After I retired, I occasionally visited the library where I had worked and while there saw one of the mentally challenged boys who often came to our library.
He almost cried when he saw me and told me that I was the only person there who had treated him like a real person. (He was afraid that I had died , because he didn't see me there anymore.)
Another example of how librarians get the right books to the right person.
People were talking about making their Thanksgiving mashed potatoes mixed with horseradish. Which reminded me of my adventures with gardening.
When I had a garden, I grew horseradish. OMG - that's a big plant. Ground it up to season things.
Another year I planted white radishes because I liked to buy white French radishes at the farmer's market. Well. The seeds they sell you for white radishes make huge things. about a foot long and three inches in diameter at the top. It turns out they were oriental radishes, so I gave them to some asian friends who knew exactly how to prepare them.
And - a Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
C.W. Bowie is the pen name of three writers. (no room on a book spine for all of our names, therefore we created C.W. Bowie. )
C is Claudine Wirths. W is me.
And the third part - Bowie- is a shortened version of Mary Bowman-Kruhm's name.
Together we wrote the picture books - Busy Toes and the companion book - Busy Fingers.
We had a lot of fun creating those books. It was in the mid- 1990s and the internet was in its infancy, but we kept sending the manuscripts back and forth by this new thing called email.
I had met one of them on a computer bulletin board that was using GE's computers at night, because at that point, businesses stopped using their computers when everyone went home, so someone got permission to use it and called the internet bulletin Board - GEnie - and off we went. Many, many different subject areas. My husband was in an antique auto group and discovered there was a writer's group there (several of them) and he got me into that group and I met so many other writers, famous and not. I met Claudine there and she introduced me to AOL and the writer's boards there so I could meet her writing partner, Mary, and off we three went, writing together.
Other people can type with long fingernails. not me.
I grew up in the era of short fingernails, well kept, was what you did. Also I grew up with typewriters.
So when fingernails get annoying, I crop them short again.
My husband gently complained when his life bumped up with my writer life.
-- When I got up in the middle of the night to write down a thought and the light woke him up. (Go back to sleep!)
-- later on when I got up in the middle of the night to type a thought/ scene into my computer, which was 10 feet from where we were sleeping. (Go back to sleep!)
-- when he ran upstairs to tell me something / disaster had happened and I stopped him and refused to listen until I completed the story that had just come to me. (you can't microwave eggs because they burst) (That PB story, much revised, sold a few years later.)
Mental math. I just realized it's been about 20 years since my last book was published.
What else happened about 20 years ago? Publishers closed their doors to submissions from writers and decided to only consider submissions from agents. Since there are not enough agents for all the writers out there, many writers no longer can get published. Even those who have won awards and had excellent reviews.
Lucky for me, many of my books are still in print, but over 20 years is a long time for books to be in print and more and more of them go out of print each year.
Beware of parking in the shade. two examples:
1- I went to a writer's retreat on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Decided to park in the shade of a tree. Looking forward to lots of walks by the water which were cancelled because it rained all weekend. Not to worry. Rain will wash my car. Well, maybe it did, and the sun came out the morning we were leaving. So I packed up and went to my car to discover it covered -- really covered -- with bird droppings. Guess who took shelter from the rain in that tree? I managed to scrape some of it off my windows so that I could drive to a gas station and wash my windows so that I could drive the 3 hours home.In high school in the 1950s, the only meeting I had with the high school counselor was about what types of jobs I wanted after graduation. Every single job I was interested in, the counselor told me was only for boys and men/ no girls or women allowed.
So my mom said I should train for secretarial work. (notably a woman's job) I agreed, but only if I could do it at a Junior College. (now called community college).
After one year of that, I transferred to the academic course and went on to the state university, working part time with my secretarial skills eventually using one of the world's first word processor - IBM MT/ST (Magnetic Tape/Selectric Typewriter).
Soon afterwards companies began putting computers onto executive's desks and fired the secretarial pool. Those poor (mostly men) suddenly found that they had to do their own typing, not just throw a scribbled pack of paper at the secretarial pool for them to figure out and type up. (yes, I laughed at this)
Eventually I could type almost as fast as people talked, so in later years I was always asked to take the notes of any meeting I attended. (which got me in trouble when I quoted a higher up and she complained, claiming she never said those words. (sorry, she did and I had typed them as she spoke them)
My typing skills also came in handy when I began writing books, eventually having 45 published books. (most of which are out of print now, but some are still available - Yay!)
I keep finding pennies and yes I still pick them up and used them.
One cashier intended NOT to give me the pennies part of my change and I insisted on getting it , because I grew up when pennies meant something. (penny candy for one) Cashiers these days really aren't trained how to handle real money. They just want to shove a black box at us for a credit card, not realizing or caring that the place has had to raise prices because credit card companies charge stores for each time a customer uses one.
Also, why is there no constancy about those credit card boxes. Tap here.
WHERE?
one box says - over here on the left side of the keypad. Another box wants you to tap the screen. Another box wants you to keep your card flat on the screen for a while, until the cashier does something on their register while others want you to quickly tap and lift it off. I just shake my grey hair head and pretend that all that stuff is confusing to me.
(actually it is confusing to everybody, but I have a senior excuse 
)
People on FB are talking about their first day at college, so here's mine:
We drove across the state to the college in daylight with the car packed to the gills with everything I thought I needed plus everything my parents thought I needed, plus everything my grandmother thought I needed. The parents sat in front of the car. There was a tiny bit of room left in the back seat for me and my legs.
I was fine. I was excited. It was wonderful to get away from all my siblings.
They helped me unload and set up my room. (my half of the room.) Then my mom tried to tell me things / give me advice. My dad stopped her saying, "If she hasn't learned everything she needs to know by now, you trying to tell her everything in the next 10 minutes won't cover it," and he gently turned her away and they got in the car and left.
I was FREE! No longer responsible for three other kids. Free to be just me. (If only I could figure out who/ what 'me' was.)
In years of yore, I was the person who applied for our credit cards and I was the one who used them to purchase things. Now, the application did have a space to put husband's name as well as mine, so yes I filled that part out. I'm a rule follower.
So the time came when my husband died.
Some of my credit cards continued to recognize me as a valid user of said card, but not Macys. I don't know how a department store learned that my husband was dead, but Macys also declared ME dead and refused the validity of my card. So -- I destroyed the card and only used my generic Visa there. Every time I buy something the poor cashier (as required) asks me if I want to apply for a store card and every time I have to tell them that Macys thinks I'm dead. Truly they do. When they first took the card from me and I tried to reapply as a single card owner, the powers that be refused my application because their credit check said I was dead. I think that somehow my social security number was mixed up with his in their files and therefore if the computer says that I'm dead, that's it.
When I had a toddler - who wanted to pound on my keyboard when I was writing, my husband brought home a used keyboard from my workplace and so I set the toddler up beside me., on the floor, 'typing' on her own keyboard while I sat at the real keyboard, writing.
And everyone was happy.
Every day I take a one mile walk (as measured by my iPhone. )
Every summer I spend days in the pool swimming 12 laps - backstroke and side stroke.
And yet. Two days ago I finally got into the pool to begin my summer swimming. Only swam 6 laps. And yesterday I couldn't' walk anywhere without a cane. (usually it's just an outside thing and I walk inside my house just fine.) (usually it's just one leg, but yesterday and today it's both legs - and not just a muscle problem because of swimming. I've never had a problem with swimming before, ever.) The rules have changed again. grrrrr.
on the plus side - the pool was warmer than usual - nice.
And don't get me started about spiders in my car. What is it about me that they are sneaky and bite me? Am I a tasty treat to them? Plus - I can't find them but occasionally do see webs. They must be tiny, tiny, tiny.
When we moved, I took several things along with me that my mother in law had used to extend her reach.
A Grabber.
A folding three step stool.
A folding five step ladder with extended piping above it so you can hang onto it and balance while reaching for high things.
All of which I use constantly.
And there's this memory:
There's something about going through college with your best friend and marrying right after graduation.
Although, one of my children was very disappointed with us. "all of my friends have several parents and lots of brothers and sisters and half brothers and sisters and.... and you're still married to the same person?"
Well, that's another way I failed my child.
Another ALA experience last weekend:
The lines were so long for the various author signings that I didn't know which line was for what book, so I probably missed a lot of good experiences.
On the other hand, I was just standing by an empty table talking to someone and the publisher staff asked if we were in line. We looked at each other and asked, "what line." When the staff member explained who would be signing at that table we nodded and told her that 'sure. We'll be in line" (we were first in line for Dan Santat !!!)
My grandson will love that book.
L ong ago, when we lived in Towanda, PA, my mother let me walk home by myself from kindergarten, so a friend and I took a shortcut that was an hour longer than our regular walk.
We hiked through alleys and people's back yards. We collected empty pop bottles and turned them into the corner store for two cents each. (considering that recycling plastic bottles these days only earns us a dime, that sort of income stream hasn't risen much.)
Yes, mom did panic when we didn't show up on time and forbade us to ever take THAT shortcut again.
We don't forget those teachers who believed in us. But we do forget to go back and tell them so. By the time I decided to find my sophomore high school teacher (who thought I was a good writer) to show her some of the many books I had written that got published, I couldn't find her. She's probably long dead.
Mrs. Schroeder who taught at Parkersburg High School, I'll never forget you.
June 20th was my birthday.
It was wonderful.
My sister and her husband (who live in Ohio) came to visit which was great. The whole west coast family took us to my favorite Japanese restaurant - where you sit around a flat stove and a chef cooks everything right in front of you , while making funny statements. Made us laugh a lot. There were some of those restaurants in around Baltimore when I lived there.
We walked on the beach and ate at a Mexican restaurant, too.
Since she's a fine artist, she visited the art museums here as well.
I thought I was smart making an airplane reservation for 11:30 to get home from a writer's retreat. I was wrong.
Firstly, we had to catch the shuttle from the island near Washington State at 8 am, which meant that we'd miss breakfast. No problem - I had a breakfast bar.
Secondly the shuttle took a couple of hours to get to the Seattle airport, but it made it in time.
Thirdly, when I went to the desk that had a lovely HELP sign above it, when it was my turn to ask for help, they told me it was only for people who wanted to declare a gun !! not me.
Fourthly, they directed me to the actual help desk, where I explained that I was returning from a writer's retreat where they had no printer so I could't print out my plane ticket, but I did take a picture of the "ticket" that was supposed to have gone to my phone, but my iPhone was too old to accept it, so could they help me? They did. They printed out a ticket for me and checked my suitcase right there. NICE.
Fifthly, they directed me to walk to the END of the airport to access the correct security. So I walked and walked (almost got my mile walk in just doing this. :)
Sixthly, it turned out that at this point I was no where near my gate. I had to take a train to another building. No seats. Just clinging to a pole. Fine. I can do that. BUT, to get to the train I had to go down TWO escalators, because the elevator was closed. (at this point in my life, I get vertigo when I go down an escalator, so closing my eyes, I went down, down, down.
Seventhly, yes, I went up two escalators to get back up to the flight area. Only 9 gates. Mine was gate 9. Do you suppose that it was the first gate by the escalator? Nope. It was the last gate away. By this time I was wondering if I would even make it to the plane before it took off.
Eighthly, yes, I made it just as passengers were being loaded.
Ninthly, But I had planned to re-charge my cell phone while waiting for the plane to load, but no there was no time for that. Guess what? The phone charger near my seat was broken -- so I pulled out my back up book and read my way home.
(at least this time they were serving food and snacks on the trip back home)
Tenthly, Yes, I did have just enough charge left in my phone so that I could inform the shuttle that I had arrived at San Diego and he picked me up and took me home. Had a great conversation with him about the areas of San Diego we passed. (he took a short cut)
Also - me being in the college stage orchestra ( in the orchestra pit, of course) of The Music Man, and later being assistant to the light guy for several years which consisted of me running my finger along the Playscript so that he knew where they were in the action on the stage and he could pull the correct lights
I am the child who ran up mountains.
clutching the lunch my mother made.There used to be a group of writers who met periodically to hike near my area, so I joined them a few times.
Well ! We'd start out together, but zoom - that was the last I saw of them. Every so often someone would slow down and walk with me for a time, then go rejoin the fast group. I realized that I'd have to continue walking alone at my own pace. ( hint- I use a cane for long walks. I'm fine puttering around my house without a cane.)
Another memory of the 1940s.
I hiked a mountain at age 6. Tried to reach the top. never made it. Was ordered by mom to eat my packed lunch when the sun was overhead and then head back home. So I did, usually on a large rock in a sheep pasture. That was in the Appalachian mountains of PA, so the mountains were grassy or wooded all the way up. No impossible cliff faces like in the western mountains. Yes, we all ran around a lot and only came home when the streetlights came on. (twilight)
This was before my youngest sister was born. Don was the baby and taking up all of Mom's time. Sandy a preschooler. We lived in Monroeton, PA and kids just roamed because parents were busy with other things or other children. They trusted us to have good sense and an instinct for danger and we usually proved them right. (I bugged her for some time before she let me go hike the mountain. And then it became something that I did, by myself, in the summertime. )
A few years before that when we lived in Towanda, she let me walk home by myself from kindergarten, so a friend and I took a shortcut that was an hour longer than our regular walk. We hiked through alleys and people's back yards. We collected empty pop bottles and turned them into the corner store for two cents each. (considering that recycling plastic bottles these days only earns us a dime, that sort of income stream hasn't risen much.) Yes, mom did panic when we didn't show up on time and forbade us to ever take THAT shortcut again. 🙂
Oh no! It's pouring rain, the people of Southern California say.
I look out my window. There's a slight sprinkle. That's a rainstorm?
(When a normal rain comes, They call it an Atmospheric River and people who bought houses near a stream or river are totally surprised when it overflows its banks. Or when it tumbles down a hillside, gathering stuff as it flows down.
Really? You thought that was a good place to build a house. -or buy one already build?)
People's attitude about water falling from the sky is so different here, where one-tenth of an inch is normal with a total of 7 - maybe 10 inches in a year. (I have never worn my raincoat here - didn't need it)
Compared to the 40-50+ inches a year on the east coast of the USA. So different.
My day job was being a children's librarian at a public library.
I was amused when a boy and his mother brought one of my books to the Information Desk and asked ME if the book was any good. (It was one of my biographies.)
I told them that it was well researched and it was a good read and that I knew the author, hoping that they would notice my name tag and make the connection, but no.
Memories: As I sat writing at my typewriter (yes, I'm that old) One of my kids handed me a piece of paper with a pumpkin drawing and many, many lines of scribble under it. She asked me to read her story to her.
(so I made up a story about a pumpkin that was sad he wasn't chosen by a child)
My names were 'new' names when I was born.
I was actually named after an aunt -- Lavinia Winifred -- but my parents changed it to Wendie Louise. I've suffered ever since. Believe it or not my parents were influenced by the story of Peter Pan, but probably thought the 'IE' part of the name might make it closer to Winifred.
All it did for me was to make sure that NOBODY could spell it. Wendy, Wendel, Wendi, Wende. I've had all of these show up. (It was especially fun for my 'friends' to call me Wendel the whole weekend we were at a conference together and THAT was how my nametag was printed out.)
I've had people accuse me of faking/ lying about being a published writer. They claimed they had looked me up on Amazon dot com. They (not noticing the spelling of my online name) addressed their message to Wendy in their accusation. Which made me laugh. They couldn't even READ the name on the header of the message they sent to me?
I answered with two words, "Spelling Counts!"
This morning (Marcy 26, 2024, very early in the morning, a cargo ship crashed into the very very tall (scary tall) Francis Scott Key bridge while trying to get out of the Baltimore Harbor. Which reminded me of the many times I have driven over that bridge. Also reminded me of that time.....
One day the family was going to go to my oldest's graduation from college - in southern Maryland.
So we packed two cars and off we go to drive from north of Baltimore city to St. Mary's City. My youngest drove my mother in law's car and went first. Then we (the rest of the family) took off. We arrived at St. Mary's City and where was my youngest and my mother in law? They arrived an hour later.
It turns out that neither of them could navigate. So - They got onto the Baltimore Beltway (696), took a right at I-95, went under the Baltimore Harbor through the tunnel, continued on I-95 until they reached the south part of the Baltimore Beltway (695). They immediately got onto 695 and soon found themselves driving over the very scary high Francis Key Bridge and suspected that they may have taken a wrong turn. Continued on 695 until they met I-95 again, so they then again headed south on I-95 and figured out that they needed to Not take the beltway again, but to take the road to Annapolis and then on to St. Mary's.
Students ask a lot of questions when writers visit schools, but some of them can knock you for a loop:
One student asked, "How can you write about history - it's soooo boring ! "
That one stumped me for a minute , mainly because I LOVE history.
I replied -- that I don't write about the boring stuff. I try my best to find 'fascinating facts' and do include those. For example, did you know that.... (and then pull out some of the weird and wonderful things I discovered while researching my books.)
When my husband retired and called about beginning social security, the gal on the phone was great.
Since he was retiring later than the required date at that time, she said he could take the slightly higher monthly amount for the rest of his life, or he could take the original amount and GET the extra money he would have gotten as one chunk of money. Knowing that he was dying (and should have died 5 years earlier, but he's stubborn and also had a grandchild to raise) he asked for the chunk. Which we immediately shoved into savings and used for years to help pay grandchild expenses.
Yes, he died a year and a half after retiring, (and I had retired a year ago to take care of him), so grandchild and I were able to use that money to move closer to my other children (across the country) plus other expenses.
Thank heavens for that a very nice SS lady. (I hear that nowadays they're not allowed to tell you about these various choices.)
In grad school, I knew we needed part time jobs to get through this course of study, so when I noticed that a downtown department store was expanding, I marched right into the HR and told them that I could see that they needed workers and that I was an experienced department store worker -- had worked several Christmases at one. It kind of took her aback, but she hired me.
When I asked about a job for my husband, (he didn't have sales experience but did have warehouse experience) she also hired him to work behind the scenes - maintenance and other stuff. By our second year , they promoted him to be head of a team of workers. Why? Because this was Kentucky in the 1960s and the other workers on his team were black, so they put the white guy in charge. In charge of much older, experienced men. Luckily, he was good at his job so the men already respected him, plus he was a good organizer and had been taking management courses so he was a good manager.
(After we graduated, in just a few years he became a branch manager and when computers were introduced he organized the first IT department there.)
In the 1950s high school meals were made in large batches from scratch, so when I knew they'd be serving my favorite meals, I'd join the volunteer students who helped serve and then I could eat as much of my favorite food as possible for free. (me- on the Academic track - got to know a lot of the kids on the commercial track that way. 🙂
They also pointed out that I could skip the last weeks of school before Christmas by joining their training classes that trained kids to work in stores during the Christmas rush. What's not to like? I got paid plus got the store discount to buy presents for my family. And I had a large family.)
And I used that training to work part time all throughout my college years, even in grad school.
Since I had a year of secretarial training my first year of college, I then had the skill to part-time join a typing pool and then was promoted to operate the very first IBM word processor - the MT/ST Machine.
MT/ST (Magnetic Tape/Selectric Typewriter), which connected the Selectric typewriter with a separate magnetic tape drive. Magnetic tape was the first reusable storage medium for typed information.
I have a traffic ticket. I happened to turn right on red -- which is legal in California - but got caught with a traffic camera.
Two things. The beginning of the pictures they captured showed me turning at 0 seconds, which means it was still yellow (also legal in California) AND the actual ticket sent to me showed NO money owed -- because it put my birth date at 2026. In other words, I was driving a car but I hadn't been born yet.
The person at the courthouse gave me my ticket back and told me that, if California hadn't contacted me with a bill in a year, I was home free.
(that year ends in a week - and I'm still waiting for a bill)
I was forced to take a secretarial course after high school. The only way my parents would let me to away to college (a Junior College/ now called community college) was if I promised to take something that I could use to get a JOB! So I did. Typing. shorthand. accounting and spreadsheets. (and chemistry, believe it or not- the male teacher hated having 'girls' in his chemistry class.)
Although I transferred to an academic track my second year there (without telling my parents), you know what? I've Always used those secretarial things. (except shorthand. forgot most of it)
Got a part time job working my way through college as a typist and also typed other student's papers.
Have used the accounting and spreadsheet knowledge all my life. Very helpful during the times I have to figure out IRS Income Tax reporting. (got my spreadsheets up on my computer right now, calculating my deductions and expenses because of being a writer)
And there I was, writing away, and suddenly a super talkative secondary character appeared. Now, I'm quiet and shy.
How was I going to write this 'different' character?
(first readers loved this character more than my they did my main character, so I did him right. But obviously the main character needed more work. How was she going to sparkle with that annoying secondary character around?)
My grad school wouldn't accept my undergraduate German language credit, so I had to take German again in grad school.
Easy peezy, right? nope. The teacher walked into the room talking in German and she wouldn't stop to translate. Instantly I was treading water there and had to work desperately hard to keep up in that class or else I'd not get my graduate degree.
We were living in college married housing and I told my husband (also a student) that for that semester, I wasn't doing any housework or cooking. It would be Study German All The Time for me. (yes, I passed. Whew!)
(Some years ago I had met my husband-to be in German class. He was great in languages, so his German credit was accepted by the grad school.)
I was in Junior College. (nowadays they are called community colleges and offer two years of college at a reduced rate). My mother insisted that I could only go if I learned a skill - so I signed up for the secretarial course, but took as many academic courses as I could.
In my English class, along with all the writing assignments (and typing other people's papers because I could type - yay Secretarial course), the teacher talked about choosing our profession. I had taken those tests that supposedly told you what profession I was suited for, but it came out vague, right on the line between MEN's professions and women's professions.
This professor talked about - if you liked this you'd be good at this profession and if you like that you'd be good at that profession, but if you were interested in EVERYTHING, you should be a librarian. Lightbulb moment. !!! I focused on becoming a librarian - working part time in the college typing pool because - Yay secretarial course.
I expected to live until 75. My husband died at age 69 - but he was sick for many years so 69 was a great milestone for him and I treasure the years I had with him. I'm now lots over 75 and yes, I give myself little pleasures. I moved west to live near my children. I completed a second master's degree - this time in writing. I fly once a year, so I treat myself to first class. I live - not at, but close to the beach and treat myself to walking on or near the beach several times a week. Got chased up onto the parking lot by a huge wave last week. A group of us ran from that wave and it was fun. When our family was younger , we couldn't afford to travel and stay in hotels/ motels, so our family brought our tent and we camped instead. By going to various conventions related to our work or to our outside interests, we got to see various parts of our country. I've seen the Mississippi several times, the Great arch at St. Louis, and the grand canyon -- all from the window of an airplane as I traveled to visit relatives. Got to see the Alamo (a disappointment - it's surrounded by city and smaller than expected) when visiting relatives in Texas. Drove to Florida, to see relatives, and enjoyed the bathtub warm Gulf of Mexico. I've been to both Disneyland and Walt Disney World. (never enough time to see everything, tho) I've lived in the Appalachian mountains and have visited the Rockies. (I've lived in 5 states.) I've enjoyed playing in various orchestras, including a community orchestra made up of performers of all ages, where I sat next to a guy who became part of the rock group, Chicago. Two guys proposed to me right after they tasted the pumpkin pie that I made. One of them proposed simply because he realized I could cook. 🙂 I told them both that I was determined to get a college degree before I got married. (got married to a different guy and we both went to grad school together, which was fun.)
