Author: Mary Ann Noe

When folks ask where I was the first couple weeks of February, the short answer I give is, “We were cruising the Caribbean.”  But it was really much more than that.  I was collecting.

Do you collect souvenirs from your travels?  We rarely do that anymore, having accumulated a passel of wonderful things from all over Hades and half of Georgia.  (That’s not literally true, although we did go to Hell and back on Grand Cayman.  Don’t worry; it’s just a town called Hell.)  Now, we’ve purged a lot of stuff that either isn’t useful anymore or has lost its glamour over the years.  The best stuff we bring home is, of course, the memories.  Well, okay, lots of photos too, although those have been winnowed down to a reasonable number too.  I joke that my box of photos (I prefer that over albums) is my Nursing Home Collection.  Although, in a few years, that may no longer be a joke, but a reality!  I truly have no problem with that, as we’ve been some grand places that provided even grander memories of the place, but even more so, of the people.

But I digress.  (What else is new, you ask?)

This trip, as always since I started writing seriously, I collected faces.  Among other things.  Things like hairstyles and styles of walking.  Overhearing conversations, I capture laughs and snatches and phrases of language types.

Is this beginning to sound a bit like stalking?  I hope not!  I did wear what I called a Caveat Tee that said “I’m not quiet, I’m just plotting.”  A Christmas gift from the daughter and bonus son.  It got a lot of attention, to say the least.  People asked if I was an author, what did I write, all that sort of thing.  I handed out my business cards like candy, and noticed when I got home, that visits to my website zoomed up while we were gone.  (I hope book sales will too!)  Clearly, people had access to the internet on the ship.  Wonderful.

Anyway, I usually didn’t accost anyone, but just collected.  I have two characters that now have a face and body type, and more, based on people we met onboard the ship.  Some will never know I watched carefully and collected face, hair, body type, personality…  But one, a lovely woman who looked like a model, I met when just the two of us were on an elevator.  She provided me with an opportunity to chat about her background and culture.  One of the characters I’m working on now is based on her.  And with her permission, to boot.

I’m writing about a group of women friends, one of whom is a Black woman who becomes a lawyer and then a judge.  I’m not about to appropriate that life without taking care!  But to make my character authentic, I needed to talk with someone willing to share.  Hence, the elevator conversation, which went on into the area outside the elevator, actually.  I complimented her on her hair, which was shaved, but sported patterns swirling and flowing across her scalp.  Dramatic and truly beautiful.  I explained about my new manuscript in progress and asked if I could tap into her personal culture.  From there, she graciously agreed to allow me to ask her a multitude of questions.  We ran into each other quite often, always with cordial greetings.  I will be forever indebted to this lovely woman from Canada.

It’s amazing what a vibrant collection of people I brought back from a simple cruise.  Yes, I’ve always been an airport crowd watcher, and such.  But being confined, if you want to call it that, on a cruise ship for two weeks with the ebb and flow of many recurring faces and situations gave me the opportunity to get a bigger picture.  Was one person exactly the same every time I saw them?  Did another change tones in conversations with different people?  How about when the weather changed and the ship rocked a bit more?  Could I use the confident walk of the young people across the pool deck, contrasted with the hesitancy of that older couple with canes or walkers?  Watching people leap out of deck chairs and frantically grab everything they could as a rain squall rolled over us gave me some pretty humorous glances at human nature in a hurry.

This trip filled me with the joy of humanity’s variety in all its forms.  My bank of “people facts” is filled to overflowing.  One thing I learned is that I truly love to observe people.  That, and I must be attentive.  I never know what will pop up right in front of me.  In the grocery store, at the library, sitting at a red light, and who knows where else?  Most of the folks I meet and collect will never make it into one of my manuscripts.  There are simply too many.

But being forewarned is being forearmed.  The next time you meet me, be on your best behavior!

I’ll be watching…

Remember when you were a kid and hung up a Christmas stocking?  Maybe your family still does this.  Anyway, sitting down to write this January post, I had lots of little stuff rattling around in my head, kind of like the mini-Snickers bars, the Hot Wheels, the orange found in your stocking when you dumped it out.  So, I decided to just rattle around on paper…or on computer, in this case.  Here’s a hodge-podge of little things accumulated before 2025 decided to make an appearance… (Lots of little pieces, so make sure to read all the way to the bottom.

One of my fun things is unusual or seasonal socks.  I own socks with cardinals, otters, ducks, and chipmunks (can’t wear those around my husband, who has an ongoing battle with chipmunks).  Stripes, autumn leaves, edelweiss, lavender sprigs, Shakespeare’s face, and, of course, Green Bay Packer socks.  Luckily, I have a bonus daughter and, I suspect, a granddaughter who indulge my craziness.  A couple of years ago, I was gifted with socks with the sentiment “I’m Complicated. Thank you.”  A second pair, “My Filter Needs to be Replaced,” is hopefully not a critique of something in my psyche that needs to be corrected!  But this year, it was Elf socks: 

            Check ’em out in the Photos tab… Aren’t they cute?  And now I’ll match the craziness of our bonus son, who wears unmatched socks and quips, “I have another pair at home just like these.”

* * * * *  

We dog-sat for a few days over the holidays and that made my morning walks…interesting.  Watson doesn’t trust cars, so, though he doesn’t lunge at them, he does let me know they should not be sharing the road with him.  He doesn’t bark much, but when his patience wears thin, he will tell them, in no uncertain terms, to remove themselves.  Which they do, posthaste, being on the move already.  I’ve walked him so many times, he now knows the routine:  keep the barking to a minimum if you must bark at all and, most important, sit until the car is past.  This year, for the first time, I felt a slight tug on the leash and turned to find him sitting already.  Sure enough, I peered down the road, and there was a car coming.  That kind of response, no command necessary, earned him a well-deserved treat.  The funny thing was when he dropped down completely when approached by an Army green jeep.  He must be a Navy man…uh, dog.

* * * * * 

Here’s a poem I wrote decades ago about the antics of Congress.  It’s not a political poem per se, because it fits family gatherings, book clubs, friends’ groups, anywhere there is a group of people trying to agree on something.  Hope you enjoy it.

A Migration of Congress

I swear, Congress in session flew over yesterday,

Honking and carousing and carrying on,

A true Washington conglomeration.

They might have been discussing

The most efficient route to Florida.

I watched them wheel and shift,

Changing leaders to break trail,

Providing moments of recovery for the others.

Much like Congress, they wrangled,

Confabbed, changed direction.

First south, then west, then,

With a complete turnaround, north again.

Yet, generally, the members found the path,

Gradually set the sun in their western quadrant,

And moved with noisy discussion toward their common destination.

* * * * *  

Standing in the kitchen and baking for the holidays insulates one to the wonderful fragrances of those activities.  However, going out in the snow to get the mail means a tramp up the driveway, and a rather slow slog back down.  The advantage being that, when I enter the kitchen, I am enveloped in aromas of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, all woven among the tendrils of hot apple cider.  Oh ecstasy!  Which sent me remembering what else I can be surrounded by, but the awareness has been dampened.  Candles smelling of pumpkin or butter cookies.  Warm apple pie already consumed, but the aroma lingering.  Fresh sheets pulled off the line and then snapped out over the bed, releasing miniscule droplets of pure sun.  A campfire approached from a distance, the scent reaching out like fingers, conjuring up the taste of s’mores.  Can you smell it?

* * * * *   

As I look back over 2024, some of the small things weren’t so small.  An old friend moved far away.  (Thank God for telephones.  And Facetime.)  The precarious health of others, who are so gracious and strong in dealing with challenges. Two young men beginning college careers away from home.  (Challenges of varying shapes and sizes.)  A grandson winning a speed skating competition.  A freshman granddaughter with her viola welcomed into the huge high school orchestra.  (And how sweet they sound.)  These seemingly small things can carry us along on a wave of pride, strength, pure happiness.  So, whatever happens in 2025, take time to store away the stocking stuffers of life.  Pull them out and rejoice.  Another fruitful year.

“We’re havin’ a cold spell,

“An Antarctic cold spell.

“The temperature’s falling,

“And Jack Frost is calling.

“We’re headin’ for winter…”

(Apologies to Irving Berlin of “We’re Having a Heat Wave”)

Apologies notwithstanding, after a few days with no need of a jacket over a t-shirt, Mom Nature has once more exerted control.  First sunny days, then rain–just to remind us that it is really fall, not summer–then the mercury starts drifting down.  Anad now, it’s plunging down.

Does that mean I should be getting my snowboots out?  No!  Although I did haul out the hiking boots.  The trees rained leaves, so my husband was out there with the lawn tractor chewing them up…barely ahead of the next gust of wind that filled up the yard right behind him.  I do have a collection of jackets in the closet, now that it’s cooler.  Two rain jackets, one lightweight, one heavier.  One denim jacket.  One quilted down vest.  One flannel jacket with hood.  One electric-green heavy-duty jacket, for the days–already here in early mornings–when the temps start out in the teens.  Walking every morning means being prepared for every slide along the thermometer.  That also means a collection of hats that goes beyond just the classic baseball cap.  Light fleece with ear flaps?  Yup!  Stocking cap with pompom?  Yup!  Soft cloche that had hidden earflaps, for style and practicality?  That too.  I am ready!

I got desperate this year and dug up the flower garden.  I pulled out all the phlox and daisies that took over after 35+ years.  When I mulched all that bare ground, it took on a brand new look.  I love it.  We’ll see what has sneaked away from my shovel when spring hits and some of those things poke up again.  At least they’ll be small.

Clearing out the garden has me thinking that I should be doing the same with my closet.  That may sound familiar to a number of you out there.  I have a hard time subscribing to the “one in, one out” philosophy.  That is, if I bring something new in, I have to purge one item in return.  But I love my clothes!  Years ago, I limited myself to one double-door closet for all my clothes.  So, I don’t switch out summer clothes for winters.  I know myself.  If I had a secondary closet, that one would get just as full as the original one.  I’ll stick to one closet and make do.

But that means I have to be careful.  I don’t want clothes to be stuffed in so tight I can’t get a single item out!  Yes, I do get rid of things occasionally.  But why do our favorite clothes wear out so fast?  Although, I must admit, I still have some favorites from before my retirement 17 years ago…  Yikes!  As we all know, however, if I keep something long enough, it’ll come back in style.  Does that mean I have to keep something 40 years until it comes around?  Perish the thought!

The other end provides a problem too.  What if I made or bought something I thought I’d really wear a lot, and it sits in my closet, laughing at my decision, knowing I’ll probably never wear it more than that first time?  It’s new!  How can I get rid of (read “justify”) something I just purchased?

Okay, okay.  I’ve stalled long enough.  The garden is cleaned out.  The hoses are rolled up.  The little tchotchkes have all been cleaned and stored.  The birdfeeders have all been filled.  Every place that needed fresh mulch now has it.  Is there anything else that needs doing outside?  No?  Well, then I really have stalled long enough.

Time to get to work.  Excuse me while I head for the depths of my closet.

Wish me luck.

On police shows, there’s always a chase, often on foot. Someone yells, “Run!” and they’re off.  Sometimes my response is, “Oh, bother.  There they go again.”  Then my mind wanders away to more mundane styles of running.  After all, how many of us run to catch a thief?  Or run away from police, for that matter?

How about the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain?  No registration necessary, but no alcohol on the run, which is open to everyone over 18 years old.  Nothing else, just good running shoes.  That’s a dangerous running, to say the least.  Think gorings, sprains, deaths.  Not for me, thank you very much.

Ski runs used to be okay, but that’s far in my rearview mirror by now.  But I remember plenty of runnings down the hills…we don’t have mountains nearby.  The days after a deep fluffy snowstorm were the best, with powder shooting off in rooster tails as I made deep turns.  Much better than those end-of-season runs on slush, or icy, slopes.  Do I miss it?  Not really, but it was sure fun at the time.

Of course, here in Wisconsin, skiing brings to mind the running of the Birkebeiner, fondly known as the Birkie.  The 31-mile cross country ski race commemorates the smuggling of the Norwegian infant prince to safety in 1206.  This running draws up to 10,000 skiers from all over the world.  One of our friends has skied this event every year, as a matter of pride, and fun, of course.  Would I do it?  Nope!  Another event shuttled off to the side of being a spectator, if anything.  (And that actually goes for any long running.  Marathons are out, for sure!)

There are more prosaic runnings of course, such as the necessary grocery run when discovering that you’ve run out of an essential ingredient for tonight’s dinner…which is supposed to be served in less than an hour.  Oh yes, I’ve been there.  The shout is “I’ll be right back!  Don’t panic, dinner’s coming.”  And off you go.  It’s worse if you have a houseful of holiday company.  That means breaking out the good wine you saved for later, or digging in the back closet for the packs of soda you hid from the kids.  Some people despise any grocery run under pressure, or dealing with crowds, so they save those trips for ungodly hours when the checkers are snoozing at the till because no one else is there.  Not my style…but it’s been done in a pinch anyway.

Runs in hosiery used to be a regular thing, but improvements in materials have pretty much negated that problem.  Unless you absolutely have to wear nylons, most women don’t even realize there used to be a problem.  Who forces themselves into pantyhose anymore?  Not too many women.  I’m quite glad to trash the comment “I’ve got a ladder!” and leave that wording to painters and those who still clean out their gutters by hand.  (So, what’s a hosiery ladder, you ask?  That’s a series of horizontal holes up the back of the leg that makes the run look like rungs on a ladder.)  I’m glad to kiss that running goodbye!

Runs of good and bad luck can thrill or depress.  Sometimes what looks like a run of bad luck can actually turn into a run of good luck.  Running late seems to be a run of bad luck, but if you pass an accident on your way to wherever you’re going, it pays to remember that if you were actually early or on time, that could be you sitting with a crumpled front fender.  I suppose it cold work the other way too, but I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, just in case something goes sour.  Just sayin’…look for the silver lining.

My favorite running is my nose.  Well, maybe favorite isn’t the right word, seeing as how my nose running sends me running for a tissue.  Why does it happen so often when I’m eating?  Is the food really that hot that the steam goes up my nose and causes a drip or two?  It seems so, it happens often enough.  But there’s a sunny side.  The really good thing about noses running is that when the nose runs, it takes me with it.  I don’t like being left behind.

Speaking of running…time to run off to the gym.  Where I don’t really run…

Fall is upon us here in Wisconsin…sort of.  Fall means a lot of stuff is supposed to be falling, right?  Temperatures, leaves, whatever.

Yes, the temperatures are falling, but they’re not even down to what’s been historically normal this time of year.  Not that I’m complaining, mind you.  Warm enough to still wear shorts and t-shirts in the afternoon.  The mornings are another story.  Long pants and a light jacket for walking outdoors in the morning.  Pretty soon I’ll have to add full socks to that too.  The ankles will complain and let me know when that occurs.  With the warm temps, some of the plants are confused.  I cleaned out the dead leaves from the Stella d’Oro daylilies.  They always give me a huge handful of nicely dry, long leaves.  Great for a mulch, if I want.  However, yesterday I walked past what had been a patch of dirt where the daylilies were.  Now, there is a whole “head of green hair” thrusting up out of the ground again!  Hey, guys, it’s not even close to spring!  Luckily, that hasn’t happened with any of the other flowers.  But the monkshood refuses to blossom in such warm temperatures.  Maybe it’s time to dig ‘em up…  (Will they hear that and put out some flowers?  Nah.  So, this morning, I did dig them up.  Guess that’ll show ‘em.)

I’m waiting for the leaves to turn color.  I know, I know, it’s still early for that.  But between the lack of recent rain and the warm air, I wonder if one night, every single leaf will burst into color…and then…Whomp!…They’ll tumble to the ground before lunch. I love going out to ferret out that one sugar maple that is flaming away in some yard.  Or trying to see if the oaks will do a different shade this year.  So far, nothing.  Every tree around is still summer green.  One or two has dropped some leaves, but there’s been no mass exodus.  Will we even get colors this year??  What did the Farmer’s Almanac say?  Can’t remember.  I do remember they said that this winter would be a doozy.  Well, if we don’t get fall, how can we get winter, I ask you?

Lots of other stuff is falling.  I go out to harvest the tomatoes from the diminishing vines and all I have to do is touch a tomato and it’ll plummet to the ground.  I’ve learned to catch ‘em as they drop, so only a few of those tiny yellow ones have perished.  Hickory nuts are falling.  Sometimes right on my head.  More often in the middle of the night.  We have a hickory tree right over our bedroom roof.  Makes for rude awakenings sometimes.  But, then again, the squirrels are having a field day gathering, planting, digging up, moving, all that squirrel stuff.  No time for play much anymore.  They must know something we don’t.

I do wish fall would fall, not because I like to sleep with the window cracked open when it’s cold outside (I do), and not because I love winter (I do, especially now that I don’t have to go out in it unless I want to).  What I really like is perusing my cookbooks for cold weather foods.  Kabocha squash!  Tater Tot casserole!  Chicken chowder a la Uncle Butch!  Casseroles (hot dishes to those of you on the other side of the fence)!  Roulade!  Homemade breads!  Last-of-the-rhubarb pie!  Oh my!  And that’s just scratching the surface.  Good ol’ comfort foods which stretch the pleasure clear into March.

In the meantime, right now, as the weather promises to cool off, even it really hasn’t yet, it’s time to take the battery out of the bike and cover it up.  Well, maybe not quite yet, but the day is coming.  The day is coming to make sure the gas can is full for the snowblower too.  Come to think of it, time for my husband to change the oil in the snowblower, and call for the biannual tuneup of the lawn tractor.  I know that’s on his calendar already.  Not yet, though.  We need it to chop up the leaves…if they ever come down.

Either way, don’t let your spirits fall.  And you don’t have to wait until the temperatures tumble and the leaves leave.  No time like the present to make…chili!  Go for it!

There are weeds, and then there are Weeds.  To be clear, this is not about “weed,” that marijuana stuff.  This is about other weeds.  Like those small pesky things that can be pulled with bare hands after a decent rain.

My garden has plenty of weeds, but some of them look pretty nice, tucked in between the petunias and tomatoes.  So…often I just leave them.  They are green after all, so if they’re providing color and not trying to take over the world, I just turn the other cheek.  A bit of clover that stays put, a violet or five that actually put out attractive flowers in the spring, a stray marigold from last year that reseeded, or even a stalk of maple seedling planted by a squirrel last fall.  They really don’t belong, but there’s no need to hurry to ferret them out.

However, then there are Weeds.  Garlic mustard and honeysuckle, teasel and buckthorn.

Lurking among the sumac and maple seedlings is Oriental bittersweet.  Now, there’s a Weed.  Twelve feet of vine can wind its way up the trunk of a nearby tree, and then reach out to strangle another.  It looks like nothing so much as the serpent of Eden out to climb up to the forbidden fruit.  Getting rid of those kind of Weeds takes more than just a pair of gardening gloves and a tight grip.  That takes machinery!

And so we come to the weeds–clothing, that is–worn to eradicate the worst of the Weeds.  Haute couture for the gardener.

Any use of battery-operated tools necessitates clothing oneself in what might pass as samurai armor.  Thorns, or sticks thrown up?  Okay, long sleeves and long pants, even if it’s 90 degrees in the shade.  Hard stems?  Leather gloves, not those wimpy cotton things that are good for picking tomatoes.  Ticks?  Wellies, gardening boots, anything that covers the ankles.  Falling twigs and, God forbid, bird poop?  A nice big hat, preferably one with a longer back brim to cover the neck.  Speaking of the neck, it’s best to swath it in a bandana.  Does that cover everything.  Not exactly!  Weeds with a capital W do their best to thwart your effort to get them out.  They whip, they strike, they sting!  So, don’t forget the safety glasses.  Or go all the way and use those snorkel or ski goggles that have been sitting in your closet.

Yves Ste. Laurent or Chanel you’re not.  But you know what?  Who is going to see you anyway?  It’s garden haute couture at its best.  And don’t let anyone tell you it’s time to replace your gear.  Those old pair of jeans with paint stains and tight, tight legs?  Those are perfect for confounding the ticks.  That ratty t-shirt that’s faded to a non-descript gray?  Look closely, because it carries evidence of many handwipings, to say nothing of those sweat stains down the middle of the back.  Wash it?  Well, yes!  But replace it?  Never!  The hat?  That fits right to the head, so there’s no good reason to have to break in a new one.  There are, however, two things that are dear to a shopping gardener’s heart:  new garden boots and fresh leather gloves.  And maybe a pair or two (‘cause one pair won’t survive a full season) of soft cloth gloves, just for fun.  Leaky boots are truly awful, and those new ones with purple and pink flowers, or red with white polka dots, are such fun.  The boots really placate the neighbors who are convinced you’re off your rocker.  Yes, you tell them, you are off your rocker, because the rocker belongs on the porch when you’re all finished with work, you’ve showered, and you’re holding a cold sangria.  You’re drinking the sangria for the fruit on the bottom, after all, for its nutritional value.  It’s the reward at the end of the Battle with the Weeds.

Notice, it’s only a battle.  In two weeks, or maybe less, you will be out there once again, suited up to dispose of those pesky weeds which can be easily pulled, which serves as the warmup before you head into the wilderness to stifle, snap, pull and poison the real baddies, the Weeds.

Don’t forget: you’re setting the fashion bar high for the neighbors.  Show your pride!

A while back, I used a guest pass to go back to a former health and wellness club to swim.  Our most recent gym, which closed, didn’t have a pool, but it was smaller, and the facilities didn’t include a whirlpool, as the club does, so I was really looking forward my workout, and especially the amenities afterward.  It turned out to be rather like old home week…minus the old friends and the resulting camaraderie.  Well, I expected that much.  One just cannot slip back into former spots and move on as if no time passed.  Turned out not as much changed as I thought.  The pool was cool, as it had been, though not after I had a couple of laps in.  The whirlpool was wonderful, the jets massaging all the right places. Everything needed was provided: fluffy towels, shampoo and body wash, hairdryers, even tissues.  And carpeted locker rooms.  Luxury.

Standing in the shower, I remembered when they renovated.  The men who installed the hooks for towels and such, put them in…upside down!  Instead of looking like a smile, they looked like a frown.  Anyone could see whatever was hung on those would slide right off.  Crazy what a person remembers!

But the more things stay the same…the more they change.  

A few years ago, in a fit of nostalgia, I decided to ferret out the house on Little Moose Lake where my parents would visit a couple my dad knew.  I had a good visual image of the tavern and the meadow we’d hike across in order to get to the fish fry.  I knew the house was near the end of a long private road, and that we passed a golf course and a park to get there.  On my excursion into the past, I followed what I thought was the “old timey” road out of town, and managed to find the tavern.  The meadow was still there, being part of the park.  So that didn’t change.  Yes, I did find the house.  Thanks to the couple who purchased it–from my dad’s friends, actually!–I was welcomed inside.  And that’s where the “stay the same” took a nosedive.  Being probably thirteen the last time I was there, the memory I had was…Well, let’s put it this way.  I was now in a dollhouse.  It wasn’t really that small, but certainly a lot smaller than the house built in my memory.  Once I adjusted that perspective, yes, the kitchen was there, the view looking over the lake was there, the master bedroom upstairs with big picture windows facing the lake was there.  Even the boathouse and the dock at the bottom of the steep cliff were there.  I wondered if minnows still swarmed to nibble at toes venturing into the shallows?  Crazy memory.

Going to the Big City of Milwaukee when I was a kid was a treat.  Dinners out with my parents’ friends, the Holiday Folk Fair, the bright lights and big buildings.  Wonderful, and at the same time scary.  Instead, now I can negotiate the highways and many of the byways without trepidation.  The same thing happened to Chicago, once our daughter and husband moved there.  Though I don’t use public transportation much around home, because it is minimal, the L is de rigeur in Chicago.  Parking alone precludes using a car when the L can get a person close enough to walk to a destination.  That’s kind of like the reverse of finding out that things from my past look so much smaller than I remember.  Now, even though the Big City does look smaller than I remember, the city is quite manageable.  I love Chicago’s “mountains,” commonly known there as the grand architecture along the lakefront.  But they don’t scare me anymore.

The one thing that hasn’t gotten smaller over the years is friendship.  The high school friends, Girl Scouts, loom even larger when we reconnected after a long hiatus of almost 50 years.  Their lives across those years enlarged with fulfilling jobs, extended families, myriad memories of travel, houses, skills learned, and perhaps discarded as well.  My more recent friends enrich my life with their laughter, their encouragement, their own experiences that lead me onward.  Whether old or new, people grew in inner beauty and wisdom, which in turn help me grow my own life into something larger than it was years ago.

Though the memories of physical places may contract as I myself become older, plenty of people, and experiences, are clearly larger than they were when I was younger.  I may wax nostalgic about things in the past, but I have learned to cherish even the smaller memories.  Those diminished memories still contain concentrated sweetness.

I have always had a love affair with cars.  Well, perhaps I shouldn’t go that far.  But it certainly has been at least a crush.  My first car was a four-on-the-floor 1969 American Motors Javelin.  That’s a manual transmission, for anyone not realizing that, once upon a time, the driver had to shift gears.  At the time of my Javelin, a four-speed was a way to show off one’s ability to operate such a powerful vehicle.  I never was one to pop the clutch to spin tires and peel out, as we used to say.  Too frugal to waste tire rubber on the road.

  My Javelin was a lovely Willow Green Metallic, with a sleek low chassis and a long snout of a hood.  Very sporty.  White interior.  Yikes!  But the father of one of my best friends was the local American Motors dealer, and he must’ve contacted my dad when he found out I needed a car.  I wasn’t too thrilled by the white interior, thinking ahead to hours of having to clean the vinyl.  But my worst response–which I never voiced to anyone but my parents–was to protest the clock.  I wasn’t about to pay for such extravagance.  Arrogance, on my part.  My parents were quick to disabuse me of that.  The car was a good price, and had come in with some of the extras.  I kept my mouth shut.  I soon found out that the clock was a good thing when I was trying to get someplace on time.  But it was considered a luxury at the time.

I needed the car to get to my teaching internship in Bonduel, about an hour north of college.  The drive took me through more and more rural countryside, which was a delight to travel.  It helped me relax on a Friday, when I headed out after a week of hard work with kids and administrators.  Luckily, I was boarding with a wonderful old woman, who made the best Parker House rolls and…well, everything, really.  When she was 13, she cooked for the entire threshing crew on her parents’ farm.  Lots of practice made for perfection.  She lived in a former gas station, and I had a room off the living room.  She loved to crochet and knit, and her quilt frame was up permanently in the attic, accessed by an outside staircase.  She gave us a pair of pillowcases, edged in some of her lovely crocheted lace, for a wedding gift.

But I digress.

I really wanted to purchase my boss’s 1965 lemon-yellow Mustang convertible.  That car had a black leather interior.  Dr. Randerson, biology/genetics professor, was a generous guy, and I often borrowed his car, even when the trips were rather shorter than necessary for a car.  But I could tool around town, knowing I looked cool.  When I left for the summer of 1968, he was talking about wanting to buy a Triumph to replace the Mustang.  I emphasized that I’d need a car in the fall, and please contact me before he sold it, so I could put in an offer.  I left him with my address and phone number, and extracted a promise from him.  Which he promptly broke.  Because when I returned in the fall, he had his new Triumph, and I?  Oh, dear, he didn’t think I was serious.  Surely, he was able to see the steam that emerged from my nostrils.  I consoled myself that it didn’t have power steering or power brakes.  The steering wheel was huge.  It was a bit of a pain to get the soft top up and down.  And the years of winters would surely not be kind to the body.  And…that rationalizing didn’t work very well.  Even now, when I see a Mustang of that era–and there are still a few on the road–I get nostalgic.  I know, I know.  Those old Mustangs took a lot of work to keep them running, probably new engines, to say nothing of keeping the rust at bay.  Still…  Oh, get over it.

When we got married, Denny had a copper-colored Comet, which we called the Vomit.  That car lasted until my parents bought a new car and gave us their dark blue Buick, a really nice sedan.  When it started costing us too much in repairs, we sold it for a song to our mechanic, who gave it to one of his kids in Arizona, I think.  Shortly after that, the car crossed the border into Mexico, reborn as a real Tijuana Taxi, mimicking a popular song of the time.  I wonder just how long it survived, although I know it was a taxi for a good number of years.  (Which always brought me back around to that Mustang, wondering how long I could’ve kept that pony car alive.)

A van eventually replaced a smaller box-like Horizon.  The red van was replaced by a forest green one as our family continued to schlepp kids and stuff around.  The red van went to St. Louis to live with our son at medical school. He and his friends called it the People Mover, as he was the first one called on when a bunch of friends were heading out.  Sadly, it didn’t last long, less than a year, if I remember right.  But at least our son could recycle it at a junkyard.  Each of our vans made annual treks to Stratford, Ontario, to the Shakespeare Festival.  We’d pack students and another adult in, requiring everyone take only one bag.  No roof rack, so everything got positioned very carefully into the van.  I became the Queen of Packing.  Grand trips, each one, for 10 years.

When my mother gave up driving, she gave us her Aircraft Carrier, a big brown Buick Le Sabre that my dad insisted on buying as they got toward the end of their driving years.  He anticipated dying before my mom, and wanted her to have a heavy, safe car.  It was all of that.  The hood was big enough to land a fighter jet, while the trunk could probably accommodate a small helicopter.  Always good for a laugh.  We also received Denny’s mom’s car, a big green Ford sedan.  When Carolyn drove, we always hollered, “Here comes the Blonde Bomber!”  She could barely see over the steering wheel.  Those were the days before the driver could adjust the vertical lift of the seat.  Ethel was really too short to drive it, once she got her driver’s license after Harry died.  She was 55 years old.  I gave her lots of credit for learning something she was terrified of doing.  We persuaded her to buy a smaller car, more her size.  Perfect.

Now, we are into SUVs, as they give us better visibility, both for us to see the road and for others to see us.  We’ve gone from manual transmissions and carburetors to computerized…everything.  The seats are adjusted electronically, and can be set to respond to each separate driver.  With power steering, biceps the size of a weight-lifter are no longer necessary.  With ABS, Anti-lock Braking System, braking on slippery spots means no longer standing on the brake pedal and then having the brakes lock up.  The system “stutters” in order to provide the best traction.  I could go on and on.  I’m still learning the computer that sits on the dash, a personal aide that can tell me where to go and how to get there, that can turn on any radio station or bring up a world of music.  The best part is, I can talk to it and it talks back.  I could make phone calls, though I’ve never thought that a good idea, as I can’t drive and do much else at the same time.  I can, however, ask the car to read out any messages I get.  I feel so pampered.   Occasionally, I check to see that my hood ornament isn’t a Jaguar or the fancy-schmanzy Rolls Royce “Spirit of Ecstasy.”  Just kidding.  I don’t have a hood ornament.

In the 1960s, I could identify most cars by their taillights.  Or more often, tailfins.  Chevys with their lifted fins that looked like eyebrows.  Fords with fiery Cyclops eyes.  Cat’s eyes and oblongs, squares and rows of perfectly cut rubies.  So much personality.  Much of that is gone now.  Unless I see a top-end car, a Ferrari, or a Corvette (and even those are getting more generic), cars have subsided into some sort of average look.  Safety, as is only right, and environmentally aware designs are the norm.  Exterior glamour, for the most part, has passed away.  The glamour has, however, retreated to the interior, which is really where it should be.  We are, after all, driving for ourselves, and should be surrounded by safety and luxury.  Too much on the outside is distracting for others.  That’s my rationale, and I’m sticking to it.

I’m still waiting for the day when I tire of driving, or even of scanning the roadways (when I’m not driving) for attractive cars.  Someday…maybe I’ll see that lemon-yellow Mustang again.

Arthritis attacked my ring finger, and I could no longer get my wedding ring off.  I tried everything: holding my hand in the air to maybe reduce the swelling, icing my finger, slathering on the slipperiest soap I could find.  Nothing worked.  The tissue was getting smothered, so I needed to get the ring cut off.  So off I went to the jeweler.  No problem, right?  Nope.  My jeweler sent me to the fire station.  Yes, the fire station.

The lieutenant met me at the door, having been warned of my arrival.  He took me into the heart of the fire station, the kitchen.  Well, okay, it was really a great room with comfortable recliners, television, tables, and more, in addition to the kitchen, all set up for lunch preparation.  Fruit salad, cauliflower…  But I digress.

He seated me at the table, and suddenly, I was surrounded by seven firefighters.  Seven?  Come on!  How many do you need to cut off one little ring?  You’re not amputating or anything…Or are you?!  Are they here to staunch the flow of blood?  They are paramedics and EMTs, after all.  They assured me that some recent hires had not been trained on this procedure yet.  And everybody else was just interested, I guess.  It felt like a teaching hospital, where students and interns crowd around to observe and commiserate.  They opened their handy-dandy tool box and pulled out what looked like a palette knife, not sharp or pointed, to slide under the ring so they could use the circular-bladed diamond-edged saw… a saw?…to cut through the ring.  Just as they went to plug it in, someone noticed the ambulance pulling in.  “They’ve got the best tool,” one said.  “Better than this saw.”  I exhaled.

The ambulance’s ring cutter is really nifty.  “Turn your hand palm up, please.”  A thin metal “tongue” slides under the ring.  Coming down on the ring itself is a torture device.  No, I’m kidding!  There is however, what looks like a medieval thumb screw designed to get people to confess to anything.  The lieutenant screwed down the device, lowering a thin blade onto the ring, which sliced through the gold band like butter.  Pull the ring’s edges apart and ta-da!, my ring came free.  Hooray!  “Good thing it was gold,” they told me.  “Gold is soft.  But some of those other metals, like titanium, are so hard, we have to crack the ring rather than get a nice clean cut.”

So why do they have a ring cutter in the first place?  Picture a car accident, or a farm accident, where a hand needs to be freed from…something, but a ring is impeding progress.  Hence, the ring cutter.  That little beauty lives in the ambulance, though, not the fire station.  So, if you’re looking for a Christmas present for those amazing men and women, buy a ring cutter for the fire station.  You can get them on Amazon for under $15.  (You think I’m kidding; I’m not.  When it comes time to cut your ring off, would you rather have a spinning drill bit or a simple protected blade come down towards your finger?)

What else do these wonderful folk do?  After all, the city had close to 9,300 callouts last year alone.  They couldn’t all be fires.  I had to go back.

After a phone call and a cookie delivery, I was talking with the firefighters again.  Turns out, fire stations have the equipment to do all sorts of things, things the general public are…well, generally unaware of.

Many of the calls are for industrial or mechanical extractions, which is just what it sounds like: getting people out of something or somewhere dangerous.  Like the person who cleans the snowblower auger without turning it off first.  That’s more than ouch!  Water or ice rescues too.  Kids get heads caught in fences or even highchairs, cats get trapped inside walls (there’s a snaky camera for location of said feline), construction workers get buried when trenches collapse.  Check your portable chair in the shower; does it have a slit in the center to drain water?  Cover it with a washcloth, please, so no…um, body part can get trapped in the slit.  Anywhere there’s a confined space, someone, or some animal, is bound to need extraction.  Yes, they do rescue animals too.  They showed me workers on a cell tower just outside.  If one of those workers has a medical emergency, off the firefighters go to rescue the individual.  As you can see, firefighters go from the heights to the depths.

They work with the police in tactical situations; hence, the helmets, body armor, and hazmat suits.  Unfortunately, those suits got a workout during Covid.  Especially challenging if the person had no pulse and wasn’t breathing…and had Covid on top of it.  Speaking of, did you ever wonder why they send out a fire truck and an ambulance?  If someone has chest pains, they need five firefighters, so out goes one truck and an ambulance.  If someone is not breathing and has no pulse, you get an ambulance and two firetrucks.  Is that not overkill?  Not at all.  Then they need both EMTs and paramedics.  Which means they need all those professionals.  EMTs can do certain things, such as monitoring things and helping stabilize, but paramedics can do medication for pain management, intubate, and insert IVs.  And now, they have a machine for chest compression, and another for breathing.  Everything is regulated to give the maximum effect needed.

Firefighters do lots of other stuff too, like bringing the trucks to community events and letting people peer into the innards.  They work with Waukesha County Technical College for training and ridealongs, as well as work with high schoolers interested in the field.  If any of us get into trouble on a grand scale, we know these are people in top physical form.  Just carrying all that equipment on a body already burdened with heavy safety clothing is tough.  But not only physically healthy, they must remain psychologically healthy.  After a situation, such as the devastation caused by a wild driver through a Christmas parade here in town, these folks have to power down and deal with the trauma that they carry back to the firestation.  I was very glad to hear them assure me of the services of a counselor, and laud the service as well.

So, the next time you see firefighters in the grocery store, say hi and tell them thanks.  Don’t think they’re not on duty!  Check out the radios crackling on their belt.  Notice the big red truck, with a waiting driver, out in the parking lot.  And get out of the way if they have to abandon their grocery cart in the middle of shopping, because they’re being called out to perform a service for…you, Citizen!

Famous last words, no problem.  Setting out to write a mystery, I knew I had to determine, before even starting to write the story, the who, when, where, why, and, most important, whodunit.  Even though my writing instructor cautions against writing outlines first…  No, let me qualify that.  She says, “Don’t do an outline!”  Well, that doesn’t work very well with this type of story.  At least for me.

So, off I went, planning ahead.  Ha!  Good idea, bad execution.  No problem writing the “spine” of the mystery, but then I had only a bare bones story of maybe 50 pages.  Yikes!  Of course, a reader would have no idea what the characters looked like, because I neglected to write descriptions.  Okay, fine.  Go back and add.  No problem.  Right?

But there was no dialogue!  So, return to keyboard and, as Mark Twain said, “Show, don’t tell.”  That meant letting these people talk.  And talk they did.  I realized I had to build in the personality traits that would make one of them a murderer. But it was so much more fun to give them all something that would make each one a potential murderer.  That meant telling more than just the story of where they were at the location of the murder.  So…

Go back again and add in their backstories.  Who were these people?  Where did they come from?  How did they get to where they were all together, so one of them could be killed?  Yikes, again!  But it was interesting to create a life for each of them before they got to where they were.  Somewhere in there, I needed to drop a few facts that would lead the reader…astray…or not.

Of course, it turned out that the setting was important, so I went back yet again and ratcheted up the locale and what was going on outdoors too.  Too much?  Believable or not?  Adjust, adjust, adjust.  The setting was based on a real place, but I had to change some things to make it all work.  So, that meant research.  Luckily, I love to do research.  But then, my focused search turns into a wandering into tangents.  I could spend hours, which I try not to do, interesting as it can be.  But I want stuff I can incorporate into the story, not add something like how to repave potholes in New York City in the 1940s, intriguing as it might be.  Yet more re-writing…  You see where this is going?

After well beyond 100 pages, I started to see inconsistencies.  Wait!  Didn’t I put that character coming from…?  How did the killer get from Point A to Point B?  Oops!  I put the killer in two different places at the same time.  And where’s the victim?  I forgot to put them in the accessible spot.  Go back…  Oh, no!  Too many hints far too early.  Go back and take some out.  Well, sometimes I took out too many, and that meant, of course, going back again to move, rather than delete.  Luckily, over the years I have gotten more writing savvy.  Never ever ever totally delete anything!  It’s like cleaning drawers and closets.  Once it’s gone, about a month later, if it even takes that long, you’ll discover you need that very item that has already disappeared from Goodwill’s shelves, as someone else grabbed it, seeing the value you yourself missed.  So.  NEVER delete anything.  Copy and paste it somewhere else, perhaps in a Delete Folder, so you can retrieve when you realize the story can’t go anywhere without that tidbit.

The motives were the hardest.  I can’t tell you how many times I went back and forth, adding, moving, changing entirely. Of course, I can’t tell you another thing, because…  I was going to say that it would give too much away.  But, then again, maybe it wouldn’t give enough away.  Oh, the trials and tribulations of writing a mystery!

Would readers guess the murderer?  Or, if they did, would it be too soon?  How about all that description?  Too much? But it solidified the settings!  I don’t want to take that out!  The locale was very complex, so I went around and around, writing and re-writing, so readers could form a picture in their heads.  Would they see what I wanted them to see?

Finally, I shut off the voice in my head and just sent it off to a friend who’s a discerning mystery reader.  She’d tell me if it was believable, if it held her interest, if she guessed…  Well, you get the idea.  I attached the manuscript to the email, hit Send, and said to myself, “Never again!”

She got back to me, and fulfilled my wildest hopes.  She guessed…wrong!  Hooray!  But by the end, she could narrow it down to one of two, maybe both.  Perfect!  No, she loved the backstories, she loved the descriptions, she adored the mystery.  She could even figure out what that complex setting looked like…well, at least enough to go with the flow.  “I want you to write another one!” she crowed.  This first one still needed to be pitched to a publisher!

Really?  Another one?  Well…maybe I could start a tale in Europe, with a chase, and…