Upon Tennessee’s approval on August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. After 41 years of debate, the Senate finally approved a constitutional amendment to provide for woman suffrage, 56-25.

This day in history. All you need to know from the National Women’s History Museum.

Not only a great title, but a great first novel by BILLIE HANSON DUPREE. I’m pleased to share the first chapter here.

For more about Billie, visit her website.

Still Kicking but Not High

Chapter 1

“He didn’t do nothin’ to me! Why did I have to kill him?” Bill slid out of his nightmare, the same every night. He awoke covered in a light coat of sticky sweat, his body shaking and his mouth open, gasping for breath. 

He looked around the closet. Since he came home from the hospital in Italy, he had been sleeping in this closet, alone. The first time he ever had a ‘private room,’ if you could call this a room. With nine sisters and brothers, privacy was unheard of in his family. His nightmares changed that. Mama fixed him a pallet in the living room closet so that he would not break his brothers’ sleep in the boys’ room.

The door squeaked open, and his sister Jo entered. She tightened her chenille housecoat around her body, then knelt on the pallet and embraced him.

“Billy, you were screaming again.” 

 Bill stared at Jo’s thin face, his eyes wide. 

“It’s ok, Billy. It was just a dream. You’re home now brother.”

Bill felt his quivering dissipate. He continued to hold on to Jo. “Yeah, I know Sis, but why do the dreams have to come every night?”

Jo shrugged her shoulders.

As his breathing returned to normal, he stopped shaking, and let go of her. His eyes fixed on the wall in front of him. Blue wallpaper with tiny yellow daffodils. Bill continued staring, still as stone. 

“You ok now, Brother?” Jo’s gaze seeking reassurance. “Mama’s in the kitchen so you need to wash up. Breakfast be ready shortly.”

Jo stood up and backed out of the closet. Bill continued to sit, staring at the wall. Tears rolled down his face, his shoulders trembled as he tried to stifle his sobs. When will I get back to being Bill? 

He stood and began to gather his clothes. His faded denim trousers, leather belt and blue work shirt hung from nails on the wall. He dressed himself, cinching his belt tightly to hold up his jeans, which had fit before the war, but now hung from his scrawny body.

Bill opened the closet door and walked out into the living room. The air felt cooler here. There had not been time for the cool of the night to evaporate into the heat of the San Joaquin Valley day. 

“Morning Son.” Papa moved toward a window.

Bill glanced at Papa, ashamed that he had slept so late. 

“Morning, Papa.”

Pulling down the window shades and closing the windows on the side of the house where the sun would soon be heating the walls and warming the house even more, that should have been him, not Papa. As the eldest, he was supposed to be an example for the younger kids. Not anymore. 

Slipping down the dim hall to the bathroom he knocked and not hearing an answering yell, entered. He turned on the water faucet and splashed his face with the cool water. He soaped his hands with the strong, homemade soap and washed his armpits vigorously. Bill dried himself on the damp communal towel that hung limp from the wooden peg on the wall. He had stopped looking in the mirror to see if he had washed his face well, unwilling to look into his eyes.

Bill was the last to enter the warm, noisy kitchen, but no one had begun to eat yet. Mama put the bowl of eggs on the table and walked over to the sink. She never sat down to eat with them. 

Papa spoke. “Heads bowed, eyes closed. God is great, God is good and we thank Him for this food. Amen.” Papa did not put much store in the God Mama worshipped, and his blessing was always short, just enough to placate her. 

Times had changed. Before Papa and Mama bought the farm, they would only get corn meal mush and a biscuit with Mama’s homemade jam for breakfast. The farm had been a blessing, purchased from the money he and Samuel sent home during the war. The only blessing from the war. Samuel had been killed, and he had come back a different man.

“I’m leaving after breakfast to pick up the workers for the fields. Bill, you wanna come with me today?” The room became quiet, movements stilled. Bill felt the eyes of his brothers and sisters on him. Ruthie, the youngest, the only one who continued eating.

“No Papa, I’ll just stay here and help Mama today.” He stared at the scrambled eggs and thick slices of bacon on his plate and waited for Papa’s response in the heavy silence. 

“Boy, the doctor says your shoulder and leg are healed. You been helping Mama for the last three months, and she don’t need no more help. Right Ella?”

Mama turned from the sink, wiped her hands on her thin blue apron, folded her arms across her flattening chest, and stared at Bill. 

“Papa’s right, Son. It’s time you got out of the house. We’ve all been praying for you, but now it’s time foryou to do something.”

Bill looked at Mama, and she returned his gaze without a smile. So, Mama has finally sided with Papa on this, he thought. He knew it would come, but not this soon. The quiet days on the farm were like balm to his unreliable mind which skittered like a calf from images of bloody deaths to the crashing sounds of battle.

“Alright, Papa,” Bill replied, his voice low. He looked at his plate and continued to eat although the eggs and bacon now tasted like sawdust in his mouth. Conversation resumed at the table. 

Talk about understatement.

That’s how King began his testimony in the case of the government vs the merger of Penguin-Random House and Simon & Schuster.

In case you missed it — here are a few links that summarize King’s 30-minute testimony.

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/02/1115110927/stephen-king-is-set-to-testify-for-the-government-in-books-merger-trial

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stephen-king-testifies-against-publishers-merger-consolidation-is-bad-for-competition-01659487197?cx_testId=3&cx_testVariant=cx_2&cx_artPos=6&mod=WTRN#cxrecs_s

I think many of us would agree that mergers between 2 giants seldom help any but the mergees (new word; has the sinister tone I was going for). So this is King, who doesn’t need the help, standing up for those who do.

Thanks Mr. King!

Granted, it doesn’t take much for me to wish I could make a trip to Revere Beach, preferably the way it was when I was 12 and worked the concessions, from cotton candy to pepper steaks to pizza.

To my dismay, the 2+-mile boardwalk of amusements has been razed. But a positive addition has been the annual Sand Sculpting Festival with an international competition, earlier this month.

Here’s one of many videos you can capture on line.

You may remember last week’s blog when I thought I’d be deep into Las Vegas slots when you read it. More like deep into the Public Safety Writers Conference.

Wrong in either case.

No more foreshadowing for this blogger — my writer/friend/partner in travels Ann Parker and I spent the day last Thursday at the Oakland Airport while our flight to LV kept getting delayed, 15 minutes at a time, then canceled, with no more flights that day! I’ll spare you most of the details, like missing luggage, in case I want to use the story for a piece of fiction some time.

This week is about milestones in aviation history. Quite appropriate also as we celebrated the “Moon Landing” on July 20, 1969.

On July 22, 1933, aviation pioneer WILEY POST came in for a landing on New York’s Floyd Bennett Field, the first person to fly solo around the world.

Two years later, Post and his good friend humorist Will Rogers died when their plane crashed near Point Barrow Alaska.

I came across this story as I was writing my Alaska Diner series, and learned the name of the airport in Utqiagvik: the Wiley Post-Will Rogers Memorial Airport. I found some very interesting videos and websites. Here’s one of my favorite videos, showing Rogers plane, the Winnie Mae, being towed down the streets of Manhattan!

There’s a good chance I’ll be near some slots this weekend July 14-17—my first venture into the air since pre-Covid, landing in Las Vegas. You might guess it’s for a conference and not to gamble (other than the trip itself).

The Public Safety Writers Association puts on the conference to bring together mystery writers and people with public safety careers who write about their experiences. I’ll be on two panels, one about editing a manuscript and the other about blogging (hmm).

Attached are views of a miniature casino I put together for a conference in Reno a few years ago. It was auctioned off for the benefit of the local library. The slot machines were part of a souvenir key ring — I hacked off the “ring” part!

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OK, I let the fireworks go on a bit. Sorry, it was those Sousa marches that don’t leave me for a while.

Now it’s on to July 10 and the birthday of Nikola Tesla. Little did he know a CAR would bear his name.

The best source I found for a complete biography is with the Tesla Memorial Society of New York.

There’s also an explanation of AC/DC (not the music group) and how Edison lost the battle of DC. It has always made me wonder why Edison is the household name for electricity. Well, until the CAR that is!

Be sure to check out the Manhattan corner that bears his name!

More next Thursday, July 14, Bastille Day, as well as the birthdays of Gerald Ford, Gustav Klimt, and Woody Guthrie. Any preference?

Happy Fourth of July!

My newsletter has some Happy Fourth bits. If you don’t subscribe and would like to, sign up here.

Here’s a reprint — a short story featuring The Cyclone roller coaster from Revere Beach, Massachusetts, c. 1950.

Lucky me, to have a guest poster today!

by Elle Hartford

Elle adores cozy mysteries, fairy tales, and above all, learning new things. As a historian and educator, she believes in the value of stories as a mirror for complicated realities. She currently lives in New Jersey with a grumpy tortoise and a three-legged cat.

Secrets and Treasures For All: What is Alchemy, Really?

From Harry Potter to The Da Vinci Code, alchemical symbols and inventions play a dramatic role in storytelling. I myself write about all the time in my new mystery series! But what is alchemy?

The way I think of it, alchemy is a field where history, science, and magic come together. To put it simply . . .

1. It isn’t New Age. The alchemy I’m talking about is what I call “old school” alchemy. Up until the 1400s or so, it was considered a real science. Kings had royal alchemists, and noble sons went into the profession (often looking for ways to expand their family fortune, but we’ll set that aside for now).
2. It’s more famous than you might think! Today, some people we remember as important early scientists actually considered themselves alchemists. One example of this is Sir Isaac Newton, who dabbled in alchemy all his life, though he generally kept this hidden because by his time (the 1600s) alchemy was considered questionable.
3. It was about the Elixir of Life–for some. Since we’re speaking of famous alchemists, you might be thinking of Albus Dumbledore and his friend Nicolas Flamel . . . who was, in fact, based on a real person. The Philosopher’s Stone was a sort of “unicorn” in alchemical research: everybody wanted one, and there were lots of theories about how to make one. It was rumored that the Stone could do all kinds of things, including grant everlasting life, cure colds, create gems, and–of course–turn anything into gold.
4. It was about gold, too. What’s up with that? Well, for a lot of people–including many kings–more gold meant more money, just like you’d expect. But for serious alchemists, it wasn’t about money at all. One of the fundamental tenets of alchemy is that everything in the world can be perfected. And, as ancient alchemists saw it, raw materials like lead or copper were just really imperfect versions of gold, which was the pinnacle of all metals. So in striving to create a stone that could make gold, what alchemists were really trying to do was create a process by which the physical world could be transformed into its “best self,” so to speak.
5. It was also about mercury! Honestly, to some alchemists, the element mercury was even better than gold. This is because ancient alchemy was science and world view and religion all rolled into one big philosophy. The four lements–water, fire, air, and earth–which today we think of as mystical were facts of life to the alchemists, and mercury embodied all four. Yes, I’m talking about the stuff that drove hatters mad and that used to be in every thermometer. Have you ever seen it? It’s also called quicksilver because, while it is technically a metal, it is liquid at room temperature. It’s gleaming, silver, and uncanny to watch as it moves around. Some alchemists thought it held the secret to life itself.
6. It was a field of research. So, what did alchemists actually do? Well, some of them were charlatans, and they spent a lot of time running confidence schemes and escaping from the law. 🙂 But “scholarly” alchemists spent months on end in their laboratories. Alchemical equipment often included things like kilns, beakers, mortars and pestles, and all kinds of glass containers. Picture the quintessential “mad scientist” set up with a complicated array of pipes and burners and bubbling liquids, and you’re on the money.
7. It gave us a lot! Of course, alchemy has given us endless fodder for crazy stories and secret society theories–especially because alchemists tended to write about their science using religious metaphors and complicated symbolism. Because hey, not everyone can be trusted with the secrets of making gold, right? And not everyone can know that we actually can’t make gold . . . oops. It’s true, alchemy never did give us an Elixir of Life or a Philosopher’s Stone. However, it did give us chemistry, and the beginnings of biology and physics as well.

And why, you may wonder, have I done all this research? For one thing, I find it simply fascinating. But it’s also the basis for my cozy mystery sleuth, an “old-school” alchemist named Red. Because who better to help solve mysteries than someone who has tons of random scientific equipment, extensive botanical knowledge, and a dedication to careful observations of fact?

You can read stories about Red and her friends on my website, ellehartford.com. You can also find my blog there, where I share lots of “fun facts” from my research every Friday! And if you sign up for my newsletter, you’ll get a free ebook–The Carousel Capers–which serves as a prequel to my first mystery novel, Beauty and the Alchemist, coming out in August. I can’t wait!

I’ve been a little obsessed this year, the 50th anniversary of the first Godfather film. (Can you be a little obsessed? Or doesn’t obsessed already mean a lot?)

This article appeared in the New York Times during March 2022, 50 years from the month of release.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/09/movies/godfather-quotes.html

Which quote is your favorite? One of these 7 or ?

My favorite might be the single word “No” — Michael whispers to Kay in the last scene, when she asks him, “Is it true?”

If you don’t know what she’s asking about, it’s time you watched the movie! Then we can chat!