Last July I went to the RWA Conference in Washington D.C.  As part of an on line chapter’s pre-conference events we went to the FBI Academy at Quantico for a special program.  I had no idea ahead of time that we would get to go out on the firing range.  I hadn’t been anywhere near a firearm since I was about 16 but that was another story entirely.

The first weapon I ever fired (besides my mouth oh, and that #2 pencil I jabbed Bobby and Robin with in grade school - sorry about that - impulse control is much better now, thanks)  a thompson sub-machine gun…

A tommygun is definitely a woman’s weapon  I did like the feel of it.  Very solid, heavy, two handles to grab hold of and the butt wedged firmly against your shoulder it felt very secure.  The other rifle that we fired was also a nice piece of equipment that was comfortable to fire, didn’t kick terribly hard, but it just wasn’t the same.  There’s just something about a girl’s first tommy gun…(sigh).

Here’s the view from behind me.  You can see how close the instructors stood behind us.  Brave souls I must say.

Then there was the one round I fired from the shotgun.  It was not my favorite and just felt unsafe and out of control as the business end of the weapon rapidly pivoted up toward the heavens after firing.  I had the opportunity to fire additional rounds with the shotgun but I found it scary and it made me say HOLY CRAP several times quite loud even with ear protection.  So I exercised a judgement call on that and skipped it.

Below you can see my fine shotgun wielding form being corrected prior to taking the shot.

It took awhile to get the photographs from the photographer, but it was well worth the wait.

Some days just can’t be beat and this one was right up there at the top of my list.

Inventory list for world domination, which I’ll get right on just as soon as I finish revisions and sell my first novel:

(WHAT? it could happen)

• tommy gun

• 1964 Oldsmobile Cutlass f-85 Vista Cruiser Station Wagon (after market A/C,  maroon with maroon interior preferred)

• GPS

• Google phone

Years ago I was a switchboard operator. We had these books filled with that pressure sensitive paper that bruises the second copy when you write on the first page. You may remember it as the successor to carbon paper duplicate forms. Of course if you do, YOU’RE OLD. Well, maybe not THAT old, but let’s just say the shiny has worn off us both.

So getting back to the point, when ‘whoever’ was ‘out’,  you would write down any messages transcribed in these spiral bound books, then tear off the top copy of the message and give it to the intended recipient.  If it involved poking the message down on a metal spike - well, that made it even more satisfying.

Yes, this was pre-voicemail, pre-cell phones, pre-internet. Difficult to imagine, hard to remember.  Though it was post white-out, it was pre - wait for it - post-it-notes.  Impossible you say?  Not at all.  Once upon a time we had NO sticky notes. The horror!

These days everything changes so quickly it’s difficult to keep up with it all, technology in particular. For example, August 10th,  I completely missed a review on a delightful book “Pregnesia” a Harlequin Intrigue by Carla Cassidy at Smart Bitches Trashy Books. (<-link to the review - go there, read that) I happened to be out of town at the lake, after a very busy week where I was actually forced to do - gasp - work at my job. (Yeah, that’s what I said.)  In fact, I was reading one of Ms. Cassidy’s other recent titles “Last Gasp” a very very good single title romantic suspense from Signet Eclipse,  when someone noticed the author’s name on the cover and told me about the Bitches review.

I finally got to read the review this afternoon when I returned to the land of the internet and quilted two-ply.  It was a excellent example of well seasoned snark.  I always expect to be entertained by the Bitches - They are after all quite smart (it says so right in their URL).  On this day - they out did themselves.

The guest reviewer “Nonnie” gave a long list of reasons why Pregnesia is the best amnesiac pregnant saved by the Navy SEAL book ever (or something to that effect) and OMG the author responded.  Not in the pit-bull-snapping-manner of many publicly wounded authors, but in a kind, funny, equally snarky, yet respectful way.  Yes, Ms. Cassidy found a way to graciously acknowledge the barbs pricking at her work without embarrassing herself in the process.  In fact the very opposite was the case as she showed the audience exactly how grace, charm and wit can turn around something that could have been unpleasant. Ms. Cassidy spun straw into gold.  The whole exchange including all 128 comments (at my last count) was fabulous and positive.

When I grow up to be a one of those rich romance author types I hope I have the good sense and grace to be just like Carla Cassidy.

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Incidentally, I did finish Last Gasp about 2am Saturday night and she had me with this one.  I never did figure out for sure who the killer was until the very end.  Highly recommend the book for those who like Romantic Suspense.

That she was a beautiful baby there could be no doubt. After all, I was a beautiful infant they tell me, so it must be true. I take after her in so many ways, there is little doubt in my mind that she must have led the way in infant-astic beauty too.  Unfortunately, times were hard for this family of thirteen in Fargo North Dakota in the spring of 1925.  So her baby book is missing a few pages.  Ok, all of them.

There are two photographs of grandmother that stand out in my memories.  One is as a young girl near the time of her marriage.  Hair piled high on her head, beautiful clear skin and eyes.  As much a vision of loveliness as any Victorian young lady.  She may have been born slightly beyond Victoria’s reign, but clocks run slow in the Dakota’s and that’s the image that sticks.

In a later photo she was rounded and soft from almost twenty years of pregnancy. In the image the details of her face are worn away by time.  To muted shadows on the grainy film taken by an imprecisely focused lens.  

For me, my grandmother only exists in the monochrome image in my mind.  She’s an echo from my mother’s heart, but she must have once been real and warm.  Soft with laughing eyes and gentle words or matter of fact with features punctuated by dark circles and sallow skin and a carelessly careful way of handling an infant.  The way only a woman who had birthed twelve children knows how to do.  How many of those came in a sod house in the middle of the night I cannot say, though I know it was more than one.  

Eighty years later, my mother’s memories of her are well diluted.  Overlaid by stories others told her and the time blurred etchings of childish disbelief and grief.  In 1929 my grandmother died.  No one really knows the cause of death.  She was hospitalized and the story goes that she had a surgery followed by an infection that only antibiotics would have cured.  Unfortunately penicillin wouldn’t be widely available for fifteen years or more. So my four year old mother rode to the cemetery in the family pickup truck and saw her mother buried.  A memory infused with the cloying scent of gladiolas that to this day fail to elicit gladness for her.