Helen C. Escott's Blog: The Helen C. Escott Book Club: A Novel Idea, page 8

All Dogs Go to Heaven

Minnie May 2010 -2021

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than she loves herself.

I have heard people say they would never get a dog or cat because they require constant care. What they don’t realize is those animals give constant care.

We live in a world where people forget to be grateful or if they do, it’s for a short time. Then they go into the state of, ‘what have you done for me lately?’

When you rescue an animal, they are grateful every second of every day. They never forget that you rescued them. Eventually you will find out that they have actually rescued you.

Their gratitude never waivers. Their love never dies.

On Friday, September 3rd, I had to put my beloved dog, Minnie May down. She was almost twelve years old. Last June she had a seizure and was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. I was told she would die within the week, and I had to prepare myself for that. But in true Minnie fashion, she lived another fourteen months.

I used to say she was a rescue dog but in reality, I am a rescue human.

Well meaning people have said to me, “You’ll get another dog”.

What they don’t understand, and what people who have never had a pet do not understand is, it’s not about having a pet; it’s about a twelve-year friendship that cannot be replaced.

Over the past twelve years, I have fought a fierce battle with PTSD, gone through a major back surgery, lost my mother, lost two brothers to suicide, retired from the career I loved and that’s just a few things.

In the throes of PTSD when everybody else threw their hands in the air and walked away, Minnie stayed at my feet. When I was recovering from back surgery she would jump on my bed and put her nose exactly where I hurt. It was as if she could feel the pain also. Through the loss of loved ones she would lay silently next to me and allow me the space I needed.

Eventually she would go to the front door and look back at me as if to say, “Get up. I need to be walked.”

Through raging snowstorms, driving rain and sunny days, I would put on my coat and pick up her leash. We would walk for hours through trails, up mountains or around our neighbourhood. Those walks did me more good than any pill or therapy session. I would work through my thoughts with her walking beside me, gently nudging me back to reality when I went too deep.

Those thoughts eventually turned into ideas for my books.

I would record the conversations I had in my head on my phone as we hiked. Those conversations turned into six bestselling, award-winning novels. Inside the cover of each book is a dedication to my co-author: Minnie.

What we have lived through over the past twelve years cannot be duplicated with another dog. It was our personal journey. The funny thing is I never wanted a dog. My daughter did. Minnie was supposed to be her dog, but she took to me.

Looking back, I think Minnie came to me when I needed her, and then left when she felt I was safe again.

I miss her everyday and I don’t think there will ever be a time when I put on my hiking boots that I don’t look up to say, “Come on Minnie. Let’s go.”

As the old saying goes: Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.

Operation Trafficked -Human trafficking stops when men stop buying women and children for sex

It is possible to get away with murder if you kill people whose lives are already devalued by society.

Operation Trafficked takes you inside the abyss of human trafficking from St. John’s to Ontario. In her most thrilling novel to date, bestselling, award-winning author Helen C. Escott takes you on a lightning-paced, chillingly current, criminal investigation that is surprising at every twist and completely unpredictable right up to its astonishing conclusion.

Published by Flanker Press, this is the fourth in Escott’s acclaimed Operation crime thriller series.

A spectacular murder in a downtown hotel of a sixteen-year-old girl brings together seasoned police officers RNC Sgt. Nicholas Myra and RCMP Cpl. Gail McNaughton in a Joint Forces Investigation. They quickly dive into a twisting, turning breathless race through the $28 billion dollar business of human trafficking.

Myra and McNaughton put together a team of experts who investigate this modern-day form of slavery where women and girls are openly sold on the world’s markets. They discover a sophisticated criminal organization that operates with impunity due to vast corruption and hide in the underground hallways of power.

They quickly learn it’s not the oldest profession but the oldest form of oppression.

When the team learns a seven-year-old girl is up for sale, they race to find her before she is transported over the border and lost forever.

The human trafficking national average is the highest in Ontario and Nova Scotia, and particularly Halifax because it is part of a corridor frequently used to transport victims from Atlantic Canada to larger urban centers. Operation Trafficked investigates a fictional human trafficking ring operating from St. John’s, NL to Ottawa, Ont.

Helen C. Escott’s bestselling crime thriller Operation Vanished was awarded a Silver Medal – Best Regional Fiction at the 24th annual Independent Publisher Book Awards. Her first crime thriller, Operation Wormwood, was a top five finalist for the 2019 Arthur Ellis Awards, Best First Crime Novel, by the Crime Writers of Canada. It’s conclusion, The Reckoning was a bestselling. In Search of Adventure – 70 Years of the RCMP in Newfoundland and Labrador was named one of the top memoirs in Atlantic Canda.

Operation Trafficked is available at Chapters, and Coles. Online at indigo.ca Apple – iTunes, Nook – (Barnes & Noble), Amazon, and Kobo. National and international orders can be placed by calling 1-866-739-4420 ext. #26 or you can send an e-mail to eoldford@flankerpress.com

Crash and burn - But he always walked away. The Staff Sgt. Bob MacKinnon story

September 21, 1971 was a beautiful day. Twenty-five-year-old Cst. Bob MacKinnon had almost six years in the Force when he was called into Sgt. Clyde Strong’s office and told about a lost hunter in the Star Lake area.

The RCMP aircraft was coming into Deer Lake on a schedule flight and it would be used to search for the lost hunter. So Cst. MacKinnon and Cst. Barry Sibley, who was booked on the flight for his transfer to Labrador, drove to Deer lake together and boarded the flight.

The pilot was Staff Sgt. Donald Klancher. Cst. Bernie Johnston, the dog handler also joined the search. They flew over Hind's Lake and could see where the hunters had set up camp. A couple of them were still at the site.

The pilot then flew further down the lake. He turned the aircraft into the wind and started to land on top of the lake. Suddenly, the plane started to have engine problems, MacKinnon noticed the propellers had stopped and watched as the pilot pulled and pushed on the throttle. In horror, he watched as Staff Sgt. Klancher tried to restart the engine, but it would not turn over. Klancher turned around to the passengers and said, “Get ready. We’re going to have to crash land.” The aircraft began to fall from the sky. MacKinnon says, “It was the scariest day of my life! It only took seconds for the plane to crash but it seemed like an eternity.” MacKinnon says Klancher held the plane till the very last minute, he was heading in nose first and at the last second, pulled back on the stick and tried to land her on the pontoons as much as he could. The plane hit a wooded area and bounced, landed another 3 or 4 hundred feet and bounced again. When the plane hit the ground, a pontoon came up through the floor and struck MacKinnon’s seat crashing into his knee smashing the tendons. He lost consciousness for a few minutes.

When MacKinnon came to, Staff Sgt. Klancher and Bernie Johnston were out of the aircraft. They were desperately trying to pry open the side door which had buckled on impact. Barry Sibley was standing inside the plane trying help them open the door. The front of the aircraft was on fire. MacKinnon remembered that they had filled it full of fuel before they left Deer Lake. He knew the plane was going to blow up and could hear the tanks hissing under the pressure. He was in the front of the plane and knew the only way out for him, because of his leg, would be to climb over the pilot’s seat and get out through the pilot’s door. He was wearing his tunic and brown belt and it got hooked up in something, he tried several times to pull himself free, and adds, “I never had the sense of mind to undo the belt in the panic of the moment.” He finally freed himself and could hear a crunching sound. He looked back through the flames and realized Klancher and Johnston had opened the back door and was able to get Barry Sibley out. MacKinnon jumped out of the pilot’s door, with his shattered leg, he dragged himself and crawled as fast as he could away from the plane. Within seconds he heard a rumbling sound, followed by a loud bang, the plane burst into flames.

Two of the hunters from the camp, made their way to the crash site and helped the four members back to their camp. They spent the night there waiting to be rescued, but no one knew they had crashed. The pilot had filed a flight plan but no one at the flight control tower in Deer Lake checked to see if they had made it. When the shift changed at the tower, an air traffic controller noticed they had not been heard from and decided to follow up on it by calling all the airports in Newfoundland and Labrador looking for the RCMP plane. The officer in charge of the Corner Brook Subdivision, Supt. Bill Halleran called MacKinnon’s wife at 11:30 PM and asked if Bob was home. MacKinnon says, “Of course then my wife knew there was something wrong.” She spent the night walking the floor waiting for news with a six-month-old baby in her arms.

The next morning, MacKinnon estimates it to be around 9:00 AM, they started to hear some planes. They could see the planes fly over the crash site and next came the big helicopter from the Buchan’s Mine. It landed near by and transported MacKinnon to hospital. The other three passengers did not receive any serious injuries from the crash. MacKinnon jokes, “When my wife came into the room and seen me, she passed out and ended up in the bed next to me.” After several surgeries, MacKinnon was back on his feet and back to work.

He says, “If it wasn’t for Staff Sgt. Klancher keeping his cool the way he did and bringing that plane down the way he did, there would be no survivors.” Klancher went on to have a long career with the RCMP. He served in Regina, Saskatchewan, Ottawa, Ontario, and then British Columbia in the late 1970's. MacKinnon says he lost track of Cst. Sibley and Sgt. Johnston.

It took him a couple of months before he could fly again. He was boarding an Eastern Provincial Airlines plane and was terrified. The stewardess noticed he was starting to panic and asked if everything was alright. He told her about his last flight, and she tapped him on the shoulder and said, “You’ll be alright. Don’t worry.” As the plane took off, he thought, “I hope nothing like that every happens to me again.” Nine years later, he was in a car accident on the Northern Peninsula that almost took his life. Shortly after than, the Force put him at a desk job.

Read Bob MacKinnon's stories along with the stories of other Veterans who served in B Division in 'In Search of Adventure - 70 Years of the RCMP in NL."

I want to be the night-mayor (pronounced nightmare) of St. John’s

Being the mayor of the city of St. John’s can’t be an easy job. Who would want it? I certainly wouldn’t.

Your day would be filled with fighting with unions, administration work, listening to complaining people all day long. You only get to leave your office to kiss babies and attend boring functions.

Who would want that? To me it would be a punishment.

What I want to be is the night mayor of St John’s. Yes, you can pronounce it as nightmare.

The night mayor would be the one who comes in at 6 o’clock with a big mug of coffee and does the work that should be done. The night mayor does not sign checks or attend functions or deal with administration bullshit. The night mayor is the one who gets crap done.

For example, as the nightmare I would first of all rip up the policy and procedure book around contracts. I would make sure that any company getting a contract from the city would have to work seven days a week 24 hours a day until the job is done. And if the job is not done on time, every day that it’s delayed the contractor will have to pay the city.

I would breathe life into the downtown section. The downtown core of every city is the heart. Our heart is on life-support. A drive down Water Street shows you an abandoned buildings, graffiti, and panhandlers chasing you for coins.

Our politicians have put the ‘political’ in politically correct. They are afraid to offend the pan handler, must be all the taxes that they pay. They are afraid to attract business to downtown.

They did come up with the Water Street mall but that seems to have offended people up on Duckworth Street. There’s no shortage of offended people in the city.

As the night mayor, I would make the Water Street mall a permanent thing twelve months a year. Open everyday.

I would also limit taped music. We have an abundance of musicians in this province. Hire them! Rewrite the nightclub permit to say during eight pm to midnight music has to be live.

I would encourage the police to put a walking beat down through Water Street, Duckworth Street, the Waterfront and George Street with a satellite office on one of those streets. It would be open 24 hours a day. That way if someone is a crime victim police can act quickly. We need to put the police back into the communities. Get them out of cars.

As night mayor I would have all sidewalks around school zones cleared first. Houses with front yards would be responsible to clear the snow on the sidewalk in front of them as is done in other cities. This will take the pressure off snow clearing and allow them to focus on areas that need to be done.

I would put speed bumps in front off all crosswalks and school zones. I would make traffic circles one lane. Don’t even get me started on the one by Costco.

I would make bus rides free. That’s it. If you need to ride the bus, it’s free.

Also sell Mile One. Why are we keeping this albatross around our necks?

I would give businesses downtown free parking passes for employees. People making minimum wage should not have to put quarters into a meter.

I would bring back midnight New Years Eve fireworks and hold an 8 p.m. party in Bannerman Park for kids. (Considering this change was made with no consultation with businesses or the public and yes, I did ask for all council notes on this.)

Dogs would be banned from the Regatta. Idiots would be banned from the city.

This is just the start of my political platform.

I am just warning you, I will be running in the next St. John’s City Council Election. But not for mayor, for night mayor.

Let’s agree right now that the middle seat on a plane is not coming back

Everybody is talking about how excited they are to go back to travelling once the pandemic ends.

That’s all I hear when I run into friends. Everywhere I go everyone I talk to constantly says I can’t wait to take a cruise or go to an all inclusive.

I am also extremely excited about travel. The one thing I’m not excited about, is getting on a plane.

The reason is, that darn middle seat.

Nobody wants to sit in it. We pay extra to NOT sit in it. It’s the cheap seat. The kids seat. It’s time to ban it.

I hope the one thing this pandemic ends forever is that middle seat. It should be strapped down so nobody can ever sit in it.

I was once travelling from Halifax to Ottawa when a huge man who happened to be a boxer sat in the middle seat. I was in the window seat. This guy immediately fell asleep and snored to the entire flight. Which meant I could not pee. At one point, I considered trying to use a water bottle, but I would have had to pull my jeans down. When I say snore, I am not talking a light little snore. This was a huge snore. I’m surprised the pilot did not come back and put a muzzle on his face. How this man fit in the middle seat was a mystery.

Another time this kindly old lady sat in the middle seat next to me from Vancouver to Edmonton. She was all of 100 pounds, but she would fart like a Clydesdale. Then she would look around pretending it wasn’t her. Every half hour, like clockwork, this woman would shit her pants. When she finally stood up, I had to check to see if there was a hole in the seat. It smelled like she ate her young. When the plane finally landed, I felt like asking her, for the love of God woman what did you eat?

I once flew from Ottawa to St. John’s with a woman who had so much perfume on that she not only gave me a migraine she cleared up the cold sore I had in the corner of my mouth.

On one flight a lady in the middle seat had air sickness. She not only threw up all over my pants and purse, but she had explosive diarrhea. Thank God we weren’t on a train because I would have thrown her out a window.

Then there’s the people who are adamant that you will talk to them whether you like it or not. I once had a guy explain his version of his messy divorce to me for four hours! By the time he landed I wanted to contact his wife and congratulate her on her good decision.

Then there’s the drunks. A guy got on a flight in Halifax to St. John’s completely inebriated. The flight attendant kept serving him booze. Twice he put his hand on my knee and once he tried to kiss me. He finally passed out. When he woke up, he kept complaining about a pain in his groin. Let’s leave it at that.

I’m not even going to get into the amount of people who do not wash their bodies before they get on a flight. Or the men coming back from vacation wearing flip-flops with yellow long dirty toenails. Or people who take off their shoes and let their sticky feet air out. Or try to read whatever you’re reading.

I also can’t help but wonder how many people with head lice are sitting next to me. How about those people with flu symptoms who constantly sneeze all over you? Then it’s those people who have to have their elbows in the air while they are eating. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had some strange man’s elbow hit me in the tit while I’m trying to enjoy my 3 ounces of dried chicken breast.

We are also protective of our personal space now after living through a pandemic. So, I think collectively as a group we need to unite and ban the middle seat on airplanes.

A Stroke of Bad Luck

I reach down and ran my hand along my calf. I should have shaved my legs that day.

The funny things you think about when you’re sitting in a hospital gown waiting for a CT scan to find out if you’ve really had a stroke.

I can tell you the upcoming mortgage payment or the garage that needs organizing did not cross my mind.

My daughter wasn’t home that afternoon I left to go to the doctor’s office to get a simple flu shot. She was at her friend’s house.

It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal anyway. It was just a flu shot.

I lay on the table under the CT scanner wondering what the technician was seeing. Praying there was no damage, all I could think about was, I didn’t kiss my daughter goodbye. My sons, daughter-in-law and grandkids didn’t know this was happening to me.

I had to stop myself from thinking I may never see them again.

I had kissed my daughter goodbye that morning thinking I would see her at supper. I never dreamed it could be our last time seeing each other. Laying in that machine I was thinking I should have held her tighter. I should have talked more. I should have made eye contact when I told her I loved her. I wouldn’t have just said it on the fly.

Funny things you think about when you’re sitting in a hospital gown waiting to find out if you’ve had a stroke.

I was wheeled into a hospital room with three other ladies.

The lady in the bed across from me tells me she has cancerous tumours throughout her body. She has a 19-year-old daughter, a year younger than mine. Her daughter came every day and sat with her. When she left, the lady spent the evening writing birthday cards and letters for all the occasions she knew she was going to miss. In between stuffing envelopes, she was throwing up and crying.

The funny things you do when you’re sitting in a hospital waiting to die.

By the second day, I had read my second book. I had binged watched a series on Netflix and finished a movie at 4 AM. Sleeping in the hospital is impossible with the sound of the machines and moans from other patients.

I can still taste the smell of disinfectant mixed with bodily fluids in the back of my throat when I think about it.

Every time I thought of my children I started to cry. So, I searched for another Netflix movie.

The funny things your brain will do to distract you from thinking about those you love.

On the fourth day in the hospital the nurse unhooked me from the cardiogram machine, and I was allowed to get a shower.

Coming back to some degree of normalcy lifted my spirits. Afterwards I tried to plug in my hairdryer, but the plug in the bathroom is for razors only. Hospital rooms much like hotel rooms are not made for women. They are made from men.

The things that piss you off when you’re stuck in a hospital bed waiting to find out if you’ve had a stroke.

It was the weirdest thing. I had a pain in my left jaw. It felt like a toothache. I had a dull headache, but doesn’t everyone? The left side of my face felt numb, like it was asleep. My neck hurt but it always did. I didn’t have any numbness or weakness down the left side of my body. I was a little confused but thought I was only tired.

My plan was to get my flu shot and go home, take an Advil and nap for an hour. The plan could have killed me.

Funny things women will put off until they have everything done for everyone else.

The stroke of good luck came when my husband picked me up to go to get our flu shots. I told him about the headache and jaw pain. He told me the left side of my face had drooped but I couldn’t see it. He told me to mention it to our doctor. I told him he was crazy.

The doctor took one look at me, checked me over and said, “Take her to Emergency. She’s having a stroke.”

I didn’t believe it.

The CT scans proved me wrong.

Men and women often feel similar symptoms such as face drooping, arm weakness and speech difficulty. Other common signs include problems seeing out of one or both eyes and balance or coordination problems. But some women have symptoms subtle enough to be missed or brushed off. That can lead to delays in getting time-sensitive, lifesaving treatments.

Additional Symptoms in Women include: General weakness Disorientation and confusion or memory problems Fatigue Nausea or vomiting

The funny things women pass off as everyday annoyances that could lead to their deaths.

My advice is, listen to your body, listen to those around you. I would hate to think of what would have happened if I went home and lay down like I planned.

What I didn’t know was if you get to the hospital within four hours of having a stroke, the doctors can stop it and save your life.

It’s better to be safe that sorry. Don’t let those funny things be your stroke of bad luck.