Fire plugs, walkers, and another new word

 

My friend Carol a the base of the world's largest (tilted) fire plug

Fire plugs don’t enter my consciousness much. I was never one of those kids who opened one on the streets of Chicago in summer to get a cool shower. And nowadays, I don’t think they are found much on city streets, are they? But a fire plug gave me a good laugh last night.

Subie and I went to dinner—a whole different story—and she mentioned that our friend Carol and her husband are in the Carolinas. Subie suggested that the highlight of their trip would be a visit to the world’s biggest fire plug, located in Columbia, SC. I was mildly interested, though I hoped they would have other and better reasons for driving all that distance. I love the Carolinas—having spent summer vacations there for several years when my folks retired to Tryon, NC. But I never went to see a fire plug.

After our supper, I went home, cleaned up details on my desk, and started the new entry in the long-running Murder, She Wrote series. Killing in a Koi Pond is something like fifty-fourth out of fifty-five books in the series, but it is the first one that my virtual friend Terrie Moran wrote. She and I are acquaintances through the Guppies subgroup of Sisters in Crime, and we use the same webmaster. So I feel free to fall her friend even though we’ve never actually met. I wanted to read Killing in a Koi Pond to support Terrie and to see how she handled jumping into a long-running series. I think it’s a coup to be asked to “co-author” with Jessica, and I am, as most cozy writers are, a fan of Jessica Fletcher, Cabot Cover-syndrome aside.

So I started the book, and within the first six pages, Jessica is in Columbia visiting the world’s largest fire plug. I have lived all the long years of my life without hearing of this monument and suddenly I hear of it twice in the space of a couple of hours. Naturally I googled it and discovered it was done in 2001 by an artist who calls himself Blue Sky. He had done a mural in 1985 and placed the fire plug so that it complemented the mural. The monument is forty feet tall and weighs 675,000 pounds. It is deliberately off center, imbalanced, as the Leaning Tower of Pisa—in Columbia, it looks like maybe a truck ran into it. Originally it was meant to be a fountain, but the spigots stopped flowing and repair became too costly. If you’re ever in Columbia, don’t miss it.

In other news of the day, I tried out the upright walker, now that it is assembled. And I am devastated to say that it will have to be returned. The base is much wider and larger than my seated walker, so that it is a clumsy thing to manuever and has the turning radius of an eighteen-wheeler. On my one trial I felt it was unmanageable, and the physical therapist likened it to a huge monster. This is one case where Jordan gets to say, “I told you so.” I’ll  stick with my rolling walker with a seat.

So now, Christian and Jacob must disassemble it, though Christian tells me it really is in four large parts held together by only two screws. That alone gives me pause—sounds like it could easily come apart and drop me on the ground. Amazon has a good returns policy, and we will get it off to them shortly.

And today’s new word is—ta dah!—“sockdolager.” Hats off to retired Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Roger Summers who used it in reference to an upcoming local election. Our mayor announced her retirement some weeks ago and has been duly replaced by a young woman who has the support of “establishment Fort Worth.” Then this week, county judge Glenn Whitley announced his looming retirement, and outgoing Mayor Betsy Price immediately announced her candidacy for the judge’s position. And then we hear that the new mayor, Mattie Parker, has political aspirations beyond the mayoralty and will be running for the House of Representatives seat now held (for a long time) by Kay Granger, when Granger retires. I wonder if anyone has told Granger that gleeful hands are rubbing together in anticipation of the retirement she hasn’t yet announced. All of that is a digression from the word sockdolager, which means a forceful blow or an exceptional person or thing. Hmm—hope Mr. Summers tells us which definition he had in mind.

And life goes on in Cowtown, where it is now hot and steamy. Summer has come, and I’m already wishing for the rains of earlier in the week.

A sad night

During the day I squirreled away a couple oh-so-clever items to blog about tonight, like my miniscule crop of tiny, tiny tomatoes from my unruly plants on my desktop green house. Or I could tell you about the birthday dinner I had tonight, with three friends—lots of laughter and a bit of commiserating about the difficulties of aging. But my heart is too heavy tonight for trivia, and aging seems a blessing denied to many.

A Paschal high school student died at noon today because he was racing his car against a friend, lost control, and hit a tree. On a street that I travel often, the route I took to work for years. Somehow, we don’t expect these things to happen close to home. I do not know the boy’s identity, but the horror increased when I heard that tomorrow is his sixteenth birthday, and the car in which he died--a Mustang—was his birthday present. I cannot stop thinking about that family whose child is not coming home tonight. Jacob will go to Paschal in another year, which also brings it closer to home. How do we build a protective bubble around our children?

I grieve too for Bothran Jean, who left us some time ago, and for his family and for Amy Guyger who shot him and who today was convicted of murder. I watched TV for a while just after the verdict was announced, and it was wrenching. What she, a police officer, did was so wrong that there is no comprehending. Jean was in his apartment, eating ice cream—the only thing he did wrong was to leave his door ajar. She entered, thinking she was in her own apartment a floor below, and shot him, out of fear for her life, she says. I presume, as a police officer coming off duty and still in her gear, she had other ways to subdue a threat, but she shot to kill.

As the prosecutor said today, there’s a strong lesson there for police officers, a lesson about deadly force that should be a cautionary tale for so many police officers across the country. I was sad that supporters of Bothran Jean’s family made it into a racial issue, though the tones of racism were always there—she is white, he was black. But it seems to me this is more a police training and brutality issue than a racial one, though perhaps in our society today the two are so intertwined as to be inseparable. But like the teenage driver, Bothran Jean will not be coming home to his family—ever.

The judge allowed the castle theory defense for Ms. Guyger which seemed really out of whack to me. She wasn’t defending her “castle,” which was one story below. She was invading his castle. Still I thought she might be convicted of manslaughter. When the murder conviction came back, I felt a wave of sympathy for her, awful as what she did was. I could imagine, seeing the shock on her face, that she was desperately wishing that this was a bad dream from which she would wake up. But it wasn’t. She will pay a stiff price—from five to 99 years—for the grief that she had brought to two families and to a community and a city.

As a good friend of mine says, there’s a world of hurt out there. Be gentle with one another, my friends. None of us can see around the next corner in our lives.

Recipes & remedies

Recipes & Remedies                   

Please welcome my Wednesday guest, Connie Spittler. Her writing is found in twenty anthologies next to the words of The Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra, Desmond Tutu and Barbara Kingsolver. She’s written two award-winning nature books, a previous novel, a creative nonfiction book, and The Wise Women Video Series, archived in Harvard University’s Library on the History of Women in America. A graduate of Creighton University, she lives with her husband in Omaha, NE, next to a secret pond visited by mink, fox, a Great Blue Heron and other lurking wildlife.  

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Like colorful, connective threads, the power of recipes and remedies tie a family together. As a grade schooler, I remember picking radishes from our garden and thickly slicing them for a bread and butter sandwich. The most important part of the recipe was sitting on the back steps savoring the buttery crunch experience as the sun went down. This recipe, including back steps and sundown was passed on to my own kids.

I’ve heard of family members who go to great lengths to keep their food traditions alive, like the Mexican/American women who crossed the border with sprigs of moistly-wrapped herbs tucked in their bras. Plucked from relatives’ back yards, the bits of green were rooted and planted in their U. S. garden plots. My apologies to the USDA and rules prohibiting such smuggling. The sentiment that appeals to me is the importance of keeping heirloom ingredients intact for family recipes and remedies.

In The Erotica Book Club for Nice Ladies, my cozy mystery, the recipes and remedies belong

to Aggie, one of the club members. She’s an old gypsy turned herb and vegetable farmer who stirs up boiled parsnips with rosemary butter, oxtail stew, nut pudding, and a headache-curing tea of ginger, honey, lemon and cayenne. Her mixtures come from her own family recipe book, handed down from European ancestors. The scent of dill, the bitterness of yarrow, garnishes of dandelion greens and chive blossoms flavor the pages as she cures and cooks for book club members. Perhaps her most unusual recipe is for an aphrodisiac tea, an elixir composed of five herbs, one of which is imaginary. I didn’t want to be responsible for any bizarre reader reactions, in case an exact recipe was included and worked.

Aggie is one of three (it’s a small town) book club members. There’s middle-aged Lily, the fired and lonely librarian; and Piper, the young beauty shop owner, who’s fearful after finding a lump in her breast. Since they’re nice ladies, their erotica selections begin with Emily Dickinson’s Wild Nights! Wild Nights! But meetings are often cut short because of crime and a murder or two as the women become entangled in a search for a stolen ancient book of herbal cures.  

Called “a fantastical romantic mystery of friendship, science, sex and literature” by Sallly Deskins, editor of Les Femmes Folles, the release date for The Erotica Book Club for Nice Ladies is May 1, 2015. It’s available for pre-order on Amazon, print or eBook. http://www.Amazon.com/dp/0991409361

Susan Wittig Albert, author of Bittersweet, the newest China Bale mystery, described the book as “an intriguing, herb-seasoned page-turner” while Margaret Lukas, author of Farthest House found elements reminiscent of Alice Walker’s magic realism.

For more book info: www.conniespittler.com 

 

Love of Mystery Comes Full Circle

Please welcome my Wednesday guest, award-winning author Paty Jager. I was delighted to learn recently that Paty and I share a love of the American West and a history of writing about that land.

Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon.  On her road to publication she wrote freelance articles for two local newspapers and enjoyed her job with the County Extension service as a 4-H Program Assistant. Raising hay and cattle, riding horses, and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

All her work has western or Native American elements along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Her penchant for research takes her on side trips that eventually turn into yet another story.

 

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My writing has come full circle. My first attempts at writing a novel started with two mysteries. I couldn’t find a writing group at the time to help me hone my skills. The one agent I sent the first manuscript to took advantage of my newbie status. I didn’t realize this until I’d switched to writing romance and joined Romance Writers of America.

I spent years with RWA learning the craft of writing, the business of writing, and how to navigate the publishing world. I finally found a publisher for my historical western romance books in 2006. I wrote ten novels, some historical some contemporary, with them before deciding to jump on the self-publishing wagon.

Since I started self-publishing, I’ve been slowly going back to the genre I’ve read since middle school. First with my Isabella Mumphrey Adventure Series. A cross between a female Indiana Jones and MacGyver. Those books have mystery and adventure with some steamy romance. ;)

Now, I have the first book of a new mystery series up for pre-order. The Shandra Higheagle Mysteries have my signature either cowboy or Native American elements. In this case it’s Native American. Shandra Higheagle is a potter who sells her wares in galleries as art. She lives on Huckleberry Mountain in Idaho and uses the clay from her mountain to make her wares. Right before the first book opens, Shandra loses her paternal grandmother, a Nez Perce shaman. When Shandra finds a gallery owner murdered and sees her good friend fleeing the scene, she takes it upon herself to prove her friend’s innocence. Her grandmother comes to her in her dreams, giving her clues.

Double Duplicity Blurb:

On the eve of the biggest art event at Huckleberry Mountain Resort, potter Shandra Higheagle finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation. She’s ruled out as a suspect, but now it’s up to her to prove the friend she’d witnessed fleeing the scene is just as innocent. With help from her recently deceased Nez Perce grandmother, Shandra becomes more confused than ever but just as determined to discover the truth.

Detective Ryan Greer prides himself on solving crimes and refuses to ignore a single clue, including Shandra Higheagle’s visions. While Shandra is hesitant to trust her dreams, Ryan believes in them and believes in her. Together they discover the gallery owner wasn’t the respectable woman she’d seemed. Can the pair uncover enough clues for Ryan to make an arrest before one of them becomes the next victim?

Pre-order Links:

Amazon  http://www.amazon.com/Double-Duplicity-Shandra-Higheagle-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00PFWPHPQ

Kobo  http://store.kobobooks.com/search?Query=Double+Duplicity

Nook http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/double-duplicity-paty-jager/1120790322

Apple https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id942249867

About Paty Jager:

 

You can learn more about Paty at her blog; Writing into the Sunset  her website; http://www.patyjager.net or on Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/#!/paty.jager , Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1005334.Paty_Jager  and twitter;  @patyjag.

 

 

Why 1993?

Please welcome Sally Carpenter, my Wednesday guest. A native Hoosier now living in Moorpark, California, she has a master’s degree in theater from Indiana State University. While in school her plays “Star Collector” and “Common Ground” were finalists in the American College Theater Festival One-Act Playwrighting Competition. “Common Ground” also earned a college creative writing award and “Star Collector” was produced in New York City. Carpenter also has a master’s degree in theology and a black belt in tae kwon do (don't mess with Sally!).

She’s worked as an actress, college writing instructor, theater critic, jail chaplain and tour guide/page for Paramount Pictures. She’s now employed at a community newspaper.

The initial Sandy Fairfax Teen Idol book, The Baffled Beatlemaniac Caper, was a 2012 Eureka! Award finalist for best first mystery novel. Cozy Cat Press has published The Sinister Sitcom Caper and The Cunning Cruise Ship Caper. In addition, Sally has two short stories in anthologies: “Dark Nights at the Deluxe Drive-in” in Last Exit to Murder and "Faster Than a Speeding Bullet" in Plan B: Omnibus.

Sally Carpenter blogs at http://sandyfairfaxauthor.com. She’s a member of Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles. Contact her at Facebook or scwriter@earthlink.net.

 

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Why set a cozy series in 1993?

In 1993 Bill Clinton began his two terms as president and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” launched its seven-year run. Canada had its first female prime minister and the U.S. Air Force was ordered to let women fly war planes. The eastern states were zonked with record snowfall and Texas was hit with the Waco standoff.
And 1993 is the setting of my Sandy Fairfax, Teen Idol cozy series. But why 1993? Why not present day?
Sandy starred in a TV series, “Buddy Brave, Boy Sleuth,” that ran from 1975 to 1979. He was nineteen years old when the series premiered and twenty-three when it ended (his character continued on in a cartoon series that ran from 1979 to 1980). His career tanked at that point.
In my series, Sandy is older and making a comeback. Teen idols from the 1960s/70s followed a predictable life path: huge success in early twenties, about ten fallow years and then an upswing in their thirties when nostalgia kicked in for the adults and younger generations discovered them.
Placing the books in 2014 would make Sandy fifty-nine years old. At fifty-nine Sandy would be too old to restart an entertainment career; in his thirties he would still be “cute” enough. At age fifty-nine he would have moved on to another profession.
I needed a character young enough to do physical stunts and be in good physical health. Many seniors are still spry at age fifty-nine but not as much as they were in younger years.
Sandy has children and I want to keep them young. I want him to fight with his ex and for Sandy to still be an influence on his kids. If Sandy were fifty-nine, his older child would be thirty-three!
So I made Sandy thirty-eight years old, a good age for a midlife crises, which placed him in 1993.
This year works for me for other reasons. Technology was not so overwhelming as today. I didn’t want characters with cell phones glued to their ears or their eyes staring at a tablet all day. My amateur sleuth finds out things through legwork and interviews, not by looking up info on the Internet. Frankly, I don’t understand much of modern technology—I barely figured out Facebook and emails—so with 1993 I can write about things I understand.
The 1970s was a good decade for teen idols. Every idol starred on a TV show as promotion; MTV music videos didn’t exist. Only three networks existed; the broadcast world was not as fragmented as today’s 200-plus channels. Radio stations were likewise limited in format, so Sandy’s music hit a bigger audience. Even people who didn’t watch his show knew who he was.
Teen idol music of that day was more naïve and wholesome. Idols didn’t twerk onstage or wear revealing outfits. Their stage shows were simple and focused on the performer, a stark contrast to modern pyrotechnic, heavily engineered music spectaculars.
Of course teen idols were often naughty boys offstage, but their handlers kept their escapades out of the news. If Sandy had thrown eggs at a neighbor’s house, his manager would have kept it hushed up (not that Sandy would do such a thing. He drank, but he was never vicious).
Writing about 1993 has some challenges. I have to rely on my memory and the Internet to get things right. I’m constantly researching to see if certain products had been invented and how Los Angeles, Sandy’s home, looked at that time. But overall it’s a fun time for me to write about and hopefully, for the readers to read about.
Caribbean cruises were as popular in 1993 as they are now. Sandy and his sister, who is blind, perform a series of concerts aboard the SS Zodiac bound for Nassau. But when a dead body turns up in Sandy’s backstage dressing room, it’s full steam ahead for the amateur sleuth as he meets a colorful cast of suspects, tries to avoid an old flame, and attempts to seduce his lovely choreographer. But will Sandy to live long enough to unmask the killer at the ship’s Halloween costume gala?

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Solving the Mystery of Cat Training – Agility and More!

Please welcome my Wednesday guest, Sheila Webster Boneham, author of the Animals in Focus mystery series. Drop Dead on Recall, the first book in the series, won the 2013 Maxwell Award for Fiction from the Dog Writers Association of America and was an NBC Petside Best Ten Dog Book of 2012. Sheila is also the author of 17 nonfiction books, six of which have won major awards from the Dog Writers Association of America and the Cat Writers Association. For the past two decades Boneham has been showing her Australian Shepherds and Labrador Retrievers in various canine sports. She has bred top-winning Aussies and founded rescue groups for Aussies and Labs. Boneham holds a doctorate in folklore from Indiana University, an MFA Stonecoast/University of Southern Maine, and resides in Wilmington, N.C. Sheila writes literary nonfiction and poetry as well, and teaches writing. You can keep up with Sheila’s latest news at  www.sheilaboneham.com and www.facebook.com/sheilawrites, learn more about animal-oriented writing—with some of your favorite authors!—at her Writers & Other Animals blog at www.writersandotheranimals.blogspot.com .

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When I mention that Leo, the lead cat in my Animals in Focus mystery series, competes in feline agility in my new book, Catwalk, people respond in any of several predictable ways. Disbelief or astonishment are common. Laughter is not unheard of. A handful show some interest in learning more. And the vast majority respond with some variant of “My cat wouldn’t do that. S/he’s too independent/indifferent/self-serving.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about that last response and I have a theory. I think that many people prefer to think of cats as lovely companions who really care only about themselves. In a society in which many people are distanced from nature except through media and pets, the idea of living with a minimally civilized animal holds some appeal as a final link to wilder nature.

That’s lovely, but in my experience, well-socialized, healthy cats do enjoy learning new things and interacting with people and other animals. I’ve had lots of cats, and every one of them cared about the people and other animals in their family. Our Kitty (seriously, I didn’t name her!) used to lie on my chest and gently pat my cheeks whenever I had a migraine, and Leo loved to cuddle and play with tiny baby puppies when we were breeding Australian Shepherds. And so it goes.

Leo, the protagcat in my Animals in Focus Mystery Series from Midnight Ink, is one of those well-socialized catboys, and he loves Janet MacPhail and her Aussie, Jay, among others. He showed his devotion with a heroic act in Drop Dead on Recall (2012), and he remained an essential character in The Money Bird (2013). In Catwalk—just out—he and his ilk are in the spotlight at cat shows and in the world of feral cats.

Most people know about canine agility by now, since it’s become popular enough over the past twenty years to be televised regularly. Dogs of all sizes, breeds, and mixtures compete successfully. Check out these videos:

·         Yes, that’s a Chihuahua! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WJxCD5KcFo

·         All kinds of dogs, and people, too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggsIU8rXubk

Well, cats also compete in agility! In the feline version, the handler directs or—more often--lures the cat through tunnels, up and down ramps, over jumps, and through weave poles and other obstacles. Although it's a fairly new sport, it's growing in popularity in the U.S. and Europe. Here’s a dose of cuteness—a kitten beginning to learn about agility on a kitten-sized course--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nka1BTUikcw .

Obviously, cats can be trained. They’re smart, athletic, and fun-loving animals, so the trick is to figure out what motivates the individual cat. Clicker training (operant conditioning) is a very effective way to teach new behaviors in a positive, reward-based way. Here are some more happily trained cats:

·         Spectacular clicker-trained agility cats - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3dXT301i8k

Like all good training, feline agility provides a wonderful way to strengthen the bond between cats and their owners. It also gives participating cats a fun way to keep their bodies and minds in shape.

To be successful in agility, your cat must

·         have an outgoing, confident personality;

·         be in excellent health and physical condition;

·         love to play.

The sport is open to all kinds of cats, so it might be just the thing for you and your feline athlete. Even if you aren't ready to participate, why not visit a trial when the leaping, tunneling cats come to town and see what it’s all about. You can learn more at http://agility.cfa.org/index.shtml

Want to give it a try? Check out this video on getting started - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhichQHqYZM

In the meantime, why not join Janet and Leo at their first trial? And while you’re in town, come see Jay and the other dogs compete as well—it’s likely to be murder for someone. Catwalk is available wherever books are sold, and autographed copies of all my books can be purchased using this form à http://www.sheilaboneham.blogspot.com/p/autographed-books.html

BLURB:

Catwalk

Animals in Focus Mystery #3

Midnight Ink, 2014

Animal photographer Janet MacPhail is training for her cat Leo’s first feline agility trial when she gets a frantic call about a “cat-napping.” When Janet and her Australian Shepherd Jay set out to track down the missing kitty, they quickly find themselves drawn into the volatile politics of feral cat colonies, endangered wetlands, and a belligerent big-shot land developer. Janet is crazy busy trying to keep up with her mom’s nursing-home romance, her own relationship with Tom and his Labrador Retriever Drake, and upcoming agility trials with Jay and Leo. But when a body is discovered on the canine competition course, it stops the participants dead in their tracks—and sets Janet on the trail of a killer.

"Animal photographer Janet MacPhail's latest adventure will delight dog lovers, cat lovers, and mystery lovers. Janet is excellent company, and although Leo the cat plays a starring role, I'm happy to report that Leo does not eclipse Jay the Aussie, who has become one of my favorite fictional dogs. Indeed, if Jay ever needs to move out of the pages of Sheila Boneham's mysteries and into a nonfiction house, he'll be more than welcome in mine. Five stars for CATWALK!" ~ Susan Conant, author of Brute Strength and other novels in the Holly Winter series of Dog Lover's Mysteries

 

 

 

Murder and Mother Love

Please welcome my Wednesday guest on Thursday: Donis Casey. She is the author of seven Alafair Tucker Mysteries: The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, Hornswoggled, The Drop Edge of Yonder, The Sky Took Him, Crying Blood, The Wrong Hill to Die On, and Hell With the Lid Blown Off (June 2014). The award-winning series, featuring the sleuthing mother of ten children, is set in Oklahoma and Arizona during the booming 1910s. She lives in Tempe, Arizona. Readers can enjoy the first chapter of each book on her web site http://www.doniscasey.com. She also blogs biweekly about writing at http://typem4murder.blogspot.com

Publisher's Weekly’s starred review of Hell With the Lid Blown Off, April 14 2014:  "A huge tornado brings unexpected trouble to the people of Boynton, Okla., in Casey’s excellent seventh Alafair Tucker mystery... As the action builds to a surprising denouement, Casey provides an engaging portrait of the close-knit society that was commonly found in the rural Midwest at the time. Alafair Tucker, her large family, and their friends are a pleasure to spend time with."

 For more information on Donis’ novels, visit http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/donis-casey/

 

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Write what you know, all the writing teachers say. I, Donis, am a childless urbanite ex-academic. So what do I choose to write about? That’s right, a mother of ten children. However: here is an experience to which all can relate. Once upon a time, while in a grocery store, I saw a woman being terrorized by her small child. “Johnny,” she kept pleading, “don’t do that. Don’t touch that. Be quiet.” And did little Johnny pay attention to his mother? He did not. My thought on observing this pitiful scene was this – my mother would have jerked my arm out of its socket if I had behaved like that in public. I know how to mother better than that poor woman, I thought, and I don’t even have any children.

The Alafair Tucker Mysteries feature a woman in her early forties who lives with her husband, Shaw, and their ten children on a prosperous farm in Muskogee County, Oklahoma, during the booming 1910s. Alafair never sets out to solve murders, but all those pesky kids keep getting involved in unsavory situations and need their mother to help get them out of trouble. Fortunately for me, the author, Alafair is the kind of woman who will do anything, legal or not so legal, for her kids. It gives me some interesting--and sometimes morally ambiguous--stories to tell.

But how, you may ask, can an early-twentieth-century farm wife and mother of ten solve murder mysteries? After all, she has to fix dinner and do the laundry. She doesn’t have the freedom or the inclination to go about gathering forensic evidence. She leads a life that is so busy that it wouldn’t be realistic if she could easily drop everything on a whim and go off to gather clues. But Alafair knows everybody in the county and doesn’t have a second thought about worming information out of anybody who crosses her path. She has her army of grown and half-grown children to snoop for her.  She knows the postmistress, the neighbors, and the ladies at church; a web of women who are willing to help her.  Her information network is better than the sheriff’s. She has a way of knowing things about people, too, almost a sixth sense that comes from having so many children. She doesn’t believe for a minute that being loving makes her weak or vulnerable. Love gives her teeth and claws. It makes her dangerous. It makes her a remarkable sleuth.

Once upon a time people learned to parent by observing their own parents and grandparents and

practicing on their many younger siblings, nieces and nephews. By the time a person grew up, s/he was already a skilled child caregiver. It’s not so easy for young parents any more. People don’t grow up in big family groups like they did in Alafair’s day. As for me, I have much younger siblings and observed expert parenting first hand. I was also an elementary school teacher for a while, which enlightened me, as well. (Interestingly, when I became a supervisor of adults, I found that the same techniques I learned for getting 12-year-olds to behave worked just as well on grown-ups.)

My observation is that twenty-first-century parents have different child raising goals than did parents in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Alafair’s day, the general belief was that a parent’s job was to raise children to be self-sufficient, good citizens, and moral. Happiness and success, though hoped for, were secondary. (I do not intend to denigrate modern parents. It’s a hard task and a hard world out there. It’s just different.)

It’s true, though, that it’s easier for me to romanticize parenting, having never had to do it. Somebody asked C.S. Lewis how he could write so well for children, not having any himself. “I was a child, once,” he replied. All I can say about myself is that I’ve seen some pretty skilled mothering in my day. And I was a child once, too.

 

 

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