Holiday Greetings, SleuthSayers Faithful! Since my spot in the SleuthSayers rotation comes every other Thursday, it seems inevitable that every few years my spot will fall on this, in many ways the most American of holidays.
I'm speaking, of course, about Thanksgiving.
The last time I wrote a Thanksgiving post for Sleuthsayers was in 2020, when we as a planet found ourselves mired deep in the Time of COVID. If you'd like to compare, you can find that post here.
So here's my three-year update of what I'm thankful for:
My Family: most especially for my wife, Robyn, and my son, James. The two of them keep me honest and keep things around Casa Thornton fun. Also grateful for my parents, my brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, etc.
My Friends: What can I say? Friends old and more recent, they fill me up, and support me. And I do my damnedest to return the favor.
My Health: After some recent challenges to my health, things have been looking up for the lion's share of 2023, with only metaphorical blue skies in evidence for 2024.
My Writing: I dove into the deep end of the short story market this past twelve months, and it was nice to be able to not only find my groove again, but really work to up my game, write scenes I might not have considered, conceived or attempted earlier in my career. It's been, and continues to be, a wonderful ride!
My Day Gig: I love my job. Make this, jobs. Both of them. My writing career (see above) has been, and continues to be, a labor of love that has paid dividends since the jump. My day job is teaching history (currently, and for the past seventeen years, to eighth graders). With COVID, overcrowded classes, and wrestling with a district administration that frequently seems to fail to understand the importance of what I do for a living, it had admittedly been a struggle over the past years.
The kids, for the most part, have remained AWESOME. Absolutely the best portion of what I do. And this year, even more so.
This year, I'm teaching a new subject (Yay U.S. History! And I'll miss Ancient & Medieval, but this is still a welcome change.), working on updating curriculum across multiple fronts. And get this: one of the newest members of my school's history department is a former student of mine. Yes, I have indeed been around that long.
I've written before about "Kids These Days", and fresh on the heels of parent-teacher conferences held just last night, my thoughts turn yet again to this subject: these children and the families who love, support and raise them, are our collective future. And judging from the families I've gotten to know and their wondrous progeny, our future rests in good hands.
The Writing Community At Large: I mentioned "friends" above, and many of my friendships began as acquaintances in the writing community, so of course I have friendships which double dip in "both" my daily life and my peers among the Writing Community at large (thinking especially of my MWA-Northwest cronies here). But more than that, I continue to find writers in general interested in what other writers (myself among them) are up to, and more than willing to be of assistance if at all possible. Twenty or so years into the game, I cherish these associations, and this community, more than ever.
Where I Live: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I've lived a lot of places, but there really is no place like home. Still love the Pacific Northwest.
Yes, I know, I know. The rain. I've lived in the desert. Still enjoy visiting. Lived on the prairies. Magic there, too. LOVE going back.
Still, this is home.
The Seattle Mariners and Baseball in General: Yes, I know they missed the playoffs. Don't care. We'll get 'em next year. And it's only 80 days until "Pitchers and Catchers Report"!
SleuthSayers: This place helps keep me writing. Those twice-monthly deadlines are always there, looming. And as my wife (who ought to know best) is fond of saying of me, I do my best work on a deadline. And that thankfulness includes those of you dear readers who took the time to read this, and for all the folks who have stopped in to have a look at my work over the past decade and a bit.
And on that positive note I am off. Here's wishing us all a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!
The problem with living in a small state (or town) is that it's almost impossible to keep a secret. You can try, but you're not going to succeed. The stories float out on the wind, like the breath between your neighbors' lips. But it's also a gift, because there is endless entertainment.
A few examples:
(1) Back in October the South Dakota Supreme Court unsealed the search warrant records for South Dakota's own billionaire, T. Denny Sanford, but most of us had heard about this and have been discussing it, and what it was for, 2 years or so. So, you who aren't South Dakotan might ask, "What were the search warrants for?"
"Sanford’s electronic devices came to the attention of investigators with the South Dakota attorney general’s office after a technology firm reported that child pornography had either been sent, received or downloaded on his device, according to one of the people who spoke to AP. Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg determined there was sufficient evidence to move toward prosecuting Sanford, but passed the case to the U.S. Department of Justice because it spanned to Arizona, California and Nebraska, according to both people." (AP News) (my emphasis added – also, that's quite a span, don't you think?)
There has since been fallout, including National University in San Diego putting a hold on changing its name to Sanford National University specifically because of the charges. And a lot of executives at Sanford Healthcare have quit, some with 8-figure golden parachutes. And… Well, any more would be just repeating the gossip. I'll report more when it finally comes out on the news.
(2) Corey Lewandowski. Everyone's been talking about that hot mess since 2019.
(3) The Covid-19 outbreak at Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls back in 2020: I (and others) first heard about it well before it came out in the news, from people who were desperately trying to get the word out and warn everyone what was coming, while the CEO and other executives (and certain SD officials) were trying to cover it all up like a cat in a litter box.
My note: This is why I don't have my knickers in a twist over China's supposed malfeasance about Covid-19, because I don't remember many cities, states, or businesses in America being really open and forthcoming about having a Covid outbreak in early 2020… Everyone tried to cover it up here in the United States, too.
(4) The story of Governor Kristi Noem's 2020 meeting with Executive Director of the South Dakota Appraiser Certification Program to discuss her daughter's getting an appraiser's certification had been circulating for some time. It finally made the news in October of this year, as someone pointed out that the same executive director was apparently urged to retire and given a $200,000 payout. (Argus) The investigation is ongoing.
BTW, my favorite story about Governor Noem is an on-going lawsuit by "Blue State Refugees" (hereinafter referred to as the BSR) who wanted to protest Covid vaccine mandates at the Capitol on Pierre. Now the BSR is an unofficial organization of people who responded to Governor Noem's call last year to "Move to South Dakota and enjoy your freedoms!" And they came. And they want to protest. "The state, though, says it has banned all political demonstrations from the capitol grounds in November and December to accommodate the annual holiday and Christmas displays and decorations at the Capitol." Well, Governor Noem quickly announced that they would indeed allow the Blue State Refugees to assemble, and the Blue State Refugees – via their lawyer – announced “We resolved the issue whether the protest will take place next week. The lawsuit is not dismissed. It’s going forward.” Why? "We need to have some kind of assurance that they will not be enforcing this policy, not just now but into the future." (KELO) (Argus) If you're surprised that the BSR† can't take "yes" for an answer – I'm not. If you invite people to come, promising them total freedom to do anything they want…
Speaking of doing anything they want:
(5) Our State Senate Majority Leader Gary Cammack was arrested for a DUI and driving without a license on January 18, 2020, and (after spending the night in jail) plead down to a misdemeanor of careless driving (a popular charge given to powerful people arrested for various problem driving incidents, see AG Ravnsborg), and then on October 4, 2020 got the court to seal the records. But word got around:
“The sealing of Mr. Cammack’s record was the final step in a common and lawful process occurring thousands of times a year in South Dakota,” Nelson wrote. “But the coincidental timing of those events did nevertheless appear suspicious, even though it was not.” (Cammack: Sealing of Court Case...) (My Note: I'm trying to think of anyone who is not a politician or mover/shaker who has gotten a record sealed and can't think of one. Thousands? I doubt it.)
And from "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" file:
(6) Cammack's son, Chris, received more than $700,000 in state coronavirus relief funds designed to help businesses in South Dakota recover losses suffered during the pandemic, plus more than $300,000 in forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans from the federal government to keep 10 workers employed. His business? A taxidermy business called Prairie Mountain Wildlife Studios.
BTW, up here in South Dakota, the first question that most people asked was, "What taxidermy place has 10 workers?" Seriously, try 3. Maybe 4.
Anyway, Prairie Mountain Wildlife Studios was listed as being in Union City, SD, and it once was - but in 2014 or 2015, Chris and his family and the business all moved to Cypress, Texas.
NOTE: This image from Google Maps shows the Cypress, Texas properties owned by Chris Cammack. The Brush Country/Prairie Mountain studios building has a red roof at the top of the image, and the home just to the south has a gray roof. Photo: Google Maps See the link at SD NewsWatch below.
Not only that, but back in March, 2020 Chris lobbied hard for special hunting licenses for non-residents (like him) of South Dakota to hunt on land they still owned in South Dakota. Oh, and Chris also received PPP loans at the same time in 2020 and 2021 for two taxidermy businesses that have nearly the same names in both South Dakota and Texas totaling $798,217 to pay employees at both locations. And it gets worse - but read it all for yourself at (SDNewsWatch). We'll see if any of the money - loans, relief funds, etc. - gets clawed back. I'm not holding my breath.
And a reminder that domestic abusers are dangerous to more than the folks at home:
(7) I read with shock, horror, and absolute revulsion the story of the man who ran through the Christmas parade up in Waukesha, WI. Apparently the driver had a history of violence at home and abroad, and had used his fists, his gun(s), and his car as weapons before. No surprise to me, because back in the 1990s, I experienced sitting in my car, trapped between a berm and other cars, as a man gunned his car directly at me. He was a domestic abuser, with an expired license, who'd just smashed out the windows of his house, and, still angry, decided to use his car as a weapon against the first woman he saw. Which was me. I was lucky: at the last moment he swerved away. But it was still pretty damn scary. I wrote my fourth blog with Sleuthsayers on it - read it here: (The Circuit Administrator's Tale)
And now for something completely different!
A true Thanksgiving-ish story:
A few years back, I was walking on a trail in Lake Herman State Park here in South Dakota. Now that park has wild turkeys, deer, fox, coyotes owls, hawks, seagulls, pelicans, and once in a while some eagles, roaming free. And this day, the flock of wild turkeys was right there, in the middle of the trail, eating and gobbling. Well, I did a big loop around them, because I didn't want to disturb them. And I got back on the trail further up, and walked on. Well, after a while, I realized there was this tremendous rushing sound behind me, almost like water. So I looked over my shoulder, and by God, there was the whole flock coming towards me. RUNNING towards me. So I stopped. And they all skidded to a stop around me.
So there they were: gobble-gobble-gobble. Hooking their necks and looking up sideways at me. Gobble-gobble-gobble. I mean, it was interesting, but I didn't have any corn with me or anything, so after a while I said, "Well, you caught me, now what are you going to do with me?" Gobble-gobble-gobble. And after a while, they finally got tired and went on. And so did I, chuckling away. But later, I thought, "I wonder if that's how a wooly mammoth felt, surrounded by humans in the Ice age?" and then, "If turkeys ever learn how to make and use tools, we're screwed."
† BTW, one of the ways we South Dakotans can tell a BSR is by the 4-way stop test. There aren't a lot of traffic lights in most small towns around the state, because we (used to be) frugal, and low population, so what we have is a lot of 4-way stop corners. A South Dakotan knows to pull up to it, stop, and take turns, starting with whoever got there first or the person on the right. A BSR invariably just blows on through, leaving us all shaking our heads and muttering under our breath...
It's two days until Thanksgiving, and I bet some of you are stressed. Maybe it's because you're cooking and ... it's the first time you're hosting, and you want it to be perfect. Or your mother-in-law is coming, and your turkey never lives up to hers. Or the weatherman is predicting snow on Thanksgiving and you're afraid that your relatives won't show up ... or maybe that they will.
Or maybe your stress stems from being a guest. Are you an introvert, dreading a day of small talk with the extended family? A picky eater, going to the home of a gourmet who makes food way to fancy for your tastes? Or are you a dieter, going to the home of someone who likes to push food and you're likely to spend the day going, "no thanks, no rolls for me," "no thanks, no candied yams for me," "no thanks, no cookies for me," ... "dear lord, lady, what part of no thanks don't you get?"
No matter who you are, or what your situation, Thanksgiving can cause stress. The best way to deal with stress is laughter. And that's where I come in. So set down that baster and get ready to smile, because I've got some fictional characters who've had a worse Thanksgiving than you.
Paul and Jamie Buchman from Mad About You
They tried so hard to make the perfect dinner ... only to have their dog, Murray, eat the turkey.
Rachel Green from Friends
All she wanted was to cook a nice dessert for her friends ... only to learn too late that she wasn't supposed to put beef in the trifle. It did not taste good.
The Gang from Cheers
Those poor Thanksgiving orphans. They waited hours for a turkey that just wouldn't cook ... only to then suffer the indignity of being involved in a food fight. (For anyone who's ever read my story "Biscuits, Carats, and Gravy," this Cheers episode was the inspiration.)
Debra Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond
She was determined to have a happy Thanksgiving despite her overly critical mother-in-law ... only to drop her uncooked turkey on the floor three times before flinging it into the oven. Yum.
Arthur Carlson from WKRP in Cincinnati
He wanted to create the greatest promotion ever, inviting the public to a
shopping mall and providing free turkeys ... live ones ... only to learn too late
that turkeys don't fly so when you toss them out of a helicopter from
2,000 feet in the air they hit the ground like sacks of wet cement.
So, dear readers, I hope you're smiling and feeling less stressed. If you'd like to read my story, you could pick up a copy of the current EQMM, available in some Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million bookstores, as well as in an electronic version. You can find more information about getting the magazine here. The issue also has a story from SleuthSayer alum David Dean that I'm sure you'll enjoy.) As to the TV episodes mentioned above, I bet you can find them all online.
Until next time, please share your favorite funny turkey day story (fictional or real) in the comments. Happy Thanksgiving!
Tomorrow Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving and, in case you wondered,
Liberia celebrates Thanksgiving the first Thursday in November. The
time or place matters little to bachelors who celebrate the holiday
much the same no matter when or where.
Tomorrow Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving and, in case you wondered,
Liberia celebrates Thanksgiving the first Thursday in November. The
time or place matters little to bachelors who celebrate the holiday
much the same no matter when or where.
I spent last weekend at the pen, doing another Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) workshop. This time we were training inside facilitators, which we do every two years or so. These are inmates who have done basic and advanced workshops, and have shown themselves to be really good at walking the walk as well as talking the talk. These are guys who have gone a long time without being written up or put in the SHU, who know how to and do defuse situations on the ground, and want to be a part of spreading the word to others. Without them, we couldn't do AVP. (NOTE: Check us out on Facebook!) We outside facilitators need their help in all sorts of ways, and I can't say enough good stuff about them or give enough thanks for their help.
Meanwhile, I'm so glad I'm not in prison. It's one of the things for which I am truly thankful. And I don't take it for granted. There's a long, long, long list of things which will send you to prison and I know very few people who have done none of them. And it can happen so fast... I've seen guys in the pen who are absolutely shell-shocked because suddenly they are there, and they almost don't know what's happened. (Some, who are mentally disabled, really don't know what's happened.)
Meanwhile, this meme - the one on the right - has been going around the internet for a long, long time, comparing prison (favorably) to nursing homes. And I've refuted it every time I see it, and will continue to do so. One version of it starts "Let's put Grandma in prison", to which I always respond, you must really hate your Grandma. And then I explain why this meme is absolutely, one hundred percent false. Not to mention pretty damn hateful...
So, let's compare apples to oranges, prisons to nursing homes:
Yes, prisoners get a shower every day - it's to prevent lice, mites, and scabies. It's a health measure, not for their pleasure. Believe me, a lot of prisoners would just as soon not take showers, because they don't want to be in a large group of naked men, some of whom are hostile, and - what with steam, slippery tile, soap, etc. - it's a place where rape and other assaults can happen. Is this really the way you want Grandma to live?
(NOTE: In a nursing home, they do get a bath or shower every day, but in private.)
Prison cell
Yes, there is 24/7 video surveillance. That's for security. Yes, the lights don't go off at 7 PM in the pen - they don't go off at all. That's for security. The average prison cell is 6 x 8 feet, and (except for lifers) it's shared by two inmates, and the toilet is open, right in the front, by the door, so that literally everyone can see them doing their business. That's for security, too. Is this really the way you want Grandma to live?
(NOTE: The average nursing home room is at least six times that size, and the toilet is in a private bathroom with a door. And no, the lights are NOT turned off in a nursing home at 7:00 PM.)
Yes, there are three meals a day. They're awful. I know, I've eaten a lot of them. (We don't go out for meals during a weekend workshop.) They get no fresh fruit, vegetables, fish, or red meat. (The exceptions: once a day they get canned corn or canned green beans or lettuce or raw carrots.) There are a lot of carbs, which is why, even if you don't have diabetes before you go into the pen, there's a good chance you'll develop it before you go. (Nationally, 21% of inmates have diabetes.) Is this really the way you want Grandma to live?
(NOTE: I've eaten many a meal in assisted living centers, while visiting my parents, God rest their souls, and they weren't cold, except the salads, and they were pretty good.)
Yes, prisoners are allowed to have a TV - if they can afford it. (No, they're not free.) This is also a security measure, believe it or not. Unless they have a job (and as many as half the prisoners don't), they're locked down, in their 6x8 cell 23/24. Lately, they're also being given tablets (provided for free by private corporations, and not on the taxpayers' dime), which allow them to make telephone calls from their cells (using earbuds), listen to music, and access the digital law library.
(NOTE: The digital law library has caused some prisons to quit having a paralegal on staff to explain the law to the inmates, which is sort of like providing a medical library and firing the doctors.) Working or not, inmates are only allowed 1 hour for recreation (rec). Depending on staffing levels, or climate, even rec is cancelled. Inside rec is in the gym, which does come equipped with basketball hoops and weight equipment. (Personally, I want them to burn off their energy somewhere....)
Prison tiers, SDSP
When the weather is nice and staffing levels are good, rec is outside, where inmates can play baseball and walk / jog around the track. But, as soon as the temperature goes below 50, all rec is indoors, because the inmates - for security reasons - aren't given coats unless they have a specific job outside. So, here in South Dakota, that generally means that for six months out of the year, inmates don't get to go outside, at all. And because of the configuration of cell blocks, most cells don't have windows; and where there are windows, they're covered with iron mesh, which means that inmates don't even get to see the sun for six months out of the year. Is this really the way you want Grandma to live?
Now let's talk about medication. Most prisoners are now given Vitamin B and D supplements, because of the lack of sunlight, the food, and the constant fluorescent lighting. Yes, there's generally a paramedic and a nurse on duty 24/7 at a prison. Yes, there is free prescription medication, and if you really want people with bi-polar, schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses to go without medication in an over-crowded environment of people who are stuck there for years for criminal behavior, well... that one's beyond me...
But notice I said prescribed medication. You have to get that prescription, and getting it can take a while. First you have to get an appointment to see the doctor, which takes a while. Diagnosis takes a while. And the medications are given out on the prison time schedule, not the prisoners. Diabetics don't get to check their blood sugar and medicate accordingly. They get their insulin at the scheduled time. Period. Inmates on chemo get to ride out the side effects in their 6x8 cell, without any special diet or help. Is this really the way you want Grandma to live?
A lot of prisoners are elderly. You get 20, 30, 40, 50 years or life, you're going to grow old in prison. Eventually, elderly and disabled prisoners are allowed knee braces, walkers, and eventually even wheelchairs. Those who are in wheelchairs are often assigned a pusher, which in this case is an inmate who will push them to where they want to go. But they're not given any special help in and out of bed, on and off the toilet, up and down the stairs, to and from the chow hall, the medication line, etc., until they're actually at the hospice stage. Is this really the way you want Grandma to live?
All I can say, is that if your elderly loved ones are in a nursing home that does what the meme says, you have put them in the wrong nursing home. (That or you really do hate them.) Get them out. Immediately. Here are the official Nursing Home Care Standards: find some place that follows them!
Meanwhile, I hope that reading this has made us all truly thankful for the things we have: a home, with a private bathroom, a soft bed with comforters and pillows, weather-appropriate clothing, the ability to go outside whenever we want, do what we want, eat whatever we want. The simple fact that I can actually turn the lights on and off is wonderful. The fact that I can have a Thanksgiving Dinner with friends, loaded with good food... it's fantastic. I am truly, truly, truly, thankful.
Well, since Thanksgiving is in a couple of days I thought I’d write about what I, as a writer in particular, am thankful for. We all have things in our “regular” lives to be thankful for, so this column will address specifically some of what this writer has to be thankful for: Computers: Whoa! I can’t say enough about this one. Changed my life. I’ve mentioned before how when personal PCs came out I thought they were just another silly toy. Then my former writing partner got one and I saw him move a paragraph from one page to another and I was hooked. How much better than literally cutting and pasting with scissors and white out. (Of course I’m sorry for Mike Nesmith and his mom, who invented white out, but I think they’re doing okay anyway.) So I was the second person I knew to get a PC: two floppy drives, wow! And we know how far computers have come from those days. Now your phone is a mini-computer.
Microsoft Word: When I started out on that dual floppy computer I used a word processing program called XyWrite, which I really liked. But it didn’t weather the transition to GUI programs like Windows. So I switched to Word. One can complain about both Microsoft and Word plenty, but overall they’ve made my life a hell of a lot easier.
Paying Markets: In the ye olden days of the mid-20th century writers could actually make a living selling short stories. That’s not really true anymore. There aren’t a lot of paying markets. No one would think of not paying their doctor or plumber, but for some reason people don’t think writers’ work is worth paying for. Sure, sometimes they’re struggling themselves, but even a token payment would be nice. When I was teaching screenwriting seminars on occasion I would always tell the students not to work for free. And, though I have published with non-paying markets it’s definitely better to get paid. So thanks to Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock (and others)—magazines that still pay and still publish short stories. Long may they live!
Assistants: I’m most grateful for all the wonderful assistants I’ve had over the years. A variety of dogs and cats, who’ve kept me company, provided inspiration, and sometimes aggravation, but have always been wonderful companions and who make the solitude of writing much more bearable. And who, on occasion, have tripped the light fantastic over the keyboard and probably added a little extra dazzle to my writing.
One of my former assistants
My current assistants
Kindle and E-publishing: I have mixed feelings on this one. Yes, I prefer hard copy books, though I read about 50-50 these days between those and e-books. But e-publishing has opened the door for lots of people to read my scintillating syntax (or is that sin tax). And it’s kind of cool to be able to go on a trip and bring 100 books along so I can read whatever I feel like. And even more cool to be able to buy a book at 3am and have it in my cyber-hands faster than you can say “Amazon-one-click”.
Social Media/Facebook/Twitter: Aside from the marketing benefits of social media, it’s a great way for writers, who are pretty much a solitary bunch of people, to be able to get together at the cyber “water cooler” to chat, share ideas, happy moments, sad moments, laughter and opinions—sometimes too many damn opinions…. I’ve made many friends across the country (and the world for that matter) and figure there’s someone I could have lunch with almost anywhere in the country and in many parts of the world. Of course, as with anything, there’s always some jerks and trolls in the bunch. And to those people I say CENSORED.
The Internet: In a word—research. I love being able to research everything on the internet. From
murder methods, to maps, history, music and how-to videos on You-Tube. Of course some of those how to videos are how to play this or that guitar or bass part or just watching a bunch of old clips of rock bands. As for murder methods, I hope the police never have to search my computer—I’m guilty. Guilty. Guilty of researching heinous methods of offing people. But what better way for a writer to procrastinate and call it work!
Smart Phones & tablets: At first I was reluctant to get a smart phone, but now I love being able to check my e-mail on the go, post photos on Instagram of my doctor’s waiting room while I wait and wait and wait, like the people trying to get an exit visa out of Casablanca, for the doc to show up. Or snap a picture of the traffic jam I’m stuck in on the drive home. And while I never want to become one of those people with their noses glued to their cell phones all day and all of the night (to borrow a line from the Kinks), I am grateful for the little distractions both the phone and tablet provide and how I can stay connected even when I’m away from my computer. Oh, and thankful for Android. I love that all my Google contacts, etc., are integrated across all my devices.
Support from Friends and Fellow Writers: I’m thankful for all the friends and writers who have supported me and cheered me on, read my books and stories, nominated me for awards and voted for my writing, given me great reviews, interviewed me, published me in their magazines, given me space on their blogs (including this one: shout out to Leigh and Rob and everyone else here!), congratulated me on FB, liked my FB posts, shared my good news and sympathized when bad things happened, and on and on. Grateful, too, for Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, et al. Writing is a lonely profession and the support of friends who understand the struggles of a writer is…to quote a famous commercial…priceless…
And last but not least: My wife, the indomitable, inimitable, indefatigable, intrepid and on occasion infuriating ;-) when she wants me to rewrite things (but she’s almost always right), Amy, who has stood by me through thick and thin. Who, though not a writer, is my number one reader, number one editor, number one fan and number one supporter. And who puts up both with me general (a job in itself) and as a writer (another job in itself as all the significant others of writers are well aware).
So, Thank You All And Have A Wonderful Thanksgiving!
As
Thanksgiving rapidly approaches I thought I'd jot down a few things
I'm thankful for: my beautiful daughter and her three wonderful
children, the memories of a good marriage that lasted over
thirty-four years, old friends and new friends, and, yes, books.
I'm
thankful for Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys and the Winslow Brothers who
enriched my childhood, for Agatha Christie, John Steinbeck and J.D.
Salinger who molded my teenage years, and for John D. MacDonald who
brought me back to mystery in my early twenties. I'm thankful to
Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton, and Sarah Peretsy who taught me that
women can write just as hardboiled as any man. And I'll always be
grateful to Jan Grape, my mentor, who did more for my career than any
agent or editor has ever done. And I'm thankful for those agents and
editors who helped mold my work – especially the undisputed queen
of mystery editors, the late Ruth Cavin, who once told me – when I
complained after she read my fifth book that I hadn't gotten the
editing letter from her that I usually got – that I finally sent
her one without any big boo-boos.
I'm
thankful that I've been blessed with the career of my choice, and
that I've had a job that makes me mostly happy – except on those
days when all I can do is stare at a blank screen. I'm thankful for
the friends I've met since I started this career – Joan Hess,
Sharan Newman, the late Barbara Burnett Smith and the late Nancy
Bell, Dean James, Charlaine Harris, and so many more who've made me
laugh and cry and given me advice that I'll always remember.
This
is a good time to remember these things, to count our blessings, and
say thank you to those we love. And to stock up on extra books since
we'll soon have a day off.
Questions I've asked over the last few years that never would have crossed my mind before I became a mystery writer and editor:
If you're found with a murder victim and the police take your clothes for examination, will they also take your underwear?
If a murder occurs at a nudist colony, and the suspect is a colony member, how does the pat down work during arrest?
Is it easy to break into a home by crawling through a doggy door?
How does a groundhog react when cornered?
What's the approval process for exhuming a body? How hard is it to
dig up a casket? What does an exhumed body look like? And smell like?
If I'm writing about someone who's a douchebag, when I spell out the word, is the bag removed from the douche?
How many synonyms are there for male genitalia, and why does the word johnson make some women laugh so much?
Yes, I now know the answers to all these questions. I'll give the answers below. But first, a few observations:
It pays to have friends. How do I know the answer to the underwear question? I asked my friend
Robin Burcell
author
Robin Burcell, a former police detective, who's always there in a pinch
to take my odd questions. Robin's not the only expert who helps mystery
authors. Dr. Doug Lyle, Luci "the Poison Lady" Zahray, and Lee Lofland,
another former member of the law-enforcement community, have all shared
knowledge with me (and many other authors) over the years. A big thank
you to you all.
It pays to have friends who pay
attention. How did I even come up with the nudist colony question? I
learned from my friend Donna Andrews (thank you, Donna) that a Catholic church in our
neighborhood used to be the home of a nudist colony, and in the 1940s, a murder occurred
there. That sparked a very interesting
discussion about where a nudist might try to hide a weapon (not having pockets and whatnot), and it
Donna Andrews
resulted in
my story "Murder a la Mode," which appeared in the anthology The Killer Wore Cranberry: A Second Helping. It's set at a nude Thanksgiving, and was a lot of fun to write.
It
also pays to have friends with a good sense of humor. My unpublished
novel involves a phone-sex operator, and writing it required coming
up with a lot of synonyms for certain body parts. How a writer toils
for her art. And what she learns, sometimes, is that the wrong word can take a reader from eagerly turning pages to laughing out
loud. And not at an intended time, either. So thank you to my friend
Laura Weatherly, who several years ago burst out laughing when she read
about a man on the phone talking about his johnson. "You have to find
another word," she told me. Done.
It pays to have
access to the Internet. No, this isn't for research for the phone-sex
book. It was for the groundhog research. When I began writing my short
story "The Shadow Knows," (which is a finalist for the Macavity and the
Anthony awards at this week's Bouchercon mystery convention), I knew I
wanted to write a caper about a grumpy man who believes his town's
groundhog is responsible for
Old groundhog who visited my yard.
every long winter, so he decides to get rid of him. But it wouldn't be a
caper if things went smoothly. So I began researching things that could
go wrong, and I learned many fun tidbits. Did you know that when
groundhogs feel cornered, they might bite? Former New York City Mayor
Michael Bloomberg learned this the hard way. Thank you, Mister Mayor.
Groundhogs will also squeal extremely loudly when upset, dig up drywall,
and scratch with their long, sharp claws. All this detail went to good
use in the story. Yes, research sure can be fun.
Now, back to the questions:
Will the police take your underwear? If the victim's blood has soaked through to them, they might indeed.
Can you break into a home by crawling through a doggy door? Yep, if
you're petite. But beware: there's going to be a dog inside.
And he might not be too happy with you.
What are the details about exhuming a body? Every state's process is
different, but it's not that easy to get approval, and digging up a
casket, then breaking the vault open, is hard work. And then there's the
state the body might be in. I'll give you one word: mold. Yuck.
If I'm writing about someone who's a douchebag, when I spell out the
word, is the bag removed from the douche? Nope. In this context, it's
all one word. (And you thought copy editing was boring.)
How many synonyms are there for male genitalia, and why does the word johnson make some women laugh so much? This one, I'm leaving up to you to find out. Ask your friends. Make a party of it.
How does the pat down work during arrest of a nudist? This one ...
well, you'll have to read "Murder a la Mode" to find out. It's too good
to give away.
And, finally, how does a groundhog react when cornered? This question is
answered above, but if you want to see the resulting story, which puts
all the fun facts to good use, head over to my website: http://www.barbgoffman.com/The_Shadow_Knows.html.
So, authors, what's the
most interesting question you've researched while writing? And readers,
what's the most interesting tidbit you've learned from fiction? Please
share your fun facts. I really want to know.
I freely admit that Thanksgiving is not my favorite holiday. In my household, there were only the three of us, which meant that I was outnumbered. With neither church nor company, there was little occupation for my parents other than to eat, drink, and fight. In the immortal words of Laura Ingalls Wilder, "It was a queer, blank day," and sometimes more. The turkey was good, and the stuffing superlative, but I got the same at Christmas, and we had more variety in the way of entertainment.
Robert Benchley
But we all have our escape hatches, and mine was books, for which I give grateful and ever-lasting thanks. Especially humor. When I was a child, my grandfather found a copy of "The Thurber Carnival" lying on the street and gave it to me. At the same time, someone else gave me a copy of "The Benchley Roundup" and I was hooked - and warped - for life.
Here are some of my favorite quotes, just to warm us up:
Benchley - "A freelance writer is a man who is paid per word, per piece, or perhaps."
Thurber - “You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.”
James Thurber
Benchley - "Even nowadays a man can't step up and kill a woman without feeling just a bit unchivalrous."
Thurber - “With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the
sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.”
Benchley's work was, 99% of the time, the classic humorous essay. Thurber's work ranged far more widely, from wistful to sardonic to straight-up reporting to literary analysis. (He wrote what I consider the best essay on Henry James' writing ever - "The Wings of Henry James", in the November 7, 1959 issue of the New Yorker.) And then there are his parables. Here, for our Thanksgiving entertainment, is "The Unicorn in the Garden", the obvious predecessor of "The Catbird Seat", and in both cases, one of the neatest ways of getting rid of someone unpleasant I have ever found. Not that any of us would be interested in that...
The Unicorn in the Garden by James Thurber reprinted from Fables For Our Time
Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook
looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden
horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the
bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. "There's a
unicorn in the garden," he said. "Eating roses." She opened one
unfriendly eye and looked at him.
"The unicorn is a mythical beast," she said, and turned her back on him.
The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn
was still there; now he was browsing among the tulips. "Here,
unicorn," said the man, and he pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The
unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because there was a unicorn
in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. "The
unicorn," he said,"ate a lily." His wife sat up in bed and looked at
him coldly. "You are a booby," she said, "and I am going to have you
put in the booby-hatch."
The man, who had never liked the words "booby" and
"booby-hatch," and who liked them even less on a shining morning when
there was a unicorn in the garden, thought for a moment. "We'll see
about that," he said. He walked over to the door. "He has a golden
horn in the middle of his forehead," he told her. Then he went back to
the garden to watch the unicorn; but the unicorn had gone away. The man
sat down among the roses and went to sleep.
As soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife
got up and dressed as fast as she could. She was very excited and there
was a gloat in her eye. She telephoned the police and she telephoned a
psychiatrist; she told them to hurry to her house and bring a
strait-jacket. When the police and the psychiatrist arrived they sat
down in chairs and looked at her, with great interest.
"My husband," she said, "saw a unicorn this morning." The
police looked at the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist looked at the
police. "He told me it ate a lily," she said. The psychiatrist
looked at the police and the police looked at the psychiatrist. "He
told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead," she said.
At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped from their
chairs and seized the wife. They had a hard time subduing her, for she
put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they
got her into the strait-jacket, the husband came back into the house.
"Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?" asked the
police. "Of course not," said the husband. "The unicorn is a mythical
beast." "That's all I wanted to know," said the psychiatrist. "Take
her away. I'm sorry, sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jaybird."
So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her
up in an institution. The husband lived happily ever after.
Moral: Don't count your boobies until they are hatched.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving, and may all your unicorns lead to high hearts.
Nora planned Thanksgiving with a sort of desperation -- a woman trying to hold on to her world as it growled and heaved about her.
There were two of Wiley Gallimard's fanciest toms, and chestnuts to be grated in absurd quantities, and cranberries from Bald Mountain to be mashed, and turnips and pumpkins and goodies galore . . . all requiring preparation, fuss, work, with and without Alberta Manaska's help . . . all requiring concentration. And while her house filled with savory odors, Nora would brook no assistance from Alberta -- not Pat, not Hermione, not even old Ludie, who went about muttering for days about "these snippy young know-it-all brides."
Hermy dabbed at her eyes. "It's the first Thanksgiving since we were married, John, that I haven't made the family dinner. Nora baby -- your table's beautiful!"
"Maybe this time, : chuckled John F., "I won't have indigestion. Bring on that turkey and stuffing!"
Ellery Queen Calamity Town, 1942
T. S. Eliot, in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock reflects on counting out one’s life in coffee spoons. For me, more and more, I find myself counting out my life in Thanksgivings. This is probably anchored in the fact that for the past thirty-some years Thanksgiving (by some thank-less tradition) has become my responsibility. I cook the whole thing. I used to have a real approach/avoidance conflict as the fateful day approached, but as the years have passed I seem to have fallen into a rhythm. More often than not everything comes out fine in the end.
The holiday hasn’t contributed a background to many mystery
stories (although an internet search will reveal a fistful of cozies
that use the day as backdrop). A notable exception to this is Calamity Town, Ellery Queen's first Wrightsville mystery, published in 1942. Calamity Town is the only Ellery Queen selected by H. R. F. Keating in his 100 Best Books of Crime and Mystery, and a poisonous (literally) Thanksgiving gathering figures prominently in the plot.
As Ellery discovered when he found himself interjected into the midst of the Wrights' family holiday get together in Calamity Town, sometimes one of the less predictable aspects of Thanksgiving is the people who will in fact be in attendance. One of the reasons Thanksgivings in our household are memorable is that they tend to have a completely different cast of characters each year, often comprised of folks who do not know each other, or who know each other just barely. Throughout the years Thanksgiving has been a day when we “take in strays.” We try to find acquaintances who otherwise have no one with whom to celebrate.
This year’s list of attendees has its own unique theme. The usual core group will be present – Pat, me, our elder son Devon and our younger son Colin. Colin’s significant other will also be dining with us, as usual on the holiday. I am reflecting on Dixon’s column last week as I type this, particularly his discussion of the gay sheriff in the next county over.
Kyle and Colin
Funny how I tend to more easily describe our son’s partner Kyle as a significant other rather than as Colin’s boyfriend. I think, and hope, that this is a word usage issue and nothing more, like masculine and feminine noun endings in the romance languages. I say this because we are otherwise completely at home with Colin’s sexuality and with Kyle, who has become another member of the family. What will be particularly interesting this year is that we will be joined at Thanksgiving by Kyle’s mother and sister, who will be driving in from Michigan, and will be staying with us a day or two on either side of the holiday. We have met them only once before, so the anxious prospect of getting on with it is understandable. (Could this have anything to do with the fact that we have just had our living room and dining room painted?) Rounding out the table will be Deborah -- a friend going all the way back to Pat and my law school days when the three of us met for the first time at registration -- and Deborah’s fourteen year old daughter Bekah. So who knows what anecdotes will be added to the family lore when this group in fact assembles?
Anyway, all of the foregoing underscores what an important day Thanksgiving
has become. All of this preparation, all of this travel, all of this
anticipation over a meal. But the day-long preparation, coupled with throwing together people who often do not dine together at all except on that day, is bound to be the stuff of which family legends are made. We have many. Sometimes these have focused around mini-disasters, although none that can hold a candle to those experienced by Mr. Queen and the Wright clan in Calamity Town. Over the years our calamities have been much more prosaic -- a garbage disposal that has not once, but twice, clogged completely on potato peels on Thanksgiving, once with an insidious blockage so far down the line that, unbeknownst to us, the water backed up through a drain in the lower level of our house, leaving us to discover the lower rooms awash with greasy garbage disposal water just about the time we were otherwise ready for pie. And, again, not once, but twice, our refrigerator has gone out days before Thanksgiving.
But all Thanksgiving anecdotes in our family are not mini calamities. Like all theatre, they seem to break also toward the comedic. One of my favorite Thanksgiving yarns takes me back precisely 50 years, to 1962, when I was 13. Other than my younger brother and me, everyone else at that long ago Thanksgiving dinner, served at my maternal grandparents’ home in Creve Coeur, Missouri, is now no longer with us. But the memory lives.
Assembled around the table fifty years ago were my father and mother, my mother’s parents, affectionately known as Pop and Grandma Moelling, my father’s mother, known always as Grandmother Andrews, my mother’s sister Eunice and a great aunt, Aunt Ava, from Vandalia Illinois. My grandmothers, like many in-laws, smiled a lot but in fact grated a bit on each other. Grandma Moelling was sweet but a bit scattery. Grandmother Andrews, four foot eight when measured in any direction, had (it must be admitted) airs of pretension. One would never refer to her as “Grandma,” only as “Grandmother.” She aspired to matriarch but never could quite pull it off.
After we had all taken our seats at the thanksgiving table that day in 1962, Grandmother Andrews, as she had every year within my memory, turned to me with the air of a director raising the baton and said “Dale, say ‘Come Lord Jesus.’”
I squirmed in my chair. As noted above, I was 13 years old on that November day in 1962, and had already begun my long journey into agnosticism. But I had known what was coming, and I had a plan. I was going to make my stand that Thanksgiving. I cleared my throat and said “I don’t want to give the blessing this year.”
Grandmother Andrews gasped and stared across the table at me, eyes wide. Stunned silence otherwise reigned. Everyone looked at each other, uncertain how to proceed.
Finally my father cleared his throat, indicating that he was about to attempt a Deus ex Machina. “I know what we can do,” he said eying the already unconvinced family members staring back at him. “When we were at my boss’ house for dinner the other week we did something very special. We all clasped hands under the table, bowed our heads and quietly to ourselves each of us said grace.”
Well we had to do something, so all nine of us clasped hands, bowed our heads, and looked down at our plates.
The silence was broken when Grandma Moelling said “Grace.”
No one at the table knew what to do except my brother and me. We burst out laughing. Grandma Moelling just sat there flustered, trying to work out what she had done wrong.
Grandmother Andrews looked up, turned to my father, her son, and said “Wallace, that was nice.” Then she glared across the table at me and said “Now Dale, say ‘Come Lord Jesus.’”
Seems like I've used the "Random Thoughts" as my article title before, but not sure and even if I have it's here again. Mainly, because I had a rather good idea earlier this week on what I was going to write and silly me didn't write it down or make notes and I've forgotten what it was. So all day today, I'm been searching my brain to remember and since I didn't remember you're stuck with my random notes.
I was watching Sixty Minutes a little earlier this evening and one segment was on thorough research being done with babies to see if they are able to show that their little brains are not exactly a blob or sponge. That they actually can think. The researchers had babies three and six months old watch little puppet shows with a Teddy bear in blue shirt and another bear in a yellow shirt. The bear in the blue shirt does a good action and the bear in the yellow shirt does a bad action. The researcher then would let the baby choose which bear they want. Over 84% of the babies chose the bear in the blue shirt. who had done the good deed. Strangely enough the three-month-old baby would look at the bear who did the bad thing for only about five seconds while the baby would look at the bear who did the good thing for 33 seconds. This showed that even the babies who couldn't reach for the bears, in fact, made a choice. In the test with the six-month-old babies, the baby would reach for the bear in the blue shirt...the one who had done the good thing in over 87% of the time.
More of the tests consisted of the babies choosing a bear who liked a certain food offered as the baby was offered. The baby would choose the bear who chose the same as he or she did. This test indicated the baby had some bias by wanting the same thing. Because it wanted the food object that the bear seemed to choose. These researchers in the Baby Lab have published their results so they may be examined and duplicated by other researchers.
I have no idea how this plays out in the future but the researchers did go on to say that babies do go on to learn likes and dislikes from parents, teachers, and religions, all the things making up their environments. I guess it is true that evil and hate can be taught but we are actually born with some prejudices and biases inside us from the beginning. We just learn right from wrong and suppress those wrong things if we become a "good person" and never do suppress them if we're a "bad person."
It was quite interesting and I may not have gotten all of the information exactly right but I imagine you can go to Sixty Minutes online for details. It does, however, seem to be something we might consider when writing our good guy and our bad guy characters. The old good verses evil and nature verses nurture comes into play. Someone being born bad to the bone. And where does empathy come in? Is that something we're born with or without? I also remember reading a while back about names defining a personality. I guess if you name your child Adolph Hitler or Judas or Jezebell you can expect him or her to grow up to be bad. But if you choose a name like Matthew, Mark, Mary or Esther you child will be good.
Yet here's another random thought about babies having some ability to think even when only three months or six months old. Is it possible that the baby is a old soul? A person who lived before? That reincarnation is real? Perhaps in the previous life they were "bad" and have to come back to earth, live again and try to learn to be "good." That you have to keep coming back until you learn the lessons of being "good" until you finally get it right and can evolve or go to heaven?
Like I said, random thoughts. And one final one...and it's a good thing I watched Sixty Minutes tonight so I'd have something to write about. (All because the Dallas Cowboys played an early game...which they won in overtime by the way.) Another segment on the TV show tonight was about ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents) taking down a strong, powerful, rich drug cartel which operated in South America. The leaders made billions of U.S. dollars and yet lived almost like someone without much of anything. That was one reason it was hard for the agents to identify them. Living it up with millions is somewhat of a give-away to agents. When the mastermind was captured, one of the agents asked him why he lived so frugally when he had all these millions of dollars? His answer..."Power." Remember that in your next story. Money, power and greed. To some people, POWER is what matters most.
I personally have much to be thankful for and I wish you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving.
