by jphilo | Sep 26, 2023 | Out and About
The Gracie Allen and George Burns 2.0 made some friends this summer after becoming a duo. I’ve been giving Gracie’s fellow Vintage Cruisers names and writing them down in hopes of setting up some play dates once I figure out how to contact their parents owners. In the meantime, I’d like to tell you about our kids’ new friends and then pick your brains about a little project I’ve started.
First up are Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. We met them driving from our house to church. We see Lucy, a dead ringer for Gracie, almost every Sunday. Desi not so much.
We met Katherine Hepburn last April while camping near Madison, Wisconsin. Her color accents were red rather than teal, but that’s not the reason for her name. We chose Katherine Hepburn because she was all alone at her campsite with nary a truck to be found. We were there during the week, so we assume Spencer Tracy shows up on the weekends.
Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire made their presence known as we and our grandkids drove to a Mexican restaurant in the next town over. There they were, tucked demurely behind a fence. Ginger was the same color as Gracie, but smaller in build. We assume that’s what keeps her and Fred light on their feet.
Our final Vintage Cruiser sighting occurred during a drive through the South Dakota Badlands. Immediately after passing it on the highway, we christened the red beauty and her truck as Wilma and Fred Flintstone. Surrounded as we were by rocky and rugged scenery, the names were a slam dunk.
Now, onto the brain picking half of this post. My husband and I (actually just me, but he’s a good sport and laughs with me rather than at me) want to create a list of vintage couple names to consult and use when Gracie and George make new friends on future trips. You are encouraged to submit names in the comment box below. The couples can be real (like Gracie and George) or fictional (like Wilma and Fred). They can be political (think Franklin and Eleanor), musical (as in Cher and Sonny), or from the movies (perhaps Lady and the Tramp).
The only hard and fast requirement, in keeping with the vintage element, is that the names are of couples who were famous during the 1940s up through the 1970s.
I’d love to see what you come up with! Ready…set…go!
by jphilo | Sep 9, 2023 | See Jane Dig!
As a rule, my usual routine does not incorporate humming songs that topped the charts when I was in high school. But ever since I completed the first draft of See Jane Dig! (Book #4 in the West River Mystery Series) yesterday afternoon, I’ve found myself humming Oh Happy See Jane Dig! Day at the most unexpected times.
Eating supper with the fam: Oh Happy See Jane Dig! Day
Brushing my teeth: Oh Happy See Jane Dig! Day
Listening to my audiobook about William Tecumseh Sherman on my morning walk: Oh Happy See Jane Dig! Day
Baking breakfast muffins: Oh Happy See Jane Dig! Day
Balancing the checkbook: Oh Happy See Jane Dig! Day
Typing THE END after writing 70,000 words results in simultaneous and contradictory feelings.
Fear that the story is complete drivel.
Delight in ignoring the manuscript for an entire month.
Relief at having several free hours a day to catch up on everything neglected in favor of writing.
Satisfaction in knowing the bones of the story have been captured on paper.
Anticipation at returning to the manuscript in late October and discovering its more uncut gem than complete drivel.
The joy of revising what’s already written rather than filling a blank page.
For all those reasons, I’m humming Oh Happy See Jane Dig! Day again right now. The biggest reason, however, is that my goal to complete the manuscript by September 12 has been achieved. That’s the day my husband, son, and I embark on a trip through the Dakotas and Nebraska.
Our first stop is Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. The Little Missouri River along the fictional town of Little Missouri also runs through the national park. Our next stop is Camp Crook, South Dakota where we were living when our son was born and left when he was three. We hope to see many people who “knew him when” and loved him well. We’ll round out the trip with a visit to former Camp Crook friends who now live in southeastern Nebraska.
For the entirety of our travels, I don’t have to think about Jane, her students, Sheriff Sternquist, Velma, Merle, ol’ Snippy the cow, Dick, the general citizenry of Little Missouri, or bad guys. Just writing that sentence has me humming Oh Happy See Jane Dig! Day again. In hopes that my joy has somehow become yours, I invite you to hum along with me. All together now…
Oh Happy See Jane Dig! Day
by jphilo | Aug 31, 2023 | Family
Labor Day weekend will be different this year. For as long as I can remember the holiday was more about celebrating my mother’s birthday than celebrating laborers. Then again she was born on September 3, which was Labor Day in her birth year of 1928. Which means her birthday was and will always be a celebration of labor, though not of laborers.
Because Mom’s birthday usually occurred during a three day weekend, it often coincided with gatherings of our extended family. Though Labor Day weekend will be different this year, that much will remain the same. Our annual cousins’ reunion––there are 39 of us, a number that swells quickly when you throw in our spouses and descendants–– will be held the day before Mom’s birthday.
This year will be quite different in other ways. Mom left this world on June 23 and will not be with us in body on her birthday. Then again, our memories of her and of her seven siblings who waited patiently for her to join them in heaven, will be present in full force. We will tell our family stories. We will share favorite memories of our parents. They were all farmers and housewives and teachers, remarkable people though not well-known outside our circle and never, never showy.
Since some of my cousins weren’t able to attend Mom’s celebration of life, I will take the memory book the funeral home compiled for them to see. I’ll also bring the scrapbook, filled with photos of our parents and their parents, which I made the year Mom turned 80. How can that be 15 years ago? I will also take the birthday cake she loved best, homemade German chocolate cake. Not the cupcake version on the chocolate bar pictured above, but the traditional version pictured below. The cake is delicious, moist and very big. A good thing in an extended family as large as ours.
My piece will probably be on the salty side, not because I have a heavy hand with that ingredient, but because I will be crying as I eat. My tears will be good. Sad. Joyful. Healthy. I expect them to flow freely as my cousins who knew and loved Mom teach me what they already know. She, like their parents who went before her, is alive and well in our hearts.
Happy birthday, Mom, from all of us.
In loving memory of Dorothea Lorraine Stratton
September 3, 1928-June 23, 2023
by jphilo | Aug 25, 2023 | See Jane Dance!
Does this picture make you want to read See Jane Dance! before its release date? The third book in the West River Mystery Series will be available at Amazon on October 10, but you can read it sooner by joining the launch team.
Before passing on the deets about how to join, I want to explain why See Jane Dance! updates have been sparse in the last several months, it’s because my indomitable mother (Doris Newell’s prototype) passed away on June 23, a few months shy of her ninety-fifth birthday. Saying good bye was hard. Still, I rejoice to think of her free of pain and reunited with her husbands, her parents, and her seven siblings who left this earth before her.
Now that most of her legal and financial matters settled, my attention is focused on the upcoming release of See Jane Dance!, the third book in the West River Series. Here’s a quick peek at how Jane and her fellow Little Missourians decide to usher in the new year:
1978 is only a few days old when Jane Newell stumbles over a body on her way to Round the Bend, Little Missouri, South Dakota’s most popular (and only) bar and cafe. Soon she’s juggling not only a murder investigation, but also the addition of four kindergarteners to her lively country school classroom. Thanks to weekly square dance lessons paid for by her mother, the town switchboard operator, and the school janitor, all of them determined to kick start her romantic life, she’s also fending off eligible bachelors right and left. Jane braves bone-chilling temperatures, dangerous snowstorms, and town gossip as she and the sheriff zero in on a killer who’s dancing too close for comfort.
If that’s got your curiosity doing a jig and you want find out how Jane tracks down the killer, please consider joining the See Jane Dance! launch team. Here’s what’s in it for you:
- An advance reader copy in September.
- A FREE Kindle version on October 10.
- An invitation to whatever kind of launch party I have time to dream up. This one depends on how much attention Mom’s remaining affairs require.)
Your part is to write an honest review and post it on Amazon after the book releases on October 10. (More about that in future blog posts.) To join just email me. I would love to have you on the team. I guarantee that taking square dance lessons with Jane and her rotating roster of partners will not be boring.
Now for two final tidbits regarding See Jane Dance!…
First, Mom’s chocolate chip oatmeal cookie recipe can be found at the end of the book. Second, Mom learned to square dance in gym class while attending a small, conservative Christian college in the 1940’s. The students, however, had to refer them as “square games lessons” because dancing wasn’t allowed on campus.
Which goes to show that words really do matter.
by jphilo | May 25, 2023 | See Jane Dig!
Where did Columbo 2.0 come from and why is he part of the West River Mystery Series? That was the question I asked myself while developing a backstory for a new character who debuts in See Jane Dig! (That’s Book 4 if you’re keeping track.) The new character is the Tipperary County Deputy Sheriff. He was mentioned in both See Jane Run! and See Jane Sing! but remained nameless and never made an appearance. The same thing is true of See Jane Dance!, which will be released in the fall of 2023.
More on that in an upcoming post.
During the planning session for See Jane Dig!, my editor and I decided the time had come to rectify the situation. The elusive deputy deserved to show up and be named. My good intention went no further until April of 2023 when Hiram and I were on the road. We stopped for lunch at the Zapp Thai restaurant in Greenfield, Indiana. The place was crowded and while we waited for the server, who was being run off her feet, to take our order I opened my composition notebook and began brainstorming names.
My only criteria for the deputy was that his surname was Italian.
Mainly because two homesteaders who came to northwest South Dakota in the early 1900s were Italian. They had a big family, and many of their descendants remain in the area to this day. I wanted the series to reflect their presence. After the server took our order I did an internet search for and found the Italian derivative of a certain English name. It’s a bit of a spoiler, so you’ll have to wait until Book 4 to learn what it is. Next I searched for popular Italian surnames and Columbo popped up.
What could be better than naming Tipperary County’s lawman after television’s most rumpled detective?
Once Deputy Columbo had a name, the details for his backstory began to flow. Some are riffs on the original:
- My guy wears a western duster instead of a trench coat.
- He chews tobacco instead of a cigar.
- His appearance is rumpled.
- He is underwhelming at first glance.
Other details are unique to Columbo 2.0:
- He loves animals and takes his dog everywhere.
- He’s lazy, except when it comes to hunting and fishing.
- He has a family and is a devoted father.
- He’s late to everything.
So where did Columbo 2.0 come from?
I guess you could say he began at the very busy Zapp Thai restaurant in Greenfield, Indiana. Hiram and I encourage you to eat there if you’re ever in the area. The food was some of the best we’ve ever had, and the prices were reasonable. After you pay the bill and tip the overworked server generously, look around someone who resembles Columbo 2.0.
I found him there. Maybe you will too.
Photo Credit: Created by Prawny for Pixabay
