In remembrance of my father

On Father's Day and Memorial Day I've posted about my father who was a P-51 pilot in World War II. He flew bomber support missions out of Iwo Jima and never returned after his flight encountered a tropical storm that grew into a typhoon.

Recently, I saw an advertisement to ride in a P-51. I had worked ten years in the factory where the P-51 was built (the F86 and F100 as well), and it was the plane my father flew, so I jump at opportunity. I wanted to share an experience with my father. A very fun and memorable ride.

 

North American Aviation Factory Where I worked for 10 Years

P-51 Production Line

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to All ... Everyone Have a Great 2019

Christmas is great. Lots of family, friends, and good cheer. And for dessert, we leave for San Diego on the 27th for more family and friends and hopefully, lots of surfing. (I'll let you know if I can still catch waves.) We stay in California for the winter and won't return until we see a no-snow forecast for thirty days. 

I always get more writing done in San Diego because I have less distractions. I surf in the morning and have the rest of the day free. I need to focus on No Peace, A Steve Dancy Tale. I'm excited about the story which takes place a couple years after Crossing the Animas ended with Steve and Virginia getting married. It's been a happy two years for the Dancys, but as the title implies, tranquility is coming to an end. Boy, that's an understatement. 

Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters.

Anyway, if you've read all six books in the series, consider Deluge to fill the time until No Peace hits the bookshelves. 

Storms, politics, and gangs pummel California ... but that isn't the scary part.
A Santa Barbara police chief and a history professor risk everything to salvage their state from near-total destruction. While others run in terror or rush into danger to exploit the tragedy, Greg Evarts and Patricia Baldwin fight for the only action that can save California and avoid a national economic collapse.

Will anyone listen?

I mentioned in my last post that my twelve year-old granddaughter wrote a great short story that received a 100% in her writing class. I published it with Amazon and she will get paperback copies as a surprise Christmas gift. Here Lies Revenge is now available in print and Kindle versions. Man, I wish I had started that early.

 A scary story that will make you think twice before offending the odd girl in school

Road Trip From Seattle to Omaha

My sister lives in Long Beach, California and my brother in Kailua, Hawaii. I live mostly in Omaha, Nebraska, but spend winters in San Diego, California. We managed to get together at least once a year, usually in San Diego and Long Beach. This year, my brother-in-law talked us into a road trip. I'm glad he did.

Since he and my sister would be in Washington visiting his family, my brother and I decided to fly to Seattle and do a road trip to Omaha. After seeing our itinerary, my wife decided to join us, making five in one car. In those kind of close quarters, you need to get along.

Great trip. (If you're into family movies, here's a video recorded for posterity.) We traveled through Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska. Actually, my wife and I traveled through those states, but we chose to remain at home while the remainder of our crew drove back to California.

This is a big and beautiful country. If you haven't leisurely traveled the northwest, put it on your bucket list.

Vacation Packing Made Simple

Bass Lake, California

When we were younger, we took a family vacation each year to Bass Lake, California. Since we camped, packing was easy; swimming suits and tee shirts for the most part. Our days revolved around fishing, jet skiing, swimming, preparing meals, eating, and reading.  A lot of reading. We would haul sand chairs to the water's edge and read between dips in the lake. Both my wife and I were voracious readers, so we needed at least eight books for the ten day trip. In fact, buying books was the only difficult element of preparing for our outings.

In that bygone day, books were hardbound or paperback. Since we often read while floating on rafts, we took paperbacks. (Actually, in the early days of our marriage, we could only afford paperbacks.) We were frugal, so we wanted books we could share. That made book shopping difficult because we each had an absolute veto. Weeks before loading up the car, we would shop for paperbacks. Eventually, we had a large enough supply we would never have to pay the outrageous prices at one of the two stores on the south side of the lake. (They also had a crummy selection.)

After we finished a book, we would tell each other one of three things:

1. It was good.
2. Bad book.
3. I didn't care for it, but you might like it.

Occasionally we read the same book at the same time. This required one of us to rip pages out and hand them over as soon as we finished with them. I can tell you from experience that it's hard to get lost in a story when your wife is making little circling motions with her index finger. This is why we never wanted to be caught short of books.

What brings this all to mind is that we just returned from a month-long trip to Nebraska. We are moving there and needed to get a few things prepared at that end. We made the trip a little longer than needed to see our grandkids ... and their parents, of course. We arrived back in Arizona last night and brought along a medium-sized library. We both still read, trade books, and even discuss which to buy. The difference is that my wife brought her dozens of books in her purse and I carried mine in my palm. We even bought books in the cab on the way to the airport. I still like to read a physical book, but our Kindles have sure made packing easy. 

Now, if I could just figure out a way to digitally pack meds.

Surf Vacation Over ... Wish April Was Over

My brother and sister and their spouses spent the week with us in San Diego. We talked, surfed, visited museums, dined out, cooked in, and drank a bit. We had a few days of good surf and a few mediocre days. It didn't matter ... I was almost always mediocre. It was a great time, but now we are back in Arizona facing a horrific April.

I’m usually early in tax filing, but this year I was so anxious to get The Return into editing that I have barely gathered up my records. We are also moving to Nebraska from Arizona, so there are real estate deals to close in both states, financing to get done, and twenty-two years of stuff to wade through to figure out what to move. Oh yeah, I’m also supposed to make a movie of our 2012 Christmas holidays with our families. If I don’t get it done before we move, I may see snow on the ground in Omaha before I get around to it.

The one bright spot is that I have a week scheduled in Nevada to research the next Steve Dancy Tale. That will give me a break from all the numbers and forms: taxes and financing and closings and bills. If I get too stressed out, I’ll start the next Dancy novel and escape to 1880.

Books are a perfect gift ... and a great way to avoid the crowds

At times, friends and relatives can be hard to buy for. Some seem to have everything. Due to age or illness, others may be less mobile than in years past. Some don’t really want much. Families scatter across this huge country and selecting a gift, packaging, and shipping can be a chore.

A book, however, is always a great gift … especially if you take the time to match their taste in fiction or nonfiction special interest. Suddenly, your thoughtfulness becomes part of the gift. Whether your relatives or friends are interested in the Civil War, literature, romance novels, Westerns, paranormal fiction, railroads, guns, cooking, collecting old comic books, antique automobiles, or anything else, there's always a book that will bring a smile to their face.

Books are the best entertainment value. They provide hour after hour of personal pleasure, and then they can be passed on to another person. When I give a book as a gift, I  write a personal note inside that won't get tossed out like last year's Christmas card.

Children's books are great gifts. We search for autographed storybooks for our grandkids. Local bookstores always have children book promotions around the holidays, and this is one area where we actually like to join the crowd. A great find is when the author and the illustrator both sign the book. We've done this for several years, so now our grandkids' bedrooms have dedicated shelves for signed books. The icing on the cake is we get to read them a story from one of these books whenever we visit.

Here are Amazon links to bestselling books in a few categories. There are many more categories a click away, but you can also search for books on a specific subject.

Children's books

Cook books

Crafts & Hobbies

Action Adventure

Romance 

Westerns

Amazon Bestsellers

If you have a Western enthusiast in the family, giving one or more of these books can bring a smile to their face … mine as well.

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone

"I do not think of all the misery, but of the glory that remains. Go outside into the fields, nature and the sun, go out and seek happiness in yourself and in God. Think of the beauty that again and again discharges itself within and without you and be happy."-- Anne Frank

I would add to Anne Frank's exhortation that we should also go to family. Thanksgiving is fun and a pleasant day to share with our families. There’s not near the commercialization that afflicts Christmas, and conversation is easier than on a boisterous Fourth of July. It’s a great time to catch up as we take a day off from our busy lives. Stay in the moment and enjoy the day … after all, the very next day is frantic Black Friday.