SUZANNE RUDD HAMILTON

I Remember It Well

Suzy and Red sat together on the couch of their family’s home, surveying the “keep” pile, deciding what to take to their new condo in an assisted living center.

At the age of 88, they were both healthy but needed a facility that could take care of any medical issues that arose. But they were melancholy about leaving the home that had been in their family for decades.

Their great-granddaughter Jackie spent days sifting through the boxes, furniture, keepsakes and junk in the attic and marked everything keep, donate, sell or garbage before she and her mother moved into the house.

The “keep pile” mostly consisted of scrapbooks, photo albums and other mementos. Suzy took one of the scrapbooks from the boxes and thumbed through it, fondly looking through each page.

She was a meticulous scrapbooker, chronicling every aspect of their 70 years together with programs from fairs, ballgame and amusement park tickets, postcards and posters from her life in the USO, dried flowers Red gave her, along with albums of pictures and piles of letters they wrote to each other during the war, carefully wrapped in ribbons.

Suzy even pieced together remnants of the lives of Red’s family with relics and tokens left in the dusty old attic, including programs dating back to the 1893 and 1933 Chicago world’s fairs.

“Hey, I remember that. It’s in New York where we first met,” Red said glancing over her shoulder at the pictures in the scrapbook.

“Actually dear, that was the Hollywood Cantina where the girls and I performed. We met at the New York Cantina,” Suzy smiled, gently correcting him.

“Oh yes, you’re right, I think the bar and the stage in New York were switched,” he laughed.

“No, they weren’t,” she said under her breath, so he wouldn’t hear.

Red and Suzy met when he was a young sailor in WWII and she was a USO singer. While he navigated the Pacific on an aircraft carrier, she traveled the USA, singing a single night or two for the troops in USO cantinas from New York to Miami and all the way to Hollywood.

“Look, here are the pictures from our wedding. It was such a beautiful hotel. I still can’t believe all those nice people put it together for us in just a few hours,” Suzy smiled as she closed her eyes remembering the wedding in her mind, just like it was yesterday.

“Yeah, good thing that tourist at the hotel had a camera to photographed it for us,” Red said.

“Well, it was a newspaper reporter,” Suzy said sweetly and tapped his hand lightly.

“Oh, that’s right,” he laughed.

“Here’s a picture at Peg’s christening. I was so glad we could put her in the christening dress your grandma Maggie made for your father,” she said admiring it. “Jackie left the heirloom box in the attic. Maybe someday her children will wear it.”

“Yep, Maggie made it good enough to last and bring all the McIntyres into the world in stylish Irish lace. Look at Father Murphy, he looks so young there,” Red said.

“He does look young, but that’s Father O’Malley. Remember he left when Peg was a little girl. I think he went to Africa on a mission or something,” Suzy said gritting her teeth with a little annoyance, shaking her head at his forgetfulness.

“And here’s the first TV we got for the house,” Suzy said looking at the writing on the back of the picture. “This says it was 1950.”

Oh yeah, that old trusty Admiral. It was a lot of money for $250 but a great deal. We got the 12.5” picture tube, plus the Dynamagic, AM/FM radio with rotoscope antenna and the phonograph turntable. And it had great sound with the quad hi-fi stereo speakers and 20 watt amplifier,” Red said.

Suzy widened her eyes and looked at him puzzled in astonishment of the detail in which he remembered the television components.

“Wow, there’s a locket picture of Grandma Maggie,” he said.

Suzy took an irritated deep breath and looked at him. “That’s your daughter Peg, not your grandmother,” she said.

He chuckled. “Wow, I always said there was an amazing family resemblance. They look like twins.”

“Well, at least you’re right about that. The black and white picture doesn’t show the red hair or green eyes, but yes, even their faces were amazingly similar. And their Irish temper,” Suzy remarked.

After going through all the photo albums and scrapbooks, Suzy sealed the boxes to go to the new condo. She sighed, looking around the house for one of the last times.

“We’re leaving our family home, but will take all the memories with us.”

“Yes, I lived in this grand old house my whole life. I think my grandpop paid $2,025 for the Sears Honor Bilt homes kit and built it himself. But I’ll be glad to hand it over to our granddaughter, so it stays in the family. We had some great times here,” he smiled and pinched Suzy on her bottom.

She shook her head and kissed him.

“Well at least you remembered where that was.” Suzy laughed while Red puckered his brow with an inquisitive look.

“How can you remember the detailed specifications and cost of our first TV in 1950 and the price of your grandpop’s home in 1920, but you can’t recognize our old priest, where we met or the difference between your grandmother and daughter?” Suzy laughed.

“Easy, I have a brain for figures, like yours,” he said and embraced her.

Author’s Note: Everyone forgets things, but I’m glad Suzy and Red never forgot how they felt about each other. This is a snippet of the short story Epilogue from The Sailor and the Songbird: A Timeless American Historical Romance Book 1. This series features the sagas of love of the McIntyre family amid the backdrop of events in the 20th century. The full bridge epiologue story, referencing the first two books and previewing the third book is available to newsletter subscribers. Subscribe on the home page and it will be sent to you.

Karaoke Roulette

Author’s Note: This story was in answer to a writer group prompt to write a story about the wrong lyrics in a song. We all sing in the car. Sometimes we don’t know the real words. It happens.

Karaoke night was a favorite for Meg and her coworkers. Their watering hole of choice was a pizza pub near their office. Every Thursday night after work, they let their hair down and had a good time.

Most of them were fair singers, some good, but they all sang, so they played a high-stakes game they called karaoke roulette. Instead of selecting their own songs to sing, the singer would spin an empty beer bottle on the table and whoever it pointed to choose the song for that person. No complaints, no substitutions.

Being a friendly and malevolent group, everyone wanted each other to succeed, so no one committed malicious sabotage, but fun was never off the table.

There was the time Sandy made Matt sing I am Woman or when Meg and Carrie conspired to bet Jack that he wouldn’t sing Girls Just Want to Have Fun. They both killed it.

And the boys got in the act too, selecting a Summer Nights duet for Meg and Carrie. They even got into the spirit by holding hands, singing into each other’s eyes and pretending to be in love. When they were done, the place erupted with applause. It’s all in good fun.

One night, a newbie at work named Brett joined their group for the first time. He wanted play their game of chance, but Meg urged him to select his first song himself.

“Look, we’ve been doing this for a while, so don’t feel obligated to play our silly roulette game,” she said.

“No way. I’m part of the group now. I’ll play,” Brett insisted.

Meg, Carrie and the others looked at each other, shrugging their shoulders. They’d never heard him sing and had no idea what to select for him.

When it was Brett’s turn, he spun the bottle. The others watched as time passed in slow motion, each wishing and hoping the bottleneck didn’t point to them.

It stopped and pointed to Meg. The others breathed sighs of relief and smiled at her, grateful they dodged that bullet. She stared at the bottle for a moment in silence and shook her head. She couldn’t believe her un-luck.

“Meg. What’s my song?” Brett eagerly asked.

As the others gazed at her in anticipation, she quickly raced through the Rolodex of songs in her mind. It had to be an easy one and should be a crowd pleaser, so everyone could join in, just in case. Her eyes lit up as she finally had an idea.

“Benny and the Jets,” she smiled.

The table all complimented her on her selection in agreement. Brett was elated.

“I love that song. I sing it in the car all the time. I won’t even need to look at the words,” he said.

Meg relaxed, feeling reassured that everything would go well. And when his name came up, Brett walked up to the KJ and told him the song.

The opening piano chords began and a confident Brett began to sing. His voice was decent, but more than that, he really performed the song. He took the microphone off the stand and strutted around the stage, engaging the audience, who replied by clapping and singing the chorus with him… BBBB Benny and the Jets.

Meg noticed he mumbled some of the stranger words in the beginning of the song. He sang “we’re in a California car tonight” instead of “kill a fatted calf tonight” and he called her a real queen when the words were really keen, but no one seemed to notice. After all, Elton John’s accent did make that line a little difficult. And who knows what keen is anyway.

She waved it off and happily clapped along with her friends and joined in for the chorus. He didn’t even hesitate, so it really didn’t matter. She beamed with pride on her brilliant song choice to start Brett on his way.

But then he sang the verse “she’s got electric boobs and mohair shoes,” and everyone at the table looked at each other in shock.

“Did he say electric boobs?” Carrie asked and Matt and Jack started laughing.

“Yes he did.”

Meg nearly wrenched her neck glancing around the room with lightning speed. Some people were laughing, but most were still clapping and singing along.

She sighed in relief. Crisis averted. The song was over and Brett was cheered back to his table.

“That was great,” he smiled and chugged his beer in celebration.

“Sure it was…electric boobs,” Matt teased.

“Yeah, I’d really like to know what electric boobs are,” Jack giggled and Carrie smacked him on the arm in disapproval.

“What?” Brett asked.

“Ignore these childish fools,” Carried assured. “Who’s singing next?”

“No, it’s fine. Elton John knows. I don’t. Maybe he meant she had a glittery shirt. I never really thought about it.” Brett answered, somewhat puzzled at the question.

Jack and Matt pursed their lips to avoid giggling again.

“Did I miss a joke? Wasn’t it good?” Brett asked, a little annoyed.

“Your performance was stellar, but I don’t think you really nailed the words… exactly,” she said gently and Carrie showed him the real lyrics on her phone.

“Are you kidding?” he laughed. “Oh man, I’ve been singing it that way for years.”

“No problem, we all do it,” Meg laughed. “Now we know what your karaoke nickname will be…electric boobs.”

Jack and Matt burst out laughing, followed by the rest.

Celebrate Women

Click the picture – 99 cent kindle sale this week

Not going to talk politics, really, but women took a hit this week. Just going to say it. We did.

I grew up in the wake of the women’s movement, but even with the strides of the women who paved the path before me, I’ve taken my hits. I have been told not to worry my little head about it more times than I can count. I’ve sat in board rooms where I was not heard because I had boobs, even though I had the right answers. I once had to pull a friend of mine off a man in a very big corporate board meeting because he referred to her as a “lady architect.” She was a tiger, I probably saved his life.

It got better as I got older and sometimes worse. I found, for the most part, the generations of men who came after were better. The generation of men who came before me, not so much.

That’s one of the reasons I write about women and girls in all my books and stories. Our stories need to be told and understood. Women need to read stories about other women to show they are not alone and to shine the light on a possible road they can take on their journey. And sometimes, we just need a laugh and to feel good about ourselves. That’s ok too.

And girls need to read stories about girls and women to show they can be themselves and do what they want. We need to empower them not to let anything stand in their way on their journey.

Recently I began a women’s fiction series about women in a small town and in a woman-owned retail mall called The Little Shoppes. Cupcakes. etc. on sale this week is the first in the series. Each book features a different woman’s business and individual origin stories, plus the people and town who support them. My editor said she wishes there were more fiction books about women’s friendships and women helping women. I thought she was mistaken as I’ve read a lot of women’s friendship fiction like Firefly Lane, Sweet Magnolias and recently Good Girls Revolt. All were very popular books and became TV movies.

But she’s right, statistically, there are less women’s fiction and specifically women’s friendship fiction books available. I am puzzled. Why?

Either way, I will continue to write strong, but flawed female characters and their stories win, lose or draw because they need to be told and they need to be read.

As my Cupcakes. etc. character Pamela says in her version of Georgia peach southern women’s lib, “Why would I want to be equal to men? I would never lower myself?”

Sorry to the men reading this, but please understand, sometimes we need to feel that way. As an old Virginia Slims commercial used to say…”We’ve come a long way, baby.” But there’s still a long way to go.

In Search of…Kindness

On Earth 22 in another part of the multi-verse, the ministers on Xena’s world sent several teen agents, including her, to observe high school students on different Earths.

Her one-week mission on E1 Earth was to try to find some key to break the stalemates between rival factions and bring an end to the horrible conflict. Her world has been shattered by years of civil war between people with desperate ideologies.

She landed in a typical high school in the US. Here are her findings:

Day 1:

My first impression is that kids are not much different than the way my world used to be. Now there are no schools, as everyone is either fighting in the war or sheltering. I found the typical pretty people, sportos, smart kids, creative arts types and those who fall in between. The daily conflicts seem minor, but the strong still seem to prey on the weak in a feeble attempt to raise their standing and personal self-esteem. We went through this on my Earth. It was gone by the time I was in school. I wish I could just tell them that hurting others will not make them whole and will cause development stagnation and impair their personal growth. But, of course, I can’t interact with anyone. Rule one is we can’t interfere with the natural evolution of any world, whether is it detrimental or not.

Day 2:

Maybe E1 is not as typical as I thought. I observed an “active shooter drill.” An alarm was sounded and the students and teacher immediately locked and barricaded the door and hid under desks. My briefing was obviously not complete as I was not apprised of a war in this area. The students seemed very practiced and skilled at it. When the gun raids and bombing started in our schools, desks and tables did not prevent the killing. That’s why we no longer have schools at my home. Maybe theirs are made of bullet proof materials. Note to self to check on that.

Day 3:

I wanted to view the entire student body at once interacting with each other. I noticed large crowds of them gathering in a place called a cafeteria, so I stayed in there all day to watch. There were obvious divisions in the room where different groups congregated. I noted the collections I logged before, but this time I also detected some division by skin and hair color. I did hear about the ancients on our world separating by skin color before, which was later outlawed. I can’t imagine categorizing people by these differences. What’s next eye color or clothing? I was very curious about the hair color segment. Some had pink, orange, purple, green, blue and some with multicolors. They seem to be in an area with many colors while some only brown, black, yellow or orange-haired teens were on other sides.

I was very perplexed by the actions of several male teens who went by the hair table, spilling drinks, knocking things over. One young person exuded fluids from the mouth in their direction. That seemed highly unsanitary to me. Then they shouted various words at them in a loud hateful tone and left, smiling and clapping their hands together in the air. They seemed very pleased with themselves, but I did not see what they accomplished. The hair teens at the table did not engage them. The obvious disdain by one group for another is puzzling. Their obviously bullies, but I saw no difference in the kids, except for some of the hair colors. Has this Earth really devolved that much that skin and hair color causes ruptures in social behavior like that? I still don’t understand what they were doing. The minor conflicts I observed on the first day seemed less intense. And it was interesting that no one from other tables reacted. Were they ambivalent or just engrossed in their own situation?

Day 4:

I overheard several teens talking about an off-campus meeting place called a mall. I followed them to observe out-of-school activity and realized it was an assortment of retail establishments. This could be a good opportunity to examine a societal cross section. I meandered around and saw many familiar sites from my old world. It was nice to see people shopping again, just carefree buying clothing with friends, parents or family. They even had someone playing the piano in an echo chamber to entertain them. We don’t have stores anymore and people aren’t allowed to congregate. They became targets for mass killings by each faction.

I detected a couple of confusing observations. First, there seem to be armed patrol groups of teens and young adults in the stores. I viewed them walking back and forth a few times with no intended destination. I also monitored a few random people shopping who were carrying side weapons. I need to update the ranking on this area in our computer. It was previously ranked as yellow, but the presence of personal weapons may indicate otherwise. More study will be needed.

Day 5:

When at the mall, I noted propaganda mediums are still in use on E1. Finding conflicting information, I decided to investigate those mediums today to attempt to reconcile my personal findings with the data I was given.

Propaganda is disseminated through many electronic devices. I remember those from our archives. I believe they were one of the initial causes of misinformation and detachment in my world. They were abolished not long after the fighting began.

I watched many segments of their news. There was a lot of focus on different issues but very little agreement. And there was a lot of shouting. I need to check if the hearing levels are decreasing in the people here.

Their processing systems also had written and verbal news and something called social media. I heard some teens discussing the various outlets. I read some of the trending news but it seemed to be a very dysfunctional and disconnected series of arguments, echoing some of the yelling I heard on the their news.

Personal Mission Log:

After 5 of my 7 days, I am abandoning this survey. I realize this mission is futile. I found no evidence of kindness that can help my world. Kindness died on my Earth a long time ago. I hate to see another Earth descend into the same ridiculous rivalries, corruption and cruelty toward each other. Despite rule one, I decided to leave something behind to spark some ideas. On my world, we developed a mantra to try and promote peace between are warring factions. I left my sign that says, “Open Mind. Open Heart. Accept.” I hope someone takes it seriously. I’m going to recommend we don’t visit E1 again for at least twenty years. Maybe the next generation will change things, but if not, this Earth could meet the same fate as mine-or worse.

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Pretending

My friend Gloria and I were thrilled to start our long-awaited two-week European cruise. We’d enjoyed long weekend cruises to the Caribbean before, but this was going to be an adventure to view the architecture of the oldest places in the world and experience their culture.

We got to the ship, had our picture taken and found the stateroom. Looking around the room, it was a little cramped. It wasn’t any smaller than other cruise cabins, but measuring our two weeks of luggage against the closets barely designed for one person, we decided to make it work by doubling and tripling up our outfits on the few hangers provided.

We figured out the bathroom situation on the last cruise. Gloria used the vanity mirror to do her hair and makeup and I did mine in the bathroom. We took very short showers and washed our hair at night before bed, to maximize time. We made an agreement early on that nothing was going to dampen our excitement.

At our first meal, we sat down at a table with eight other people. Everyone introduced themselves. There were a few Americans, Brits and one couple from Australia. Then it was my turn.

“Aloo, I am Peggine from Pari. I am happy to meet you all,” I said in my best Maurice Chevalier voice. I’ve seen Gigi about 100 times.

Gloria was dumbfounded. She looked at me with bulging confused eyes and just said “Gloria,” and waved with a blank expression.

All through dinner, I kept it up. Luckily none of them had ever been to Paris. Neither had I. But as a movie buff, I described ever scene I ever saw from Gigi, Charade, Moulin Rouge and An American in Paris. I talked like a native. No one would have ever known, except a Parisian, of course.

People asked me questions and complimented my accent. It was like holding court. I had an absolute blast. But poor Gloria, she kept looking at me bewildered panic.

After everyone left the table, she glared at me.

“Wasn’t that fun?” I chuckled.

“Not for me. What was that all about?” she demanded.

“I saw a TV show where they pretended to be somebody else for the whole cruise. And when everyone was introducing themselves, suddenly it hit me. I don’t want to be just plain Peg from retirement community Florida. And before I knew it, Peggine came out of my mouth,” I explained.

“Well, that’s interesting. But I wish I would have known, I felt stupid just sitting there thinking I was going to have to commit you to the looney bin,” she said relieved.

“Why don’t you do it too? You saw what happened. People treated me like a queen. And since we don’t eat with the same people or even see any of these people again, what’s the harm?” I said.

“It sounds like fun, but I could never do an accent like that,” she giggled.

I thought about it for a few minutes and then I had an idea.

“What if you had a unique occupation, something really out there. What do you know enough about to fake?” I said.

She looked at me in silence for the longest time and then her eyes brightened in excitement.

“I love Indiana Jones movies, what if I said I was an archaeologist?” she said.

“That works, but remember you have to sell it. And make sure not to bring it up until they tell you what they do, so you don’t get caught,” I warned.

And for the rest of the cruise, the French Peggine and the archaeologist Gloria delighted our fellow passengers with our made-up escapades and interesting tales.

It was amazing. Gloria spun such incredible yarns. People treated us like celebrities. Everyone we met smiled and waved to us anywhere they saw us on the ship.

Keeping up the pretense was a lot of work, you had to stay on your toes, but it was worth it. We were having the time of our lives. No more boring retired ladies from Florida whose husbands were too stuck in their ways to travel. We were internationalists.

The real test came when the ship landed in Paris. I knew I would be revealed as an imposter if I tried my fake French accent to actual Parisians, so we went off on our own to explore everything. We would have done that anyway, so no harm, no foul.

We walked up and down the streets of Paris, gawking at the expensive fashions in the store windows, marveled at the Eiffel Tower and did everything a tourist would do. Then we sat at a street café and had some French wine and pastries for a treat. It was wonderful. Until someone we met on the ship found us. It was an American lady from Georgia who we ate dinner with on the first night.

“Oh look, there’s Peggine. She’ll help us,” the Georgian said.

Gloria and I stared at each other in panic. We were caught.

“Peggine, this French waiter can’t understand a cotton picken word we say. We just want some of their stinky cheese and some decent wine and make sure they give us French bread. Can you tell him please?” she explained, quite loudly.

If I wasn’t so terrified to be trapped in my own web of lies, I would’ve laughed. If someone from another country comes to America, we immediately shame them for not communicating with us in our language. And yet when we travel, we chastise others for not understanding us, insisting they should know our language too. After all, we are in their country. And what kind of bread did she think they served in France anyway?

I saw the look on the waiter’s face, pleading for help as if to say “please get these ridiculous Americans away from me.”

Luckily, even though I was guilty of perpetuating a false rouse, I was not one of those Americans. I brushed up some on my high school French before the trip. It wasn’t perfect, but I hoped to get by. So in my best fake French accent, I asked the waiter for wine, cheese and bread and held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t out me.

“Oui madam,” he smiled and left.

“Oh thank you. You’d think with all the American and British tourists, they would understand English.” She said and gratefully, they went back to their table.

Gloria and I sighed in relief. We were almost finished, so we quickly gobbled our remaining bites and sips, paid the bill and walked away as fast as we could.

“I can’t believe we got away with that,” Gloria said surprised.

“I know, I’m not sure if I was that convincing or if he was that desperate to get rid of them. I wonder?” I said.

Trying out my theory, I used my newfound high school French and my fake accent for the rest of the day. We both noticed a difference in the way we were treated by the Parisians. They were fine before, but now they were friendlier and more accommodating and cordial. It was amazing.

I knew they didn’t believe I was French. In fact, I made quite a few mistakes. But I guess they deal with a lot of people like our fellow Georgian passenger so often, they were appreciative of the effort.

All in all, the vacation was eye opening and enjoyable in so many ways. Gloria and I are planning a visit to Australia soon. We’re trying to figure out who we want to be. This time we’re going to plan in advance, study and look the part. Pretending makes the journey so much more memorable.

A View to Murder

It was a horrific sight. While having a Martini Monday happy hour chat with her friend Ramona, Carol and her friend’s laughter quickly faded to screams.

Ramona’s husband was difficult, to be generous. He was the star football player she swooned over in high school and they married young. But during her medical school training, she slowly realized that his bruised ego would never accept her intellect or success.

“He always tells me what to do. Even when it comes to medicine, he actually thinks he knows more than me. I guess he reached his peak in high school and can’t deal with me eclipsing him,” Ramona confided to Carol.

Over the years, Carol saw their relationship deteriorate through Ramona’s accounts and with her own eyes. Arguments, snide remarks, it was a battle of wills with no winner. Until that day.

Ramona’s husband Jeff came into the room, interrupting Martini Monday.

“Where’s dinner? I work hard and want my dinner when I get home,” he barked.

“Great—make it or buy it. I’m drinking my dinner,” she laughed sarcastically without looking at him.

But Carol saw his eyes turn red with seething pent up rage. He went over the cabinet and grabbed a heavy cast iron pan and slammed down on the table in front of her, shattering her martini glass. Shards of glass flew everywhere and one landed in Carol’s arm. It was a small piece of glass, but it broke the skin as dribbles of blood coursed down to her elbow.

Ramona’s face turned purple.

“That’s it. I’ve had enough of you,” Ramona screamed, picked up the cast iron pan and crashed it on top of his head with all her might, knocking him to the floor.

Carol stood there in shock and horror.

“Oh my god! Is he dead?” she said, panting in terror.

Ramona remained silent with the pan still clutched in her grasp.

“Ramona!” Carol yelled.

Leaning down, Ramona checked his pulse and looked at Carol.

“He’s dead,” she said devoid of emotion.

“Dead? What? Oh. No,” Carol said near hyperventilation, while Ramona pensively stared down at her dead husband.

“Don’t worry, I know what to do,” she said coldly and calmly retrieved her medical bag.

While Carol stared in confused terror, Ramona cut scratches on his arms and leg, tore some of his clothing and bandaged his head.

“Help me get him into bed,” Ramona smiled.

Carol helped her get him into bed, but she was puzzled at the reason. She said he was dead.

“Just forget about this. Now let me patch up your arm,” Ramona grinned at her with wide eyes and squeezed Carol’s hand.

She sat holding her fear while Ramona removed the glass, stopped the bleeding, cleaned and wrapped the wound with steadfast proficiency.

“Thanks. I better go now,” Carol mustered a fake composure and walked out the door. But as soon as she was on the other side, she ran to her car and quickly drove away sobbing and frightened.

She couldn’t report this or Ramona would know. But how could she witness a murder and say nothing?

Two days went by and Carol was a complete wreck. Her emotions on the edge of a precipice, she walked on eggshells waiting to hear something, anything.

She tried to maintain her daily routine and went to her weekly club bridge game. As soon as she entered the room, she heard the buzzing of the busybody bees rumor mill.

“It’s just awful,” one said.

“Can you believe he died,” another remarked.

She walked through the room listening but avoid anyone’s gaze, wondering if Ramona confessed.

When she reached her foursome, they were discussing Jeff.

“Did you hear about Jeff?” Barbara asked the others.

“Just goes to show, you need to let the professionals handle these things,” Margaret said.

Carol was confused, as she was for much of the last 48 hours.

“What do you mean professionals?” Carol asked.

“Oh you didn’t hear? Jeff was trying to trim the tall palm tree in the front of their house and fell off the ladder into a bush below and cracked his head open on a rock. He’s dead,” Janet explained.

“I heard Ramona just thought he had a concussion, but he died in bed of a brain bleed. There was no way to know, even for a doctor.” Barbara added.

Carol’s eyes widened. Everything she saw and knew immediately raced through her head, trying to piece it all together. Ramona made cuts to look like he fell in the bush and then told everyone it was an accident. At first, she admired the cleverness of her scheme. She knew what to do and thought of everything to get away with it. He was always fussing with the landscaping, a lot of men did, so the story was completely believable.

Carol fumbled through the card game and went home. She turned on the TV so the noise would drown out her worry, but she couldn’t help thinking about it. If Ramona got away with it, was she in the clear? If you witness a crime and don’t say anything, does that make you an accomplice? The only thing she did was help her move him.

“I helped her move him!” Carol gasped. “I am an accomplice.”

Days went by with difficulty as her mind’s picture of the attack haunted Carol. She couldn’t sleep or eat as the images kept appearing before her eyes. Then she felt sick and soon found herself in the hospital.

The doctors told her she was suffering from an infection from the glass wound and put her on a course of antibiotics.

“You need to remember to disinfect wounds like this. I’m glad we caught it. This could have been much worse if left unattended,” the doctor explained.

The doctor’s words “infected wound” rang in Carol’s ears.

She thought Ramona took care of it. Did Ramona do it on purpose to remove any threats to her coverup?

No, Carol thought. Ramona wouldn’t hurt her. This was a justified crime of passion and he pushed her too far. He was a horrible person.

The more she thought, the more paranoid Carol became. Sitting alone in the hospital, she created fanciful and dastardly scenarios pegging Ramona as a criminal mastermind pent on cleansing her trail. She became so harried with pale skin and skyrocketing blood pressure, the doctor ordered some sleeping pills to induce rest.

As she awoke in a groggy state part in and out of consciousness, she saw Ramona standing over her, calmly smiling.

“Everything’s going to be fine. I know just what to do,” Ramona said and Carol slipped back into unconsciousness.

The next morning, Carol was found dead in her hospital bed.

“The infection must have been worse than we thought and caused multi-organ failure. Her diabetes and age were contributing factors. At least she didn’t suffer,” the doctor told the nurse.

Memorial Day from the Heart

I was too young to understand the Vietnam war. I learned about it in school and watched movies about the pain and severity of war from all angles, both during and after. But it was a 30,000 foot view, to quote a pilot friend of mine.

Last year, I helped a friend write a musical play based on his music and memoir of Vietnam. As I read his stories, I empathized with his journey and those of the others he joined. It was my job to extract a story from the stories, to fit into a musical format.

How do you tell a story about war that doesn’t make the audience want to run screaming from the theatre at intermission for relief or drown in a pool of tears? Two playwrights before me couldn’t find a path. But after many discussions, re-reading the memoir and listening to the music on a continual loop, it all came together in my mind. Tell a story about the people… in this case the different men who were thrown together to collectively sleep, eat, fight, laugh, cry, live or die.

The people he served with had unique stories. Some were from poor or rich families, big cities or small towns, high or low intelligence. Answering the call, some signed up and others were drafted. The war affected them all in different ways, during and after. And there were those who didn’t come home, leaving behind wives, children, parents or siblings to find a path forward without them.

The heart of the story is about those individuals the brotherhood immediately created under very extreme conditions. Writing their words was like virtually stepping into their boots, feeling and understanding their thoughts and actions.

Experiencing it performed on stage by young men, who barely knew what the war was, gave a new deep and cathartic understanding of the spirit of lives lived and others unfinished.

As for me, Memorial Day and Veterans Day are forever changed. I no longer see historical conflicts in the pages of a textbook or a documentary. I don’t see the ravages and aftermath shown in some movies about the war. I see the hearts of the individuals who served.

For many who were there, these stories go untold because of the pain of remembrance. But if any are willing to tell, I hope the generations who follow will listen. Not about the skirmishes, the points on the map, political maneuvers or battles, but about the heart and soul of the people who lived it, on behalf of themselves and those who didn’t survive.

On this Memorial Day, I remember the men and women who gave of themselves, despite the reason or rhyme. Their journey deserves reverence and honor, not only for their service, but in dedication to the memory of who they were, heart, soul, mind and body.

Check Yourself

Jennifer’s world was getting too hard to live in. Day after day, the state of life’s problems were too much burden to bear. Lying awake every night staring at the ceiling, her mind raced. When she came to work one day wearing a suit jacket and pajama pants, clutching the coffee pot like a lifeline, a friend offered her a CBD gummy to help her sleep. “Take half at first and then if it doesn’t work after a few hours, take the other half,” her friend Candice said. Jennifer took the small cellophane bag and put it in her purse, forgetting about it. When it was bedtime, she put the gummy bag on her nightstand and prepared for bed. She brushed her teeth and stared at it. She put on her pajamas and stared at it. She turned on late night TV and stared at the gummy bag again. She couldn’t get it out of her mind. There it was, the magical sleeping potion. It all seemed too absurd. “How can this piece of candy put me to sleep?” she chuckled with disbelief and put it down. Three hours later with no indication of tiredness, she changed her mind and picked up the bag. “It seems harmless. After all, it looks like candy. How bad could it be?” Jennifer said. In one gulp, she swallowed the gummy whole and laid down in bed waiting for its effects. Within thirty minutes, she began to feel light, like the weight of her body was gone. Slowly waving her arms around bewildered, she drew figure 8’s in the air with her fingers. “I can move, but I can’t feel anything. Is this supposed to happen?” she wondered in calm amazement. Then she smiled as she began to see objects in front of her. “Oh look, there’s a tree, but it looks like a cartoon. And there’s a purple dragon with big blue eyes and long black eyelashes sitting on the tree. In the sky, there’s a rainbow and a white unicorn with a pink horn riding down it like a slide.” Suddenly Jennifer sat up and shook her head. “Wait, dragons and unicorns aren’t real. Am I dreaming? Or maybe I’m hallucinating. I need to check myself and get my head clear,” she said getting out of bed. Jennifer walked to the kitchen to get some water, but the endless hallway didn’t lead anywhere. Confused, but unannoyed, she curiously put her arms out and waved them in front of her feeling no walls on any side. “I’m not getting anywhere, it’s like an infinite loop,” she said, turned back around and went back into bed, fearing she’d injure herself. She laid down in bed and closed her eyes tight while pulling the covers up to her chin. “I’m just going to lay still and drift off to sleep,” she said. Then she heard the song Dancing Queen and pictured herself floating in the stars wearing elevated platform shoes and a shiny gold jumper with blue-colored glasses on her face. As the music got louder, she shook her head again. “I need to check myself, again,” she said with a puzzled look. She opened her eyes and looked around the room. A hint of daylight was seeping on the side of her blackout curtains, when she saw her phone light up on the night table next to her and picked it up. “Where are you? You didn’t show up at work,” the caller’s voice said. “Candice? What do you mean? What time is it?” Jennifer asked rubbing her eyes. “It’s noon!” Candice shouted. “Noon?” Jennifer said looking at the time on her phone. “I slept for twelve hours. Wow, that gummy really packed a punch. I’ll be there right away.” “Never mind, I’ll tell them you’re sick,” Candice said. “At least you have the other half to sleep again tonight.” “Well…not exactly,” Jennifer said. “No wonder you slept so long,” Candice laughed. “I thought it wasn’t going to do anything. Boy I was wrong. I saw the craziest things. I’ll never call it candy again,” Jennifer said.

Weird, Wild and Wonderful

I love to travel to Key West. It’s an eclectic place that fosters the last bastion of true bohemianism. It’s weird, wild and wonderful.

Every bar looks as though either Jimmy Buffet or a pirate are the proprietors. Dogs sit inside beside their owners on a stool with a bowl of water. They are all open and breezy without any doors, polish or pretense.

They all have unique character and a story to tell. Some have antiques from boats long gone, sharks’ teeth or stuffed fish. Another is decorated wall to wall with dollar bills tacked up at random from patrons over many decades, with their signature.

But true to its laid back reputation, most of the bars are “take them or leave them,” your choice. While looking around, I once moved to a different table after observing cakes of dust built up on the ceiling fan above. It definitely deterred me from eating there, but alcohol kills everything, right?

On a pub crawl, a guide took us to many of the bars in the downtown area and regaled us with tales of murder, mayhem and debauchery, as well as a few ghosts who linger in their old watering-hole haunts.

Many accounts of the drinking prowess of one world famous classic author, Ernest Hemingway, are told in several bars. My favorite is the one where in the middle of the night, the original owner of Captain Tony’s told Papa H, his most loyal customer, that his landlord raised his rent, so he had to move to a new location down the street, now called Sloppy Joes. In a drunken escapade, Tony and Ernest and a few others moved everything in the middle of the night from the one location to the other, to stick it to the landlord. Hemingway took his favorite urinal, so he single-handedly pulled it off the wall to relocate it.

And in these bars, you can take your drink to go, as long as it is not in a glass cup. Was it legal? No, but as I was told by one barkeep.

“We just follow our own path here. We don’t really pay attention to rules.”

That always summed up Key West to me in a nutshell. They march to their own drummer.

Walking down Duvall Street, you can find small shops with the usual tourist trinkets and printed t-shirts, but you can also find any number of artisans and their works for sale. They weren’t in a shiny gallery or shop, the works laid on the pavement, a chair or on anything to prop up and display. The art spoke for itself and need fancy packaging. The artists didn’t care about commerce or bottom line. They just wanted to do their thing and if they got money for it – great.

At any given time, you can see someone in a Superman cape and tights or any other Halloween costume. No special occasion, it’s what they chose to wear that day. And many people don’t even wear shoes, even inside the restaurants, shops and bars.

On one stroll, I saw a man with a lime green and yellow boa constrictor looped around his neck, just hanging there like a long necklace that hit the ground. It was his pet and he was just taking it to do some shopping. No big deal. Nothing odd to see.

Although, my husband, who is deadly afraid of snakes, would disagree as he made sure to conveniently jockey position to switch with me, so when we passed the snake, I was the one walking next to it.

Of course, there are the typical tourist spots for fun in the sun, boating and fishing, like most tropical places. But in Key West, there are also old buildings and architecture to see, some cared for, some not. But again, it’s non conformist and noncommercial, although most houses cost a cool million to own. And you can see Hemingway’s house, a random lighthouse with eighty-eight steps to the top and a museum where they unearthed treasure from a Spanish galleon beneath the sea.

Any number of walk-up outdoor counters serve conch fritters, gator and even shark. No four-star restaurants, just wrapped in a paper cone to taste on the go – sometimes with a frosty adult beverage in tow.

Like the bartender said, Key West is a place that made its own rules.

Each time I go, it seems different, weirder and more wonderful. But now that’s starting to change. There are less artisans on the main drag, less interesting costumed people on the street and with the Hard Rock restaurant and bar, corporate commercialism is starting to seep in. Although part of that restaurant is located in an old and somewhat haunted building, so there’s that.

Even Jimmy Buffet, the personification of an easy breezy beach lifestyle, has gone corporate with his Margaritaville bar and restaurant spilling over into a “hospitality company” with resorts and hotels. I guess nothing stays uncommercialized forever.

I still believe the essence of Key West lives, but I just hope it stays that way. We need weird, wild and wonderful places just to ensure that bohemia and a lifestyle of “just go with it” never dies.