I am working like a busy little literary beaver on the second of the YA frontier western series, the Kettering Family chronicles. I thought from the first to make the main and viewpoint character always a tween or teen, but making it a series and having the story romp over twenty years of interesting pre-civil war events in the various gold and silver rushes while still maintaining the viewpoint of a teen or tween. The work-around for that challenge means that now each book is planned to focus on the adventures and characters of consecutive Kettering children…

Anyway, the main character in the work in progress is Sally Kettering’s little brother Jon, and the early and curious days of the California gold rush. It appears as if the plot will keep the family in Sacramento. Which will be a nice change for me, as Sacramento is one of the places where I lived in real life. Only for a single year as it turned out – but I did enjoy the heck out of living there, visiting Old Town and the Railway Museum, as well as actually traveling up into the gold rush country – Coloma and Placerville – a couple of times. (To Truckee and Lake Tahoe, as well, if only briefly.) California was a livable, interesting, affordable and relatively sane place to live in once upon a time, so I have those recollections and local specific knowledge to draw upon.

But the other element is – old local histories. I have found a couple on Googlebooks, scanned and collected volumes retrieved from dusty and unfrequented and likely deserted library stacks. The closer in time to events recorded, is all the better for my purposes. Also, the more unfocused and gossipy is even better, for that becomes precious little nuggets, bits and bobs and curious personalities which make for a more authentic read, once carefully worked into my own narrative. I downloaded and read about a dozen 19th century Civil War women’s memoirs for That Fateful Lightning, even though I had a goodly number of professional modern historians’ references. It’s the same with this book – those chatty, rambling, first-hand accounts are pure gold.

The final mortgage payment was made early this month – thirty years and never missed or had a late payment. Yes, the light at the end of the financial tunnel, bright and so very, very restful. And it also meant that late this month I could purchase a couple of nice-to-have items, one of which I had been considering for quite a while – to whit, a Sodastream unit, to make carbonated beverages. I’ve never really liked soft drinks, but I do like plain carbonated water; no sweetener, no flavorings. The bottled kind tends to go flat almost as soon as the bottle is opened. Although the plain unflavored HEB house brand in aluminum cans is acceptable, the cans take up space on the shelf and in the recycle bin. A couple of years ago, we tried out a countertop unit that made carbonated beverages, (A freebie from Amazon Vine) and it was ok, but the CO2 cartridges were expensive and didn’t really last very long at all – so, back to the drawing board. I had heard good things about Sodastream, not the least of it being that they are made in Israel. So, I ordered a Sodastream package from Amazon which came with three one-liter bottles, two CO2 cartridges and two small bottles unsweetened cherry and lime flavors. A couple of days of use and I am pretty happy with it. The CO2 cartridge attached very easily, the bottle of cold water hooks up readily, and you can choose three degrees of bubblization. Now as soon as we go through the last three cases of HEB-brand bubbly water that my daughter bought because there was an offer to buy two, get the third one free – we’ll be Sodastreaming, exclusively.

The other semi-frivolous purchase was a bookshelf… you do know that we have a lot of books? Yeah, I was scrolling down through a friends’ FB page, and encountered a short video ad for a tall, six-level rotating bookshelf, which supposedly could hold 300+ books, while only taking up a small amount of floor space. Well, my attention was grabbed. The house is small, the existing bookshelves overflow as it is, what with the collections for research,  general history,  Texiana,  books for pleasure reading, those copies of books published by the Teeny Publishing Bidness, Wee Jamie’s overflowing collection … and one of the bookshelves so designated was an inexpensive folding number that I bought in Greece which has begun to fall apart. And that corner of the home office was in a horrendous state anyway … So, I found the exact same six-level rotating bookshelf on Amazon and ordered it. Putting it together was a bit tricky; it took the efforts of both of us and a stepstool. While it’s constructed of thick bamboo panels, there are reinforced panels and lots of flat-head screws connecting all shelves and the upright panels. I’ve loaded in all the levels, starting at the bottom and so far, it’s holding up well. The unit only occupies a small footprint, relatively speaking, rotates easily enough, and each of the six levels holds anywhere from 35-25 books. (More, in the case of very skinny volumes, less when it comes to brick-thick doorstoppers like J. Martin Hunter’s Trail-drivers of Texas.) Swapping out the old bookshelf for the tall rotating shelf meant reorganizing the existing shelves, rearranging stuff, throwing away things like owners’ manuals for appliances which had long since worn out and junked, or been given away … and turning up odd items, like some letters from my grandmothers posted to me in the early 1980s, an envelope of photo negatives processed at the AAFEs in Greece, and a Laura Ashley home goods catalog from 1986. No, I’m not a hoarder. I just loved the Laura Ashley English country cottage look. I kept that catalog as a memento and wish that I had also saved out some ‘80s Banana Republic catalogues. I loved the original,  high-quality Banana Republic items, and their catalogs were literate and fun to read…

I am already thinking about another rotating shelf…

04. April 2025 · Comments Off on From “Hills of Gold” · Categories: Chapters From the Latest Book

Wherein Jon Kettering meets a man who will later … much, much later … become very important.

Monterey was the largest settlement in California, then – and perhaps the prettiest of all the  towns, all set about a neat plaza; all built of the usual mud brick adobe but the folk there took care to whitewash the walls of their houses, which made a sparkling contrast to the rusty-red tile roofs. There was a sandstone church, too – a cathedral, they told us – with a galleried tower and a curving façade that shaped like a fancy bedstead. All around was green, pine trees gnarled by the ocean breeze into fantastic shapes. A party of soldiers in blue uniforms was at drill in the open plaza in front of the Governor’s House – that was where we were told that Colonel Marsh would be found. I decided then that I never wanted to be in any Army, after watching the soldiers tramp across the dusty plaza in a tight-massed group while another soldier – one with a bright red face and some yellow stripes on his sleeve bellowed, “Left, right, left right … harch!” and called them names and used words so abusive that Ma would purely have washed out my mouth with soft soap for saying them.

“Pa, don’t them soldiers know how to walk proper?” I asked, as we waited at the open door to the governor’s house. Colonel Marsh’s assistant, Lieutenant Sherman had told Pa to wait after Pa explained his business. “If they do, why do they have to learn it all over again?”

“I don’t know, rightly,” Pa replied, just as Colonel Marsh’s assistant returned, and showed us into the hallway. There were a couple of chairs with seats of woven rawhide, a single bookshelf, and a desk for Lieutenant Sherman to work at, next to the door which led into the Governor’s private office. This Lieutenant Sherman was a young man with red hair falling over a wide forehead and chin-whiskers. All that hair untidily cut, as if someone had given him a going-over with sewing shears. His unform was a nicer one than the soldiers outside at drill – it fit him better and looked to be made of finer cloth. There was a sword in a long scabbard leaning against his desk, so I guess it was too awkward managing a sword and a chair and a desk all at once.

Lieutenant Sherman had sharp, discerning eyes on either side of a beaky nose, and he said to Pa, “Mr. Kettering – the Colonel will see you now … but privately. I’ll wait with the lad. You’ll have only twenty minutes, so make it brisk; as governor here, he doesn’t have time to waste.”

I started to follow Pa, but Lieutenant Sherman had closed the door on Pa’s back. He gestured towards one of the chairs and sat himself down at his desk.  We looked at each other for a long moment. The front door to the plaza stood open, letting in fresh air from outside, and the distant sound of those soldiers at drill being yelled at. I felt kind of silly, just sitting there and kicking my heels against the chair legs, but I couldn’t stop the question that popped into my mind.

“Do you really like being a soldier?” I demanded.

Lieutenant Sherman had already taken up a pen, dipped it in an open inkwell, and began writing – the pen made a scratching sound on the paper. I could see that my question took him by surprise.

“Well … yes, mostly, I do. Wish I had been sent to Mexico with General Taylor, though – instead of being sent here. It was an interesting journey, though. Most of my friends went to Mexico, to fight. In comparison, it seemed pretty … ornamental being Colonel Marsh’s assistant. I wonder if strings were pulled on my behalf.” He corked up the inkwell, and I think for the first time, he really looked at me. “I knew there were Americans settled here in California … men, mostly. Not many women and children.”

“I’m not a baby,” I replied, a bit indignant. “I’m almost nine years old. I’ve been helping out my Pa build a sawmill … and Mr. Reed said I’m almost as good a rider as his vaqueros.”

“Well then, how long have you been in California? Where did you come from before?” It sounded as if he were fishing around to make conversation to fill the silence. I could hear Pa’s voice, but faintly – not loud enough on the other side of the door to hear his words, and what he was explaining to Colonel Marsh.

“We’ve been in California for nigh on two years, sir.” I replied. “Pa and Ma and my sister Sally came from Ohio, before that. Mount Gilead, Marion County. Pa was the wagon captain of our party, after we decided we didn’t like the first captain. Major Persifor, be called himself. He said he had studied at West Point. He wanted to shoot all the dogs.”

“Ohio? I’m also from Ohio – Lancaster! We were neighbors, almost. Your Major Persifor seems to have been an obnoxious man, to talk of dog-killing,” Lieutenant Sherman brushed his hand over his red hair, and grinned at me, after making a face at the mention of West Point. “Probably did well to get rid of him. You don’t need to call me sir – you can call me Cump, like my friends do.”

“I’m Jonathan, like in the Bible,” I said, as this seemed very like a proper introduction. “But most call me Jon. Why do your friends call you Cump? That’s a name I never heard before.”

“I was christened William Tecumseh; Tecumseh after the Shawnee chief – my father greatly admired the noble character of the man, and there were too many other boys named William when I was growing up. When someone yelled for William or Bill, half the lads in town answered! Going by Cump just seemed simpler.”

I decided that I really rather liked Lieutenant Sherman – Cump, as I had been asked to call him. It seemed an uncommon liberty to me, being invited to call a grown man by that very curious name – I was certain that Ma and Pa would not approve, but in a way, I felt that I might be honest with him. Perhaps he might explain about soldiering.

“Why do they have to march,” I said, looking out at the group of dusty blue soldiers at drill, and being yelled at by the red-faced fellow with all the yellow stripes on his sleeve. “Don’t they already know how to walk?”

“They have to learn and practice keeping in step,” Cump answered patiently, as if it were a logical thing.

“But why?” I persisted, and Cump sighed.

“Because they have to learn to follow orders without thinking about it, over-much.”

“But why?” I asked again. Cump threw a look at me and ran his hand through his hair.

“Because if they thought too much about the orders, maybe they wouldn’t obey at all,” he explained. “It’s the thing, Jon – sometimes soldiers have to do things as a matter of duty that they wouldn’t do if they stopped and thought about it.”

“Why?” I demanded, as this didn’t seem very sensible to me – and why would any sensible man volunteer to go soldiering.

“Because in battle soldiers have to obey their commander, who likely know more about the war at hand, and the objective to be gained,” Cump explained. “Because the commander will know the situation, better than the men in the ranks. That’s why.”

“I don’t think I would like that very much,” I confessed. “I’d want to know at least as much as a commander before I got into a battle.”

26. March 2025 · Comments Off on Advice Unspoken · Categories: Domestic

This week, my daughter had to get a new veteran ID card, since she had her VA disability upgraded. Yes, service in the Marines for two strenuous hitches came at a physical price. She made an appointment at the Randolph AFB ID section to bring in all the supporting paperwork, and then we were reminded that my original issue blue retiree ID card wouldn’t be valid after the end of this month, never mind that it was supposed to be valid indefinitely. So she suggested that I come with her to the appointment and see if the issuing office couldn’t process both of ours at the same whack. This necessitated bringing Wee Jamie along, in the folding Cocomelon stroller that he is about two inches from out growing entirely.

Anyway, her appointment was early enough in the business day that there wasn’t much of a crowd, although I expect there will be a rush this week of retiree veterans like myself, replacing our old blue veteran ID.

To our relief, they were agreeable to doing both of our ID cards on the same appointment, even if I was a last-minute addition to the schedule. The tech processing our new cards was a female airman one-striper – competent and well-spoken, but seeming so very, very young. (Baby troops are so cute when they are little, and just barely housebroken…) Anyway, there was a bit of amusement when she initially read my daughter’s documents as having been a Marine at the rank of captain, and both my daughter and I burst out laughing. No, we were both NCOs and fiercely proud of it, although I expounded a bit on how sometimes certain people in certain skills have an invisible, much higher rank than their actual pay grade. The example I gave was that of a CID NCO, and of my own, when I was doing the regular radio news program at AFKN-Seoul.

I should have mentioned other specialties which have the invisible higher rank in the grand military scheme of things, and thus are sought out and respected by those in the know: the junior enlisted computer or mechanical expert who is gifted beyond all expectation, the clerk who can sort  out the most stubborn administrative tangle, that one NCO who knows everyone and plays the system like YoY o Ma plays the cello – they have an invisible rank and respect far beyond their actual stripes. My daughter added another piece of advice, which may have been more relevant to the Marine Corps, which run maybe 3% female, than to the Air Force, which stood at 13-15%. Her suggestion was to network extensively with other female NCOs, when our baby troop achieves that rank …and then we finished up getting the new ID cars, and left, with Wee Jamie still behaving very well.

But as we left, I thought of all the advice that we could have added; that a female NCO rightfully ought to keep her personal life a mystery to co-workers. That when suggesting some new process or way of doing things to a supervisor, one ought to volunteer to do the hard work on it yourself – because there will inevitably be work involved with a new process. That there are only about six different ways to do anything at all in the military, all of them about equally efficient, and usually it’s just a matter of habit and inertia that favors one above the other five …

Then I remembered that we were about old enough to have been mother and grandmother to the young one-striper, and realized that – well, there are some things that one has to figure out on ones’ own to really, really stick.

Be to her, Persephone,

All the things I might not be:

Take her head upon your knee.

She that was so proud and wild,

Flippant, arrogant and free,

She that had no need of me,

Is a little lonely child

Lost in Hell,—Persephone,

Take her head upon your knee:

Say to her, “My dear, my dear,

It is not so dreadful here.”

 

Prayer To Persephone – Edna St. Vincent Millay

19. March 2025 · Comments Off on Thinking About a Continuation · Categories: Random Book and Media Musings

A bit ago, I wrote about continuing stories, and one of the books of mine that I touched on was the story of the two cousins during WWII, Peg Becker Moorehouse and Vennie Stoneman Vexler in My Dear Cousin. The whole concept came to me in a dream, which is not a totally eccentric way to get a notion for a book, but one which has only happened once to me. But it was the one set of lives that I thought there might be a continuation for past the limits of an accounting of their lives before and during the war. That book ended on an optimistic note, with Vennie married to her perfect Mr. Darcy, and Peg and her children reunited with her husband, a prisoner of war by the Japanese.

There aren’t really happy endings in real life, I think – only happy intervals and if we are fortunate, those intervals are long ones. Otherwise, our lives are a sequence of dark and bright. As it happens, the end of the Second World War was one of those illuminated periods, although for some parts of the world there was just more of the same but with a different cast of characters after the summer of 1945. The Iron Curtain slammed down across eastern Europe, the survivors of the Holocaust fought to continue living in a sliver of a new nation in the ancient land of Israel, India was violently partitioned, and Communist-led and inspired insurrections or civil wars broke out across the Far East almost as soon as the ink on the Japanese surrender was dry.

When I looked at a couple of my books, speculating on possible but unwritten aftermaths, one of those speculations touched on the characters in My Dear Cousin. I wondered if Vennie would really adjust and be happy in the role of a stay-at-home faculty wife to an academic. After all, she had been raised on a rural ranch, trained and worked as a nurse, and had an adventurous war as a military nurse … would she really make a successful marriage to the product of a wealthy, and worldly East coast urbanite? I speculated that it would take a long adjustment time for that to happen. Perhaps they would separate for a time, and she would return to nursing,  rejoining the Army  as a military nurse in Korea.

The real-life couple whose experiences I based some of Peg and Tommy’s experiences in wartime Singapore and Malaya returned to their rubber plantation after the war – but eventually had to leave Malaya, when the Communist insurgency there made life too dangerous for their family to stay. I thought that Peg and Tommy, being from the same kind of background – one having grown up managing a rubber plantation, and the other as part of a ranching family – would have no more than the usual post-war PTSD to ruffle their marriage. But they also would have to leave, and start again somewhere else, probably Australia.

Anyway – the prospect of continuing with a matched set of characters, and the same concept of letters back and forth – is still in the formulative stage, but it is intriguing to construct: two different theaters, wracked by war and unrest, two women trying to cope and make sense out of it all. A historic irony to this is that in Malaya, the local Communist insurgents had been allies of the British, and supported by them during the war, while at the same time Korea had been unwilling allies of the Japanese. It has been reported that often the most brutal guards of Allied prisoners in the Far East were Korean draftees in the Japanese Army.

I’m just toying with the concept for now – I have two other books simmering on the burners for now – the final Luna City installment, and the Gold Rush YA sequel to West Towards the Sunset – but it’s not me, unless I have several projects all going at once…