House of Seven Gables

I've already posted that I don't like horror movies or reading them. I've never been interested in reading a Steven King book, but I did like his forward for a Harlan Ellison anthology. I do like Edgar Allan Poe.
From 7th grade on I read Poe. The Pit and the Pendulum, Cask of Amontillado, Tell Tale Heart. In college for American literature the Dread Professor Jamar assigned all students a topic for the semester term paper. I was given: Explore the Gothicism in the writings of Edgar Allan Poe.
I felt I lucked out. I'd read most of Poe's stories and his poems and brushing up on them would be easy. The only story I hadn't read was The House of Seven Gables. I naturally procrastinated about writing the term paper until it was a week before it was due. It was between Cross Country and Track seasons so I had a weekend without a road trip. My roommate went home and like a fool I waited until 11pm to start reading the one story I had never read. It took me thirty minutes to read. Then I got up, got dressed and went to the SUB not venturing back to the my dorm room until dawn. BTW I got an B on the term paper. That was as good as an A in any other class. She was the only teacher in college that made us do graduate level work. She would have been my easiest teacher at Seminary.

Bad science makes bad law

"Three generations of imbeciles is enough."
--Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in the majority opinion of Buck v. Bell. May 2, 1927

Paula Paul has written a horror story, only this one actually took place in 1926. The Mind of a Deviant Woman is about  Carrie Buck who under a newly crafted law was forcibly sterilized for being feebleminded. The novel is based on a real woman, but Ms. Paul has created a living breathing human being by fictional means. Carrie Buck is given to a family and adopted, but treated as a servant. It might have been a hard luck story set in a hard time for everyone who lived in such a time as much of the book is devoted to Carrie growing up from her point of view.
The science of the day considers those less fortunate to deviate from the norms of society. (Using the terminology of the day) Through heredity they believe criminals, prostitutes, epileptics, and morons perpetuated themselves through reproduction. Many conclude that the sensible answer is sterilization.
Louisa Van Patten wrote a scholarly article that was published in a scientific journal while working on her masters. It was entitled The Mind of a Deviant Woman. While researching to expand her research she becomes involved with the case of Carrie Buck, whose mother produced three children and was unable to properly take care of them. Her mother was sent to The Colony, an institution for epileptics, feebleminded and morons. Carrie became pregnant and the Dobbs family felt this shamed their family and had her declared feebleminded. Then the all too true horror begins.
I commend Paula Paul for writing such a compelling story and making the reader feel the pain of a scared little girl who was so horribly treated by all those around her.

1972

Daughters of the West Mesa

Fellow member of Southwest Writers Workshop and Writers2writers Dr. Irene Blea is a fantastic woman. She presented at both writer's groups over the years. I read her fictional book Suzanna and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Her next work took her some time and an enormous amount of research. I need to explain. In 1990 on the west side of Albuquerque a number of young women and one fetus were found murdered and buried. The murderer has never been found or punished. There was a major excavation to uncover all of the bodies. They were all prostitutes only one wasn't Hispanic and she was Native American.
Irene decided to write a book in their memory and the affect this had on their families particularly the Hispanic community. The book is named: Daughters of the West Mesa.
I looked forward to reading the book for the number of years it took for her to write it. Here is my review.

An Hispanic woman is startled to hear on the news of bones being found on the West Mesa by someone walking their dog. What's worse is that the city starts excavating the unclaimed mesa behind her house. Those murdered are separated from her by only a wall. As more bodies are discovered they are all female, in their twenties, Hispanic and known prostitutes.
Dora worries that one of those bodies yet to be identified might be her estranged daughter. As each evening newscast conveys new evidence Dora spends her days dreading a phone call making the unthinkable reality.
She starts going over her failed marriage and after finding a well paying job the decision to move away from the South Valley where her family has lived for generations. Her large extended family feel she's betrayed them and they become estranged.
Starting to second guess her decision to move out of an impoverished part of town to a nice house in a middle class neighborhood, was the cost to her daughter of growing up without cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents worth going to better schools?
She relives her daughters rebellious teen age years and trying to fight the peer pressure of radical music, drugs and sex. Wanting her to go to college and career, her daughter joins a rock band and they loose touch. Whenever they meet she was shocked at her looks and need for money. The final time Dora refused to enable her financially. With the news of each new woman's skeletons being found her fear deepens as no matter how hard she tries there is no way of contacting her daughter to assuage her fears.

This was an extremely difficult read, and I'm sure even harder for Irene to write. At Treasure House Books in Old Town in Albuquerque, Irene's book signings have been wall to wall. She's grown a special bond with the family members of the real women found and still mourned. Irene merits all the acclaim that has accompanied this novel.
For an Anglo man it was enlightening to learn of Hispanic family culture and relationships. It was an insight into the female mind not usually explored in at least the fiction I read.
Okay, here's my problem. I know it's a man problem, but so much of the book was constant guilt, remorse, recrimination, second guessing every decision Dora made in over thirty years. By the time I finished the book I was ready to scream: "Enough with all the angst!"

From a man's perspective it was overkill, but Irene didn't write this book for men. She wrote it for the mothers of those who lost loved ones, and I'm sure they suffer the guilt, remorse, recrimination, and second guessing for every decision they made.

Oblivion

Oblivion: A Novel Place to Live by Hank Bruce is a refreshingly wonderful book.
 It's part mystical, fantasy, historical, whimsical, and a hard book to put down and at the end you want the story to go on forever. It is a novel place to live, in that it's a different and unique town that also happens to be in a novel.

Oblivion is a ghost town in New Mexico. Belinda is a burned out advertising executive that leaves the office, buys clothes from thrift store, gets on a bicycle and rides away. On a whim when she sees an old faded wooden sign that says Oblivion decides to check it out. She meets Ben, who's an artist that lives a few miles away. They enjoy each other's company, spend the night together platonically and go their separate ways. Then the story gets interesting.
Ben has some friends who he tells about Belinda, they decide the only way he can get her back is to buy Oblivion, which just happens to be for sale. They grab some of his paintings and at an open air market make nearly two thousand dollars. He wins the bid and now owns a ghost town.
Belinda meets a woman who has mystical powers. The woman convinces her to come back to Oblivion and when a biker gang starts to harass them suddenly there's a thunder storm that drives the bad guys away and they go on.
The homeless in Santa Fe flock to the town, start cleaning it up and fixing up houses for their families. Scientists from the University of New Mexico decide to make a social experiment of the town and built wind turbines and solar panels for electricity. They built solar toilets that bake human waste into bricks that they can then use for fuel.
Naturally there's the rancher who was outbid for the town and offers thousands more for it, which is refused. He needs the town because it has the underground water he's been using for his ranch.
Meanwhile Belinda becomes a poet, Ben is not equipped to run a town. He just wants to paint.
An old Indian comes and takes over the spiritual side of things telling everyone that this is a town built around love. When the rancher tries to have his road crew block of the only road leading into the town, which is land he owns. The mystic woman sends a swarm of bees to drive them away.
A lot goes on in this book. It's not all peace and harmony in the town without proper structure. The rancher sees to it that government agencies snoop around and want to shut the town down for not complying with rules and regulations.
The plot is intriguing in and of itself, but Hank's prose and poetry is what really makes the book memorable. I'm reminded of Bridges of Madison County. The way the book was worded is what made the book.
This is definitely a book everyone should enjoy.

Batann Memorial Park

Bataan Memorial Park

I was waiting for a Walgreens pharmacy to open in order to get a prescription for my mother, yesterday. Across the street is Bataan Memorial Park in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Every year on Memorial Day there is a gathering of those few still alive who were in the Bataan Death March at the park. There are honor guards from different branches of the military present, speakers and the playing of taps.

This day there was a church gathering for an open-air meeting. A few guys were setting up boundaries for a game of flag football. A few people were walking their dogs around the edges. On the south side next to a circular wall a homeless man was sleeping on flattened boxes.

I ate a couple of Egg McMuffins, giving the last bite of each of them to my Jack Russell mix dog, named Sammie. The table where I was eating used to have a WWII five-inch gun, the barrel properly capped. Kids used to climb over it and use it like a jungle gym. I noticed a partial amphitheater on the south side that was facing north. To the side of the circle of benches were pillars of granite. It’s been there awhile, but not when I lived by the park.

I tossed the trash and walked Sammie to look at the pillars of granite. They listed the names of those from New Mexico who fought on Corregidor, the Bataan Peninsula and died during the infamous death march. The first column listed the names of officers. Then each column listed those who were from different cities in New Mexico: Clovis, Gallup, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque.

  I looked at each granite pillar, about eight feet high and the names etched on both sides. I found the names ending in S and checked them. I passed a number of columns until I found the name I sought. Spensely.

 I never knew him. It was the first time I knew his whole name. Tears filled my eyes as I was transported back to when we bought the house a few blocks away from the park in 1971.

It’s complicated

My father was finishing up his teaching degree at the University of New Mexico (UNM). My mother was a secretary in an insurance company. A fellow female student sat next to my father, and he was always a rather outgoing type of guy. Nancy Spensely was a former high school cheerleader and never met a stranger. She confided in Dad that she needed a job after she graduated as she was getting married. He knew Mom’s office was needing a receptionist. He told her to apply. She got the job.

Mom and Nancy got along well and gave her advice on planning the wedding. Mom mentioned that we needed a bigger house. Nancy mentioned after the wedding her grandmother would be left alone in a huge house and couldn’t take care of it.

We looked into buying the house from her, but at the time couldn’t afford it. For two years Mrs. Spensely waited until my father finished his student teaching and started teaching third grade. In the Spring of 1971 we moved into a three-bedroom, one bath, with a converted coal room as a basement house. It also sat on a quarter acre lot surrounded by huge Elm trees.

The house and neighborhood were built in 1926. My mother’s boss told her we didn’t buy a house we bought a project. While living there they reroofed, rewired, replumbed, replaced the gas heater, put in solar panels and a swamp cooler. They needed to cut down a few of the elm trees.

When moving into my bedroom, the first time to have a room without my brother, in the closet I got up on a stool to clean the shelf above the clothes bar. It was rather dusty. I came across some papers that were underneath the dust. Pulling them out I noticed there was an envelope and outside of it a telegram. I read the words, “The United States Army regrets to inform you…” the last name was Spensely.

I took it to my mother and asked what to do with it. It wasn’t like junk mail that got left behind. She told me where Mrs. Spensely was living, which wasn’t too far and to take it to her.

The kind lady waited two years for us to be able to buy the house from her and we thought the world of her. I didn’t want to bring up an old wound. It was thirty years since she received it. Would she want to see it again?

Putting the telegram into the envelope, I drove to her new house, nocked on the door. She opened it and I gave the envelope to her. She thanked me and I left. I never had contact with her again.

Memories of the Park

Back in that day, the park was just grass up to the curbs with a dirt track worn by joggers and the Duke City Dashers (girls track team before Title IX) who trained there. There was a flag and some flowers around it on the south side which was next to Lomas Blvd. with a plague giving the name. On the eastern side was a five-inch gun like the ones used by the battery division that was mostly made up of soldiers from New Mexico and Arizona stationed in the Philippines before Pearl Harbor. It was mostly a forgotten park.

I used to take Harvey, our German Shepherd/Collie mix and run around the park in the evenings and Saturdays. On Sundays before leaving for college I’d meet up with a bunch of other guys and played touch football. The summer I left for college I joined a pick-up game of football. A 440 runner from a rival high school lived across from the park. I was on his teem and he was the QB. I went out long and he threw it at me. I thought I was at the end of his range and waited for the ball to come down. It sailed over my head by ten feet and just kept on going. That’s when I remembered he was also the school’s quarterback. He never threw it my way again.

Across a side street on the east of the park was Russel’s bakery, where Dad would go every Saturday for donuts and coffee. Gil’s Runners World sat on the corner of Carlisle and Lomas across from the bakery,,Hallmark shop and ceramic shop that extended west from the bakery. My mother and sister would make ceramic pieces, fire them and bring them home.

 Around the corner was a small space that looked directly across the park. A fantastic lady opened up a children’s bookstore there named Trespasser’s William.

I left for college on a track scholarship in 1972. I’d come home over the summer and ran with Harvey to stay in shape for cross-country season. When I returned from exile in Texas (four years in Plainview and a year in Fort Worth), I met Gwen Shultz and her bookstore. She also sold science fiction and fantasy.

I was living at home and going through a divorce. Gwen sold me a few books by Harlan Ellison. The first one I read was Death Bird Stories. This has to be about the most disturbing and depressing book ever written. Ellison (may he rest in perpetual battle like he did in life) even put in a warning not to read it in one setting. It sounds counterintuitive, but Ellison put into words the emotions I was feeling and it lifted me out of my depression. I went crazy reading just about anything I could find by Harlan and have fallen far short of the body of work he did in his lifetime. See previous posts concerning him.

I remarried, started a family, became a teacher of English and History. While teaching 7^th and 8^th grade English. Gwen would hold book fairs and any APS school willing to let her come and show her children’s books.

She moved away from the park and the suffocating smell coming from the bakery. In the middle of summer and it’s 100+ degrees the aroma of baked bread is awful. There was a time or two I could only last a few minutes in the store. I don’t know how she spent 12 hours six days a week for years there.

When she would hold a book fair at my school it was always nice to stay in touch. I moved from middle school to high school and other than driving by her new location further up Lomas Blvd. she was off my radar.

My only other round about way of contact with the Spensely’s was my father-in-law. Mrs. Spensely’s husband was a dentist. He was the one who pulled all of Ed’s teeth and made his dentures.

When I retired in 2010, I started sponsoring a writer’s group for west side Albuquerque writers. Before starting one of the sessions a lady mentioned that Gwen Shultz passed away. She’d moved to Colorado.

My parents sold the house and moved across the river to the west side. My family followed shortly after. For years the park was off our radar.

Our house and the telegram were a distant memory. My son graduated from high school in 1999. He enlisted in the Air Force. While waiting for the paperwork and orders to come for him to leave for basic training, we watched Saving Private Ryan on video. I’d heard that the opening sequence was rather gruesome and it was. It was when the telegrams were delivered to Mrs. Ryan and she fell on the floor that the memory of a real one hit me like a ton of bricks.

It reenacted what must have happened when Mrs. Spensely received hers. My son couldn’t understand why I was crying at that scene. After we finished the movie I told him about it.

In 2012 after the attack on the twin towers there was a resurgence of patriotism. The city decided to upgrade Bataan Memorial Park and removed the gun, put in concrete walks around some of it and wood chip covered edges around others. They planted more flowers on the south side and added the amphitheater and pillars. They started holding events on Memorial Day, Veterans Day and Flag Day. I mostly knew about it from TV news.

Dad passed away in 2007. They were living in Texas. My mother returned to Albuquerque and bought a townhouse not far from ours. A few years ago, my mother sold the house and moved into independent living not far from the park. She gets her prescriptions there. I usually have to take her to pick them up or get them for her like this last Sunday. Normally its get in, get out. The park is just there.

This time I had to wait an hour and finally went to see the pillars. It struck me as I saw the name of a man who I died years before I was born, that he would still have an effect on me. Somehow knowing his mother and niece, living for years in the house he grew up in, and the memorial to him and all those who died some now 70 years later has given me a connection more than a name on a granite pillar or reading about it in a history book. The name of Homer V. Spensely has meaning and the sacrifice he made helped make the future for me and my family.

Leaving the church

Terry Austin, a fellow Wayland alum, he was '75 I was '76, and FB friend asked for someone to review his latest book. I've already reviewed another of his books. This one hits home with me.
As Terry says in this book (picture left), "I didn't leave the Church, the Church left me."
I'm going to post a review on Amazon, but I didn't want to intrude my thoughts on the matter there.
In the book Terry explains many years helping churches fund building projects. The term is stewardship. He came to the conclusion that buildings detract from the purpose and message of trying to reach the lost to Christ. Instead of all believers spreading the good news of Jesus as we are going; we simply ask them to come to church. Let the pastor evangelize them. He explains his growth in the Lord to see the difference in today's focus on building bigger and bigger churches as contrasted to the first century church with its emphasis on helping each other and loving each other in homes or public places.
 He goes into detail about the high cost of buildings in construction, maintenance, utilities, Pastor and staff. This doesn't leave much for helping the poor in the community. One of Christ's directives for the church.
His second major point is that this makes the church a business with pastor as CEO. The demands on the pastor to pay for the expenses and collect a salary have made the church more about entertainment than fulfilling the Great Commission. Pastors that can't bring in enough money are soon gone and another is given a shot, or the church dies. Rock star pastors have replaced shepherds.

Another of Terry's points is home churches. Leaving the brick and mortar and it's excessive costs for a close grouping filling the need for personal interaction. In essence becoming a Sunday School with a worship component. 

His chapter named: Country of Christ, speaks to the evil of politics in the pulpit. This led to the election by professing Christians voting in a man for president that is morally corrupt.

Where we disagree is when he laments Trump as president and that members of the church voted for and still defend someone of such low character. But he admits he could not vote for Hillary. As FB friends we've disagreed on this at length.
It's not in the book, but on FB he mentioned he couldn't vote for the lesser of two evils as it was still voting for evil. In the book he gives specifics on why Trump is unfit to govern our country, but he has no specifics on how Hillary was evil.
Seems to me if he's claiming she was evil and he couldn't vote for her there should be some reasoning for the basis of evil. To not have voted for Hillary was to allow Trump to be elected.
He may post a comment after he reads this and correct me on my reasoning. Getting into a debate with Terry is like playing him in a game of chess. Believe me he waxed me all over the board at Wayland on may occasions.
He raises an issued he calls Christian Dementia. Not just the SBC, but all denominations have forgotten their roots. What makes them Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist. What they stood for just twenty or thirty years ago, and not now.
I recommend this book to all. Don't get the impression that Terry or the many unchurched have left the faith. Home churches are springing up all over.
The home church I attended was formed to reach those who were damaged by the brick and mortar churches. We were able to minister to each other for a number of years, more so than a Sunday School class could. For people of faith, this is about the only option left.
 

RIP Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison died 6/27/18. I posted about him a number of times. He greatly influenced my life and my writing.

Comment

For some reason when I want to post a comment on Berthold's blog an error message comes up. His latest post was about Napoleon. One of my favorite subjects. I enjoyed that the post pointed out that Napoleon was defeated more by economics than bullets.
My take:
A. The Napoleonic wars saw a clash of two elements of war and two theories of economics.
The wars are sometimes referred to the "War of the elephant and the whale." Both animals are dominant in their domain, but can't fight with each other. The result of the war led to the book by Mahan's book "The Impact of Naval Power on History" which credits most wars being won by the navy over the army. Most major wars since Napoleon have been won by naval power, but the carnage on land still continues.
B. Economic theories:
Napoleon and most of the wars previous to this were about conquering land. Wealth was made by the winner by pillaging and looting the conquered, taking slaves for sale, and making the conquered pay tribute. Napoleon was a master at this. The cost in lives on both sides didn't matter. The more battles he won the greater his fame, no matter how many French lives were lost. He's still a national hero.
England defeated the French in the Seven Years War, What we call the French and Indian War, here, with the Bank of England. They fought the war on credit using future taxes as collateral. Unfortunately for England was they tried to pay off the loans by taxing the American Colonies and wound up losing more money than they gained and the colonies as well in the American Revolution. England was able to fight Napoleon for so many years by building a national debt. They built a formidable navy, well trained army and bought allies to fight Napoleon on land.
England defeated Napoleon with two naval battles: The Battle of the Nile and Trafalgar. From that point on they no longer feared invasion and replaced the trade lost from Europe with trade with Europe's colonies throughout the world. Making even more money than the lost by the embargo with Continental Europe. The black market helped too.
Wellington and the English win at Waterloo didn't happen in a vacuum. Welling spent years destroying French army and French army in the Iberian campaign, which Napoleon likened to a drain sucking his soldiers away. Arthur Wellesley was sent to Portugal from India with British East India troops to support the guerillas in Spain. It's this war where the term guerilla warfare come from. It's Spanish for "little war." As his victories mounted Wellesley became the Duke of Wellington. He faced every French marshal. Napoleon never went into Spain.
An aside, The battle of New Orleans was a victory for Andrew Jackson and the Americans. The army that was defeated here, arrived back in England as Napoleon escaped. This army was the bulk of Wellington's forces at Waterloo. They redeemed themselves with a commander who knew what he was doing.
Berthold, never get a history teacher started on a subject like this unless you want a four hour lecture.

52 storis in 52 weeks.

https://phillipmccollum.com/52-short-stories-in-52-weeks/

Check out Phillip McCollum's work. Hat tip to Bethold Gambrel.
I'll post more when I get through them. Might try something like this too.

The Americans, on Fox

The Americans on Fox TV is in its final season. It's an interesting premise. Two Soviet spies who were raised and trained to fit in to the American lifestyles and conduct clandestine missions. Elizabeth and Phillip Jennings come to the United States in the 1960's. Their marriage and identities were arranged by the KGB. They have handlers who speak about directives from "Control."
The story picks up in 1981 with Reagan as president. They live in a nice suburban house, have a travel agency business and on the sly bug Casper Weinberger's house and steal state secrets. It's like the movie The Saint on steroids. The two operatives change looks like other people change clothes and it's amazing what a wig, fake facial hair can do the make you think they're someone else.
What makes the story interesting is that across the street from the Jennings an FBI agent (Stan Beeman) moves in with his family, and what are the odds? He's just come in from undercover and is now in counter surveillance. He's trying to catch soviet spies while living across the street from them.
This is the final season and there's now way I want to recap all of them.
It was almost like Dexter, where you root for a serial killer. How can this couple who are undermining the United States be the good guys?
Then there's a story line whose arc hits you between the eyes.
Agent Beeman follows a newly arrived member of the Soviet embassy as she visits places in DC. Nina Sergeevna Krilova, is a clerical worker, low on the totem pole. She visits a pawn shop regularly and buys electronics: VCR's and the such. The amount of items is more than one person would need, so they check with the shop owner and discover she's paying for them with Caviar.
Beeman picks Nina up and blackmails her into getting him secrets from the embassy or he'll tell her bosses she's she shipping contraband to her family back in Russia.
It doesn't take long until Agent Beeman starts sleeping with her.
KGB officer, Arkady Ivanovich Zotov, starts noticing that their secrets aren't secrets anymore and discovers Nina passing information to Beeman. Instead of sending her back to Russia, which is a death sentence, he uses her to pass on misinformation and get intel on Beeman.
Nina is a tragic figure here in that she's in the clutches two ruthless men, both sleeping with her and walking on a razor's edge to stay alive.
Eventually Nina is found out and Arkady can't save her. Beeman tries to get her to defect, but she's sent back to Russia.
Arkady's father is a top minister in Russia and he uses him pull some strings to try and keep Nina alive. In prison Nina's turned into an informants of the other prisoners. She gets better food, but her usefulness doesn't last long. She's released from jail and given an assignment to help a scientist working on stealth technology. The scientist was a Russian defector that was working in the aerospace agency. The Jennings kidnap him and send him back to Russia. Nina is supposed to seduce him so he'll cooperate in developing stealth technology. He talks Nina into smuggling a note to his family in America letting them know he's alive. She gets caught.
Arkady comes back to Russia to pull even more strings to get her out of prison, hoping that at least she'll be sent to Siberia. The day comes where she's taken out of her cell by three guards and marched to a man sitting at a desk in the middle of a hall. The man reads off her indictment then says she's been found guilty of sabotage and the sentence is death. Two of the guards grab her arms and the one behind her shoots her in the back of the head.
This was a shock, I really thought that she'd be sent to Siberia because of all the stings Arkady was pulling. It brought home how ruthless and awful the Soviet Union was and Russia today isn't much better.
There are a number of missions the Jennings carry out believing they are protecting Russia from our aggression, but Nina's story tells you different.

My love/hate with horror

My friend Berthold Gimbrel mentioned in his review of Human Sacrifices that it has elements of horror, and it does. but I have always avoided horror movies and fiction. With me it's cognitive dissonance.
When I was growing up my brother loved to watch shows on TV like Hitchcock and Suspense Theater. Most of the time they didn't bother me, but I remember to this day an episode named Room 13. I was about eight years old at the time.
The 30 minute story involved an archeologist checking into a hotel in Italy. He was in room 14 and noticed there wasn't a room 13, the manager explained they didn't use the number 13 as it was bad luck.
The manger knowing the guest's reputation asked him to look and a metal box he unearthed. In the box was a metal conical helmet and a skull. The archeologist told him this was a form of execution for treason in ancient Rome. The victim had the helmet placed on his head while it was red hot and after he died was decapitated. His body was burned and they buried his head in the metal box so he couldn't travel to the underworld. The manager leaves and the guest goes to bed. In the middle of the night there is this unworldly screaming going on waking everyone up. It was a musical scream of "I want my head back." Outside on a wall there's a shadow of a figure wavering back and forth. The archeologist goes into the hallway where other guests are wondering what's going and when he looks the room where the noise if coming from is Room number 13.
The show broke for a commercial and I freaked. My brother wanted to see the rest of the show and I left the room, but the sound of that scream when the show came back on made me freak again and my mother took me next door to an elderly couple that was always nice to us and I stayed with them until the show was over. I don't know how the story ended and don't want to. It scared the hell out of me and at that age wasn't a good thing. What scared me was the sound, not anything visual.
Not many other tv shows or movies imprinted on my mind like acid as that one show did. I mostly avoided watching them.
The only other time I was disturbed by a movie was when my then wife and I went to see Bambi. Stop laughing. Imagine you're in small town Texas at the only theater for twenty miles and it is filled with children. The lights darken and the previews of coming movies start to roll. A man walks up to a chainsaw and starts it up. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It showed a man popping out bushes and slicing into a man, then it jumps to a woman being picked up and camera does a close up of a meat hook. I wonder how many parents were awake that night with screaming kids because they took them to see Bambi?
I didn't have kids at that time, What I had to do that night was go to work. I was a security guard at the Jimmy Dean Meat Packing company in Plainview, Tx. From 11 at night to 7 in the morning. The clean-up crew left at midnight and I was all by my lonesome until around 6am. Every hour I made a trip with a time clock walking through the area of meat grinders, meat hooks, weird noises going off at all time from the various refrigeration machines, out the back to a storage shed to check on a water gauge, then past the hog pens with ghastly noises of the soon to be sausage and back to my guard shack. Each round took about ten minutes leaving me 50 minutes to study. Perfect job for a college student, until that night. A week later I switched to the 3 to 11 shift.
What bothered me the most about that movie, was the title. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I was living in Texas.
I've never had nightmares over something I've read. I'm not interested in most horror stories. I started reading Edgar Allen Poe in 7th grade. When I was teaching 7th grade English I was disturbed that I had to translate every other word to my students, and they found him boring. I've never been a fan of Stephen King. I watch Carrie when it first came out and thought it was silly even having to resort to the gotcha false scare of a hand coming out of the grave. Until reading Berthold's blog I never even heard of H.P. Lovecraft.
When I was going through my divorce, a wonderful lady named Gwen Shultz opened up a book store across the park where I walked my dog named Trespasser's William. She sold children's books and Sci-fi. I'd been reading 1000 or more pages of theology a week and was suddenly no longer a student. She turned me on to Harlan Ellison. The first book I read was called Death Bird Stories. It comes with warning that the subject matter is too intense to read in one setting. It's a short story collection and the first story The whimper of Whipped Dogs. Stops you cold. Mal, the trees in my novel Human Sacrifices was inspired from this story. The amazing thing about these stories are that they're not horror so much as they are depressive. Amazingly being in a very deep depression as the life as I knew just exploded. These story's were cathartic. By the time I finished the book I felt better. One story' title says it all: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Ellison got a Hugo award for that one. I became an avid reader of just about everything he's written. I can't recommend to anyone who reads this blog how much it would benefit you to read his works. Many of them are out of print and are collector's items. Not many are e-books and they're not cheap.
Well enough rambling about what went bump in the night for me.

Human Sacrifices

Blogger friend, Berthold Gambrell, wrote a review of Human Sacrifices. You can find it here.
I asked him as a quid pro quo for the review of his book The Directorate. He gave me some valuable insights. I wanted to get a fresh set of eyes on the story. I published it on Kindle in 2012 and it's due for a rewrite.
Most of the story gives my thoughts on the three things that should never be discussed at Thanksgiving and Christmas family dinners and parties: Sex, politics and religion.

When I was writing this story I posted each chapter on a different blog. I got feedback from a number of blogger friends. That when the blogger universe was much bigger than today. I came to a natural ending after Jan conquered her demon, but many of the writers wanted me to continue the story. I inserted an interview, but it doesn't fit. The woman in the story is based on a teacher that I knew. She was the assistant to Georgia O'Keefe before the artist died. The gal was looney tunes. I think now on the rewrite I'll delete that, maybe turn it into a separate story.

When I left off on HS, Obama was president and politically I thought things had stabilized. Now with the moral mafia having elected Trump there's a lot more I can add to it.

Ruined Chapel said that my female characters were "sex-crazed." That's a bad thing? Just kidding.

Since I wrote this I touched on marital rape, as that was in the news at the time. Since then much has come up about "rape culture" and recently with an Alabama candidate for the senate--pedophilia sanctioned supposedly by God. I'll expound upon that.

In today's world Sex, politics and religion have merged into a toxic brew. It is my desire to enlighten my readers to help them understand what's happening.

The Directorate

Longtime blogger friend, and about the only one I have left, Berthold Gambrel https://ruinedchapel.com/ has released an e-book on Kindle. I've always enjoyed his writings and he's graciously expressed his gratitude on his blog concerning my suggestions in his acknowledgments sections.

The Directorate is a plausible science fiction story set in the 23rd century when humanity has expanded to colonies on Luna, Mars and are building a space station connected by a space elevator on the moon Ceres. There is plenty of time between now and then for technology to reach this potential. The conflict between the three planets is also probable as rivalries would naturally exist between the three entities. (I know the moon isn't a planet, but it's easier to describe this way)
The setting is that after an interplanetary war The Directorate was created to preserved the peace and form a central government. A security force  was created comprising members from all three planets. They reason that integrating all the planets soldiers this will ease the tensions brought about by the previous war. There's also a mega corporation that invented most of the technology making space travel and colonization possible that has become the controlling voice in the Directorate.
The protagonist is Lieutenant Gannon from Mars. She is in the guard in what is supposed to be a time of peace, but a faction known as Earth Firsters begin making trouble. They want Planet Rights!
At first there are small terrorist attacks that escalate to an attack on Mars. There are traitors that subvert the security from within, a bumbling bureaucracy slow to respond to an existential threat, a too big to fail corporation controlling the economy, and government, plus a kick ass hero.
The story is plausible because Berthold shows an understanding of human nature, knowledge of corporate greed, as well as engrained fossilized government stupidity.
To make the story work there is a lot of backstory to set the stage, but he breaks this up throughout the story so it's not like reading a history book. Berthold is not breaking new ground on the science as the technology is pre-Star Trek. This makes it more believable. It's fast paced and reaches a satisfying ending.
Now for the teacher in me to give advice. Ruined Chapel, accept it or reject it, but it is offered in the spirit of helping your writing to improve. You've grown over the past few years tremendously and this book is by far the culmination of your hard work on the craft. It will only get better.
Here goes:
1. Your villain and the terrorists. By telling the story from only Gannon's point of view, or that of narrator on the backstory the reader only gets a glimpse of why they are revolting. They're point of view needs to be given throughout the story. By the time the villain tries to recruit Gannon its too late. I think you realized this when you have him voice why he hasn't killed her. His answer is a bit lame. But if when they were on Mars and she was under his orders you switched to him and gave us his thoughts concerning her and wanting her on his side, maybe even a romantic interest he needed to suppress for the mission... Get my drift?
2. If your going to extrapolate from States Rights to Planet Rights you need to tell why they feel the Directorate has wronged them. You could include collusion with Luna and Mars instead of making it just spoiled grapes on the part of Earth. Even have Luna and Mars units in the revolt, which would make the villain's attempt at converting Gannon to the cause more plausible. You don't have to mention the students at this time.
3. The villain's answer to the students was to kill them. He explains what's happening. The theme here is great. By taking away Literature and history the Directorate is trying to make human robots. There's a reason why those two subjects are called the humanities. The all work and no play aspect could be expanded. After the battle on the space station you could have Gannon, knowing what the directorate is doing and wanting to change this in different way than extermination she could expound on how she plans to instill humanity into all the students.
4. By taking the student she's befriended to her home on Mars before reporting to Luna with her report. This is Gannon's first break with discipline and duty. After the surviving students are moved to Luna and her friend has learned more of what it's like to be human instead of programmed science geek, she can be the virus to enlighten the other students. Wow that's a whole new book. I hope I haven't jumped the gun if that's what you're already planning.

I know your baby is out in the world and it's hard to leave it and go on to another project. The beauty of e-publishing is that you can revise and correct if you're so inclined. My suggestions may help with future writings. I want to say again this a is a really really really good book. Well Done.

PS, I've submitted a review on Amazon, but it might not show up. You mentioned me in the book and when one of my reviewers I mentioned in another book his review of Optimus was removed. Amazon is getting picky on reviews.

Some books I found and like

Here's a few authors I've discovered on Kindle that I've liked and recommend to my few remaining readers.
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1. Tony Roberts:
A. Best author I've come across since Harlan Ellison. He's continuing the Casca: The Eternal Mercenary series. He puts out one a year and takes about a day to read. His historical settings are accurate and descriptions of battles interesting.
B. His Chronicles of Kastania series, (now up to book 5) is his crown in glory. I don't know how he has a fictional empire with enemies on all sides and traitors within and can make every character from diverse backgrounds unique and come alive. He has a race of witches that I find most intriguing. I dub them sexual amazons. I devour these books and long for the next one. Just as Isaac Asimov used the Roman Empire as the basis for his Foundation series of books. Roberts is recreating and in many cases explaining everything that went on in the Byzantine Empire. An absolute don't miss series of books.
C. Chronicles of Faerowyn series. This one is more like Tolkien. It has light elves and dark elves, humans, trolls, monsters etc. It's now on its third book and immensely enjoyable. The main character is Faerowyn, a half dark elf and human on a quest to find her father trailing his bread crumbs to take over the clan and reclaim the crown of the dark elven kingdom. It sound rather simple, but like all great quest stories the journey is filled with lots of excitement. This is the best pure fantasy series of books I've read in a long long time.
D. Siren Series. So far 2 books, but number three is in the works. This series caught me by surprise. It's so totally different. It's about an actual British rock band and tells their story from inception to the lead singer's collapse and near death. The third book is eagerly anticipated to find out what else happens.
I don't know how he does it, but he's churning out four books a year and all are first rate. I hate to admit it, but though the quality of his Casca books is not an issue, but with nearly 50 books in the entire series and he's written nearly half of them, they all pale in comparison to his other works. It's not the writer just the Casca series is becoming dated.

2. Olan Thorensen: He's come up with a series of books adding elements of Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, James Clavell's Shogun, and Barry Sadler's Casca: The Eternal Mercenary. Which is quite an accomplishment.
The main character is Joseph Colsco, who is on a plane to give a speech on chemical engineering. A vessel from mysterious alien's called watchers collide with his jumbo jet and he's the sole survivor. They patch him up, using nanotechnology, and since he can't go home as he knows too much they maroon him on a planet in another galaxy. The watchers tell him that another alien race have over the centuries relocated humans to this planet so he won't be lonely. The technology on the planet in around the 1700's making his knowledge of technology a useful way of surviving, just so long as he doesn't run afoul of their religion and get burned as a witch.
He placed on an island being invaded by an evil empire from the nearest continent and I don't want to spoil the rest of the story. There are four books so far. They're well written and kept my heart pounding on numerous pages.

3. William D'Arand: If you're into gaming, this may be a good series for you. I'm not much of a gamer other than exercising with Wii.
1. He has an Otherlife series. I've read the first book and it was intriguing. Kind of like Tron, and the holograms of Star Trek series, Runner, the main character, is on long voyage and the crew get trapped in their game. He has no memory and he has to rise in class to get some of them back. He's able to access a portal that gives him his status and then fights various elements to gain points. He's the only officer left on the vessel and his quest is to rise enough in levels to regain the password to control the game and save the ship. I read the first book and am willing to read the others, but they aren't available on KDP for free. A number of authors do this, they tease you with the first book and then expect you to pay for the others. It has to be a super duper great read really waning me to read more before I'll do that, and this series doesn't fit that bill.
2. Super Sales on Super Heroes: This isn't about gaming, but the pup up windows with different abilities is similar. Here abilities are bought with points accumulated in various ways.
The society has super heroes and villains. A super villain has taken over a city and has destroyed most of the heroes. Most vices are legalized and slavery is legal.
The main character is Felix, who has a small ability of being able to change objects. He's managing a fast food restaurant and wants to rise up so he tries to buy something he can change into gold. He buys a near corpse of for super hero. His ability lets him restore the hero to life, and then he goes out and buys more. It gets really interesting when he buys and restores a beastkin that's a werewolf that can transform into numerous incarnations. Fortunately the second book was KDP and it gets even better. Waiting for the third one.