be arrested for civil disobedience for reading the Declaration of Independence in the rotunda, you really feel that her courage and charisma know no bounds.
I did wish the book would have included a more detailed epilogue - as Granny D went on to run for the US Senate when she was 94, and continued to raise hell until she passed away at age 100. And I was really surprised that it did not include a map of her route, to allow the reader to track the progress that she was speaking of as she went along.
While a great deal of this book is about her walk across America in an attempt to draw attention to the need for campaign finance reform, it is also a wonderful story about never being too old to fight for your beliefs and how our passions keep us young in our later years. And it is about the love that citizens have for America, and the lengths that the people should be willing to go to ensure the continuation of a true and free democracy.
Granny D's writing is interesting, engaging, persuasive, and often very funny. You admire her spunk, of course, but you also have to admire the incredible sense of dedication to her mission.
This book includes, in the appendix, a selection of Doris Haddock's speeches. They are sharp, straight-shooting, and absolutely right on every time. Her march to the Capitol is a very emotional climax, and then when she goes on later to be arrested for civil disobedience for reading the Declaration of Independence in the rotunda, you really feel that her courage and charisma know no bounds.
I did wish the book would have included a more detailed epilogue - as Granny D went on to run for the US Senate when she was 94, and continued to raise hell until she passed away at age 100. And I was really surprised that it did not include a map of her route, to allow the reader to track the progress that she was speaking of as she went along.
December 6, 2017
Onvan : Granny D: Walking Across America in My Ninetieth Year - Nevisande : Doris Haddock - ISBN : 375505393 - ISBN13 : 9780375505393 - Dar 304 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2001
December 23, 2010
Granny's cause was election reform, but I feel the walk did as much for her as a person as it did for her reader's. At the end she said her doctor said the walk had helped her arthritis and her emphysema, but not her back pain. To her it was worth it and she made many new friends, gave her life a new meaning.
Definitely a person I would enjoy sitting down and having a chat with. She voices many of the aspects of aging that I have felt and couldn't quite put into words. I always said if you have a complaint about the way our country is run, you have to take some action, not just talk about it. Granny D sure did that, most enjoyably.
Definitely a person I would enjoy sitting down and having a chat with. She voices many of the aspects of aging that I have felt and couldn't quite put into words. I always said if you have a complaint about the way our country is run, you have to take some action, not just talk about it. Granny D sure did that, most enjoyably.
July 2, 2013
A delightful recounting of Granny's one-year walk across the United States to emphasize the need for campaign finance reform. She describes the many people she met, the hospitality she received, and the conditions under which she hiked in amusing, warm-hearted detail. One can't help admiring her courage and determination. Oh, that her efforts had resulted in some tiny measure of campaign finance reform.
December 19, 2012
To fight for campaign finance reform. We no longer have a democracy,. The govt. is owned by corporations. Whatever causes you care for: environment, human rights, health care reform etc., this MUST come first.
This book is also full of folksy wisdom and stories from a 90 year old.
"It was your hard times that made you so interesting, so wise and able to laugh at life. Aren't we lucky, friend, to be the creatures of such a genius Creator that even our darkest troubles graciously serve to deepen and widen our hearts? And all our memories, like days cast in amber, glow more beautifully through the years as the happy endings finally reveal themselves and flow slowly into the bright and mysterious river of the Divine."
When Doris first told her son of her plans his reaction:
"First of all, of course, he said "Oh boy." That was a natural reaction, along with the quick, severe stare through his eyebrows. But he didn't dismiss me. He thought about it for a few miles. He knows who I am, what I have done in life. He understands that people don't change much as they age - the book cover gets tattered, but our defining stories remain unchanged and our personalities only intensify. Of course, we might become a little batty, and a son must consider every possiblilty. So he silently drove and thought."
This book is also full of folksy wisdom and stories from a 90 year old.
"It was your hard times that made you so interesting, so wise and able to laugh at life. Aren't we lucky, friend, to be the creatures of such a genius Creator that even our darkest troubles graciously serve to deepen and widen our hearts? And all our memories, like days cast in amber, glow more beautifully through the years as the happy endings finally reveal themselves and flow slowly into the bright and mysterious river of the Divine."
When Doris first told her son of her plans his reaction:
"First of all, of course, he said "Oh boy." That was a natural reaction, along with the quick, severe stare through his eyebrows. But he didn't dismiss me. He thought about it for a few miles. He knows who I am, what I have done in life. He understands that people don't change much as they age - the book cover gets tattered, but our defining stories remain unchanged and our personalities only intensify. Of course, we might become a little batty, and a son must consider every possiblilty. So he silently drove and thought."
December 24, 2012
Way better than I expected. A travelogue and activists' how-to manual, perfectly interspersed with anecdotes about growing up in the 1910s. Granny's observations on life and death don't come across as pithy or cliche; she speaks hard-earned truths often delivered with dry, cheeky wit. The actual speeches she gave at stops along the way, added in an appendix, make a great addition. Granny's perspectives on campagin finance reform, the role of government, and the capacity for change are enough to catalyze even hardened pessimists. The means she used to get out her message was totally impluasible. But the reforms she suggests (to an audience almost certainly much younger than herself) are practical and attainable. What an amazing story, written in such a fun and engaging way.
May 18, 2019
Starting on January 1, 1999 Dennis Burke chronicles Doris Haddock's trek from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. to raise awareness to big money's role in politics not only diluting but eliminating the voice of the People based on her daily journal entries. Impromptu "advance" men with changing faces except for her son Jim scout future towns and cities along the way to schedule speaking engagements. Established friends and strangers who become friends provide company as they walk with her for a day or two or even a week in some cases.
Doris Haddock has to be esteemed for her courage and dedication to her cause especially since the road to be traveled was not without physical challenges for all and her trek was further exacerbated by her arthritis and emphysema. That she had a lifetime of walking and mountain climbing behind her no doubt enable her to successfully train and meet her 10 mile a day objective on the road. In addition, she dedicated her effort to those closest to her that had recently passed, her loyal husband Jim and her best friend Elizabeth who she had both provided for during their extended illnesses. Jim's bout with cancer lasted 10 years!
I most appreciated her confronting corruption where she found it. Case in point was her speech to Senator Mitch McConnell in 1999 answering the question he posed to Senator John McCain as to who is corrupt asking him to provide names which he refused to do. The speech in its entirety can be found in the Appendix with all the others but the most revealing section is quoted here:
"In 1997, Senator McConnell, when you took $791,945 from insurance interests who needed protection from patient rights efforts, and $602, 885 from oil and gas interests who needed a free flow of tax benefits and protections against pollution laws, and $597, 915 from communications interests who wanted free access to to the digital spectrum and a free hand to merge into giant monopolies. . . . He's the man you were asking about on the Senate floor. When you let a Ukraine group host a fund-raiser for you in 1996, and you used your position as chairman of the Appropriations Committee to provide $225 million appropriation for development in Ukraine, did you see another fellow there, trading money for public policy? That's the fellow. He is at such meetings and making such deals almost daily, year in and out." The latter reference I thought was particularly revealing for our time. The sad part of it all is that power is still with us today, well over twenty years later!
"Self-interest Shall be Cast into Oblivion" titles Doris's speeches to Maryland Colleges delivered in February 2000 that I found most interesting: "You may think I began at the beginning when I listed Tom Jefferson, but Tom and I are latecomers to this land of democracy. The Iroquois Constitution, the memorized document that ruled this very soil hundreds of years before the rest of the world arrived, was the very model of fairness and balance that helped inspired Jefferson and his contemporaries. . .she goes on to state she would like to install new senators and representatives in the same way that Americans did when we were the Five Nations. A part of the ceremony is then quoted:
"Your heart shall be filled with peace and good will and your mind filled with a yearning for the welfare of the people. With endless patience you shall carry out your duty, and your firmness shall be tempered with tenderness for your people. Neither anger nor fury shall find lodgment in your mind, . . . In all of your deliberations in Council, and in your efforts at law making, in all your official acts, self-interest shall be cast to oblivion."
I thoroughly enjoyed Doris's observations along her way and her personal reminiscences but the latter were not revealed until the latter half of the book making the beginning chapters slow moving. The most telling was the response she got when confronting her employer about getting $50 a week less than her predecessor who performed the same function. He suggested she did not need to work because she had a husband! That slight became the fuel she needed apparently to exceed at her job as she went on to become the 2nd highest paid female in the state of New Hampshire. The author went to great lengths to address every act of kindness delivered to Doris en route naming the person(s) and their whereabouts unnecessary to the story line itself and distracting.
Takeaways : Cows do not mate in a drought for fear of not being able to sustain their young. Cows can reproduce for 12 years bearing one calf with each pregnancy. Mourning Doves mate for life.
The Dequad Indians had taught the first white New England settlers how to make maple syrup.
The Prima-Maricopas created by hand labor, a network of canals-hundreds of miles in extent-that turned the deserts of Central Arizona into a great agricultural empire more than two thousand years ago. Settlers who came to Arizona in the 1870's restored the old canals and began planting crops but still did not grow steadily. President Theodore Roosevelt rewarded the state that had sent him the most of his Rough Rider troops by arranging for a federal loan to build a system of dams that would ultimately end the cycle of drought and floods.
In the 1930's marriage ceremonies had to be administered secretly should the bride be a student as it was against the rules for married women to attend college. Doris's ceremony turned out not be a private affair due to the indiscretion of the minister and she paid the price as she was asked to leave Emerson at the conclusion of her junior year!
The grandeur of Doris Haddock cannot be hidden and for that reason should not be missed though the book could have been better written.
Doris Haddock has to be esteemed for her courage and dedication to her cause especially since the road to be traveled was not without physical challenges for all and her trek was further exacerbated by her arthritis and emphysema. That she had a lifetime of walking and mountain climbing behind her no doubt enable her to successfully train and meet her 10 mile a day objective on the road. In addition, she dedicated her effort to those closest to her that had recently passed, her loyal husband Jim and her best friend Elizabeth who she had both provided for during their extended illnesses. Jim's bout with cancer lasted 10 years!
I most appreciated her confronting corruption where she found it. Case in point was her speech to Senator Mitch McConnell in 1999 answering the question he posed to Senator John McCain as to who is corrupt asking him to provide names which he refused to do. The speech in its entirety can be found in the Appendix with all the others but the most revealing section is quoted here:
"In 1997, Senator McConnell, when you took $791,945 from insurance interests who needed protection from patient rights efforts, and $602, 885 from oil and gas interests who needed a free flow of tax benefits and protections against pollution laws, and $597, 915 from communications interests who wanted free access to to the digital spectrum and a free hand to merge into giant monopolies. . . . He's the man you were asking about on the Senate floor. When you let a Ukraine group host a fund-raiser for you in 1996, and you used your position as chairman of the Appropriations Committee to provide $225 million appropriation for development in Ukraine, did you see another fellow there, trading money for public policy? That's the fellow. He is at such meetings and making such deals almost daily, year in and out." The latter reference I thought was particularly revealing for our time. The sad part of it all is that power is still with us today, well over twenty years later!
"Self-interest Shall be Cast into Oblivion" titles Doris's speeches to Maryland Colleges delivered in February 2000 that I found most interesting: "You may think I began at the beginning when I listed Tom Jefferson, but Tom and I are latecomers to this land of democracy. The Iroquois Constitution, the memorized document that ruled this very soil hundreds of years before the rest of the world arrived, was the very model of fairness and balance that helped inspired Jefferson and his contemporaries. . .she goes on to state she would like to install new senators and representatives in the same way that Americans did when we were the Five Nations. A part of the ceremony is then quoted:
"Your heart shall be filled with peace and good will and your mind filled with a yearning for the welfare of the people. With endless patience you shall carry out your duty, and your firmness shall be tempered with tenderness for your people. Neither anger nor fury shall find lodgment in your mind, . . . In all of your deliberations in Council, and in your efforts at law making, in all your official acts, self-interest shall be cast to oblivion."
I thoroughly enjoyed Doris's observations along her way and her personal reminiscences but the latter were not revealed until the latter half of the book making the beginning chapters slow moving. The most telling was the response she got when confronting her employer about getting $50 a week less than her predecessor who performed the same function. He suggested she did not need to work because she had a husband! That slight became the fuel she needed apparently to exceed at her job as she went on to become the 2nd highest paid female in the state of New Hampshire. The author went to great lengths to address every act of kindness delivered to Doris en route naming the person(s) and their whereabouts unnecessary to the story line itself and distracting.
Takeaways : Cows do not mate in a drought for fear of not being able to sustain their young. Cows can reproduce for 12 years bearing one calf with each pregnancy. Mourning Doves mate for life.
The Dequad Indians had taught the first white New England settlers how to make maple syrup.
The Prima-Maricopas created by hand labor, a network of canals-hundreds of miles in extent-that turned the deserts of Central Arizona into a great agricultural empire more than two thousand years ago. Settlers who came to Arizona in the 1870's restored the old canals and began planting crops but still did not grow steadily. President Theodore Roosevelt rewarded the state that had sent him the most of his Rough Rider troops by arranging for a federal loan to build a system of dams that would ultimately end the cycle of drought and floods.
In the 1930's marriage ceremonies had to be administered secretly should the bride be a student as it was against the rules for married women to attend college. Doris's ceremony turned out not be a private affair due to the indiscretion of the minister and she paid the price as she was asked to leave Emerson at the conclusion of her junior year!
The grandeur of Doris Haddock cannot be hidden and for that reason should not be missed though the book could have been better written.
August 10, 2014
Doris Haddock was 89 in 1999 and had two birthdays on the road. She walked to protest big money in politics. She is so full of humor, wisdom, philosophy and heart that when things come up during my day, I hear myself asking “What would Granny D do?”
I learned of her walk because a couple weeks ago a theater presentation about Granny D brought her to my attention. If anyone wants this excellent presentation in their community, you can contact Jeff Sebens, at j.sebens@yahoo.com, 276-318-3808, to learn of the touring schedule for "Go, Granny D!" by Barbara Bates Smith, actress.
I learned of her walk because a couple weeks ago a theater presentation about Granny D brought her to my attention. If anyone wants this excellent presentation in their community, you can contact Jeff Sebens, at j.sebens@yahoo.com, 276-318-3808, to learn of the touring schedule for "Go, Granny D!" by Barbara Bates Smith, actress.
July 17, 2007
Met Mrs. Haddock when she visited our university. I had read her book in advance of her visit and found that it added greatly to the experience I had as one of her escorts for the day and moderator for her town hall lecture. She is a woman of indelible insight and indomitable courage. I can't imagine walking across the entire country to prove a point myself (let alone at the age of nearly 90). Read the book, visit her website, see the early 2007 documentary on her cause....it's all good!
July 5, 2009
I was impressed by 90 year old Granny D Haddock's determination to complete a 14 month walk from LA to the steps of the Capital in Washington, DC to call attention to the need for national campaign finance reform. She showed that one needs a purpose in life and should "go for it"!
June 30, 2017
I really like these walk books that I read, and this one is endearing cause shes a spunky 90th year old.
She walks the southern route across United States, and her cause is Political Reform. If she only new now its worse...(I said previously that she was 100.) Might have felt like it, like me.)
She walks the southern route across United States, and her cause is Political Reform. If she only new now its worse...(I said previously that she was 100.) Might have felt like it, like me.)
January 9, 2011
Another incredible book worth reading more for the story than the writing. If you care about issues, put your feet to the fire, and be the change you want in the world.
February 5, 2014
Amazing to me that a 90 year old could walk across the country in all kinds of weather. Such an incredible lady. Enjoyed her insight.
November 1, 2015
I can imagine what Granny D would have to say about Donald Trump if she were still with us.
September 12, 2017
Her determination and ideals were ver admirable. It is truly amazing what one person can do. The book got
Long and a little redundant but I was glad to hear her story.
Long and a little redundant but I was glad to hear her story.
December 8, 2022
I can honestly say I'd never heard of Granny D. Which is surprising, considering the amount of news coverage around her. I think it was just due to timing; I was not yet old enough to vote when she did her walk, and so wasn't really politically minded.
This is not to say this is a political book entirely. It's a big portion of that, given that her reasoning for going on her trek across America was to raise awareness around campaign finance reform. But it's also just about the people who helped her along the way, some of her past history (this wasn't her first foray into activism), and finally just the toll of the walk itself.
Haddock, or Granny D as she went by during her walk, is an interesting character. And that reflects through her narration. She'd have to be, to decide to walk across America at almost age 90. She's not shy in what she says, I'm guessing when you get to be that age it's probably part of the loss of filter and time. But she's also exceedingly generous to most she describes; she sees the world as a beautiful place and can usually say at least one positive thing about everyone she is around. Which I admire.
Definitely an interesting book about an interesting lady. To only hope to be that engaged at her age.
Review by M. Reynard 2022
This is not to say this is a political book entirely. It's a big portion of that, given that her reasoning for going on her trek across America was to raise awareness around campaign finance reform. But it's also just about the people who helped her along the way, some of her past history (this wasn't her first foray into activism), and finally just the toll of the walk itself.
Haddock, or Granny D as she went by during her walk, is an interesting character. And that reflects through her narration. She'd have to be, to decide to walk across America at almost age 90. She's not shy in what she says, I'm guessing when you get to be that age it's probably part of the loss of filter and time. But she's also exceedingly generous to most she describes; she sees the world as a beautiful place and can usually say at least one positive thing about everyone she is around. Which I admire.
Definitely an interesting book about an interesting lady. To only hope to be that engaged at her age.
Review by M. Reynard 2022
November 16, 2023
What a delightful read! Doris Haddock walked 3,200 across the US in 14 months at age 90 to bring awareness to campaign finance reform. She is thoughtful, feisty, and so human that I felt like I joined her on her walk. She recounts her walk from the western deserts to Washington DC where she grew in fame - she talks not only about campaign finance reform but also her childhood, long marriage to her husband Jim who passed away several years before her walk, raising her children, her activist history, and thoughts about approaching death. There was plenty of humor sprinkled in, including an accidental stop for a cold Coca Cola at a strip club, some snarky humor, and her arrest.
She called out Mitch McConnell (still the worst, all these years later!) and it was just a joy to spend time with her on this adventure; it felt like being with my own Mamaw! This one has been on my TBR list since 2008ish and I'm so glad I finally made my way to it. Granny D lived 10 more years after her walk, and never quit raising good trouble until the end. What a life well-lived!
She called out Mitch McConnell (still the worst, all these years later!) and it was just a joy to spend time with her on this adventure; it felt like being with my own Mamaw! This one has been on my TBR list since 2008ish and I'm so glad I finally made my way to it. Granny D lived 10 more years after her walk, and never quit raising good trouble until the end. What a life well-lived!
July 13, 2018
Did not enjoy...much too political for me! Enjoyed the personal bits about her life.
December 2, 2019
Fascinating book about a 90 year old woman who walks across American to promote campaign finance reform.
March 29, 2021
Granny walks to bring awareness to campaign finance reform. Writes about people she meets along the way and other memoirs.
November 29, 2024
Ok maybe 1.5 stars. This book was ok. Repetitive numerous times, boring, dragged at times but the saddest thing is that what she walked for in 1999 and 2000 is still a problem today.
December 5, 2007
"we gotta touch the hands all across the land just like granny d, and if you're feeling what i'm sayin' won't you jump with us please..." Ruby Valentine featured on Scream Club's song "Don't F*ck With My Babies"
my mom read this book and recommended it to me. granny d is a bit conservative for me. she's a reformist. but i'm into what she did. so awesome. you ARE never too old to raise hell.
my mom read this book and recommended it to me. granny d is a bit conservative for me. she's a reformist. but i'm into what she did. so awesome. you ARE never too old to raise hell.
March 16, 2016
An eighty-nine year old woman walks across
America to encourage campaign financing reforms.
America to encourage campaign financing reforms.
January 20, 2016
I am ah of this woman. Very interesting and inspirational. Well written for a quick read.
June 21, 2010
inspirational
April 25, 2017
Wow! Granny D is so inspirational. If she can walk across the US to push for campaign finance reform at the age of 90, what can I do?
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