Ronald E. Yates's Blog, page 73

Welcome to the: “GRANDMOTHERS: A FORCE FOR GOOD” Blog Tour! @HealthMN1 @4WillsPub #RRBC #RWISA

Today, ForeignCorrespondent welcomes author (and grandmother) Harriet Hodgson and her new book: Force, How Grandmothers are Changing Grandchildren, Families, and Themselves.

To quote from the book’s Amazon synopsis:

“Becoming the grandmother of twins changed Harriet Hodgson and altered her life course. According to Hodgson, we live in a fast-paced, complex time, a time when too many grandchildren are victims of bullying, Internet scams, and sexual abuse. Hodgson believes that grandmothers are needed today more than any other time in history.”

Below, Harriet shares some of her favorite quotations about writing–a discipline at which she clearly excels.

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Quotes
About Writing

I love writing. I love the swirl and swing
of words as they tangle with human emotions.   
James A. Michener



The first sentence can’t be written until
the final sentence is written.   Joyce
Carol Oates



I don’t need an alarm clock. My ideas wake
me.   Ray Bradbury



The road to hell is paved with
adverbs.    Stephen King



If it sounds like writing, I rewrite
it.   Elmore Leonard



The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.   Maya Angelou



No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.  No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.   Robert Frost



[image error]Harriet Hodgson

Author Bio: 

Harriet Hodgson has been a freelance writer for 38 years, is the author of thousands of print/online articles, and 37 books. Hodgson is a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists and the Alliance of Independent Authors. She has appeared on more than 185 radio talk shows, including CBS Radio, and dozens of television stations, including CNN. 

A popular speaker, she has given presentations at public health, Alzheimer’s, bereavement, and caregiving conferences. She lives in Rochester, Minnesota with her husband, John.

Please visit www.harriethodgson.com for more information about this busy wife, mother, grandmother, caregiver, speaker, and author.

Purchase Links:

Amazon paperback   https://amzn.to/31Kklgs

Amazon eBook   https://amzn.to/31FoUt5

Barnes and Noble paperback   http://bit.ly/2N28jLY

Barnes and Noble eBook   http://bit.ly/31GeWaj

IndieBound paperback   http://bit.ly.2TBRpol

To follow along with the rest of the tour,
please visit the author’s tour
page on the 4WillsPublishing site.

If you’d like to book your own blog tour and
have your book promoted in similar grand fashion, please click HERE.  

Thanks for supporting this author and her
work!

How to Deal with a Negative Book Review

There is an old adage that says “any publicity is good publicity–even if it is bad.” Why? Because the objective is to get people talking about you and your book.

There is an old adage that says “any publicity is good publicity–even if it is bad.” Why? Because the objective is to get people talking about you and your book.

If you are like me, I don’t believe a lot of the negative reviews I see on sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, etc. In fact, I will often comb through all of a book’s reviews to see if others are saying the same negative things about a book. If they are not, I will normally rely more on positive reviews than the bad ones.

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Sometimes I will buy a book with bad reviews just to see if it’s as bad as the reviewers say it is. Often, it isn’t.

I spent most of my life as a journalist. I KNOW what it is like to have one’s work criticized mercilessly by nasty editors. The key is to look at negative comments of your work for “constructive” criticism and then be open-minded enough to use that criticism to improve your writing, your pacing, your plot, your characterization, etc.

Of course, there are those trolls who simply live to “trash” other people’s work. Those reviews are easy to spot. They will write that the book is “dumb” or “boring” or “trashy” without backing up their opinions with anything constructive. Writers need to let those criticisms go and not obsess about them.

Check out Amazon’s reviews. You will see books like War and Peace and Gone With the Wind getting one and two-star reviews or ratings.

Indeed, you will find bestsellers with lots of bad reviews. For example, the last book in the popular Hunger Games Trilogy has racked up something like 500 one-star reviews on Amazon. And John Locke has a 3-star average on his popular Saving Rachel (a Donovan Creed Crime Novel)and almost as many 1-star reviews as 5-star reviews. Despite that fact, his books are selling tens of thousands worldwide

The point is: You Can’t Please Everybody, nor should you try. You need to write what you are passionate about, tell a good story and leave the naysayers behind and eating your dust.

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Having said all of that, it is a blow to the ego to see a bad review of one’s work pop up on Amazon and elsewhere. It’s like a punch in the gut. It makes you angry. You want to find out where the author of that bad review lives and set their house on fire or beat them senseless with a baseball bat.

Don’t. Instead, focus on the GOOD reviews your book as received. And have a sense of humor about it all.

If you are like me, I don’t believe a lot of the negative reviews I see on sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, etc.  In fact, I will often comb through all of a book’s reviews to see if others are saying the same negative things about a book. If they are not, I will normally rely more on positive reviews than the bad ones.

Sometimes I will buy a book with bad reviews
just to see if it’s as bad as the reviewers say it is. Often, it isn’t.

I spent most of my life as a journalist. I KNOW what it is like to have one’s work criticized mercilessly by nasty editors. The key is to look at negative comments of your work for “constructive” criticism and then be open-minded enough to use that criticism to improve your writing, your pacing, your plot, your characterization, etc.

Of course, there are those trolls who simply live to “trash” other people’s work. Those reviews are easy to spot. They will write that the book is “dumb” or “boring” or “trashy” without backing up their opinions with anything constructive. Writers need to let those criticisms go and not obsess about them.

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All authors get bad reviews (more on that
later). Don’t take it personally. The criticism is about your ideas and the way
you presented them, not about you as a person. Most sophisticated readers can
distinguish a rant from a genuine review.

Sometimes if a book gets a bad review, other
readers who disagree will challenge that reviewer’s conclusion. That can set
off a useful discussion of the book and actually cause readers to buy the book
just to see who is right.

Don’t forget, you didn’t write your book to
generate reviews. You wrote it to appeal to readers. You had a story to tell, a
point to get across, a desire to inform and even educate readers. Reviews–good
or bad– are simply marketing tools.

True, good reviews may feed your ego, cause intellectual indigestion and lead you to believe you are the next Hemmingway, J. K. Rowling or Ursula K. Le Guin. My advice: deflate your ego and remain planted on terra firma.

If the reviews you are reading seem to be an excessive distraction and are causing you to alter the way you write or the way you present a story, you may want to stop reading reviews altogether–even the good ones.

You need to believe in yourself, not in what some snarky reviewer says. Look for constructive criticism and avoid the malicious rants.

Work to get more reviews. Good reviews often
will invalidate bad ones and on sites like Amazon, will shove the negative reviews
down the page.

Finally, take what the late Elmore Leonard
said about writing to heart: “If it sounds like writing….rewrite it. I can’t
allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of
the narrative.”

(Next Week: Dealing with Rejection Letters from Publishers & Agents)

EAST MEETS WEST–AND FINDS ‘DECADENCE’

Occasionally I reprint stories I wrote while working as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. Here is one I wrote from Bangkok, Thailand in 1985. It examines the attitudes some Asian countries have toward Western (read “American”) culture—specifically, its music, its films, and what some consider its promiscuous lifestyle. Not much has changed since I filed this story thirty-four years ago.

BANGKOK, Thailand–Two months ago, at the peak of its popularity, the hit song “One Night in Bangkok” (see link at end of story) was banned by the government here. The reason: It was seen as a Western perversion of Thai culture.

Last week in an impassioned speech, Singapore’s deputy prime minister deplored the influx of “Western decadence” and warned his nation’s parliament that Asia was being “engulfed and overwhelmed by dangerous waves of undesirable Western influences.”

Even in Japan, which more than any other Asian nation has embraced and emulated Western culture, Japanese politicians and sociologists have lamented the erosion of traditional Japanese values under a “mushroom cloud of American music, movies, and adolescent mayhem.”

Other Asian nations–from South Korea, which has in the past banned American rock music, to Taiwan, which has refused to allow controversial American and European films and books to be circulated–have begun looking more critically at imported Western ideas, culture and even fashion as their traditional societies are altered by high technology and cross-cultural communication.

Everything from declining family and human relations to rising divorce and crime rates is being blamed on unhealthy Western “permissiveness” in an increasingly shrill denunciation of the West.

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Ironically, this is happening at a time when economic and cultural contact between Asia and the rest of the world has never been greater.

Critics of American and European influences are calling for a return to something they call “Asian values”–a catchall term that seems to encompass everything from Confucian ethics to an Asian version of the Boy Scout oath.

“Asian values,” explained Ong Teng Cheong, Singapore’s deputy prime minister, “are the ethical and moral concepts of Asians, the spirit of thriftiness and diligence.

“Moral and ethical values and proper human relations are the pillars of society,” Ong said. “Asian values emphasize the personal moral character and a person’s responsibility to society and the nation.”

Not everyone in Asia seems ready to accept that definition, however. Nor do they agree with governments that seem overly concerned about Western influences.

“Confucianism and other so-called Asian values essentially work against the trend toward democracy,” said Singapore parliamentarian Chiam See Tong. “People are taught not to speak up and to obey the orders of their superiors.

“One suspects that, by ‘Asian values,’ what is really meant is old conservative Chinese ideas of obedience to authority and not headlong opposition with the government, like in the West,” he added.

According to Vichai Prasertporn, a professor of political science at a Bangkok university, “What these governments that are crying for the return to Asian values are really saying is, ‘Sit down, shut up and follow orders.’

“Blaming the West for internal problems is nothing new in Asia,” he continued. “And certainly by banning a song about Bangkok’s nightlife, the government of Thailand is not going to ensure cultural purity. Just the opposite. ‘One Night in Bangkok’ is more popular than ever now.”

The chorus of complaints about the infusion of Western decadence and social permissiveness seems destined to achieve unprecedented decibel levels in the halls of Asian Parliaments. Everything from heavy metal and rap music to uninhibited displays of sexual activity in Hollywood films is under fire.

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Some of the more xenophobic critics are even unhappy about the continued spread of American fast-food restaurants such as McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Shakey’s Pizza.

“We are witnessing a current of ill wind of faddish trends pervading Western countries where the youth like to put on unkempt and outlandish dress and romp and dance in the streets,” observed Singapore parliamentarian, Tang Guan Seng.

“They (Western teenagers) even take to drugs and unbridled carnal excesses,” Tang scolded. “In their minds, there is only individual freedom but not social or national interest.

“Furthermore,” Tang said, “we in Asia simply can’t accept the Western practice of addressing parents by their first names or the pitiful banishment of elderly parents in homes for the aged.”

In Japan, where Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone has recently called for a revamping of the country’s educational system to emphasize more “Japanese values,” similar complaints about American influence are often heard.

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Yet, say those who disagree with the denunciations of Western influence, countries such as Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore are undergoing dramatic changes because of their emergence as Asian superstates.

“The world is shrinking faster than ever before, and these countries are responsible for it with their manufacture and dissemination of technological gadgetry,” said Shintaro Ohu, a Tokyo businessman. “They are getting fat off this technology, yet at the same time are complaining about the changes this technology is bound to cause.”

Others agree and insist that Asian nations whose traditions are eroding in the high-speed computer age should accept the changes.

“The values and things worth saving will always be there,” said Prasertporn. “Big Macs will never replace spicy Thai shrimp soup, and I am sure Japanese teenagers who wear Boy George costumes will eventually come to see the classical beauty of a Japanese yukata (robe).”

Click on the link below to hear the song and see why it was banned in Bangkok.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=ymyy-t-999&p=one+night+in+bangkok#id=1&vid=7b7f2072f783ccf3cdc3cfe5338f88bd&action=click

RAVE REVIEWS BOOK CLUB’S “SPOTLIGHT” Author Blog Tour!

Today, ForeignCorrespondent is pleased to host author John Fioravanti during his Spotlight Author Blog Tour. John’s topic today is Fear, or more precisely, Does Fear Own You?

The topic comes from John’s book, Reflections: Inspirational Quotes and Interpretations. It is just one of fifty thought-provoking essays in the book that cover a multitude of topics. The book is available in the Amazon book store, but for now, here is John’s reflection on the theme of Fear.

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The REFLECTIONS Blog Tour

By John Fioravanti

I’m grateful to my host of this sixth post of the REFLECTIONS TOUR, and to Nonnie Jules
and the #RRBC Team who arranged it all!

Reflection 40: Does Fear Own You?

“If you want to conquer fear, don’t sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” ~ Dale Carnegie

Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) was an American writer, lecturer
and developer of courses in self-improvement. He has always been near and dear
to my heart because his book, How to Stop Worrying and Start
Living (1948), helped me immensely in my lifelong battle against fear and
self-doubt. I purchased the book while in the throes of debilitating anxiety,
read it cover to cover, and felt myself relax a little more with each page I
read. I don’t have the book anymore. I loaned it to a student who suffered from
anxiety attacks and I never got it back. But I don’t mind – I just hope that
the book helped her as much as it helped me.

Mr. Carnegie wrote in straight-forward prose that was easy to understand. He didn’t overwhelm his readers with psycho-babble, and I remember that the deeper I got into the book, the more grateful I felt about his simple wisdom. I’m sure there is plenty of contemporary literature to help souls lost in fear and self-doubt today, but I credit Dale Carnegie with my success in battling those demons. Unfortunately, they’ve never completely left me – they do come out to play from time to time – but I know them and their tricks, and I meet them head-on with plain old common sense and strong resolve.

He begins the quote with very solid advice about how to
conquer fear, “… don’t sit home and think about
it.”  As a teenager and young man, I remember doing just that. I
would sit around my room and fret about everything in my life that I thought
wasn’t going perfectly. The more I focused on my worries, the bigger the demons
became. I was creating, in my mind, the worst possible scenarios, and
convincing myself that these were the most probable outcomes. The mind is a
wonderful thing, and one can conjure up delightful fantasies to while away the
hours; but as my experience has shown, it can also create a frightening prison
that is difficult to escape.

He exhorts us to “Go out and get busy.” There are two ways to look at this advice. First, sitting and thinking about the horror of our problems only makes them worse. We need to calm down and apply common sense. The last sentence of this quote gives us the route to follow to make that happen. Advising someone to calm down isn’t very helpful. Knowing that Carnegie wisely counsels us to get out of our heads and get busy doing something. Activity will facilitate finding a way out of our mental maze of horror to a place of relief. In a more relaxed state, we can re-engage our brains to apply common sense to the situation.

Another aspect of getting busy is doing something to resolve the problem at the heart of our anxiety. Problems don’t disappear by wishing them away. Usually, concrete action is required to resolve the issue. The solution may involve researching more information or getting advice from a more experienced person. Once a course of action is clear, and a plan is created, we’re in a position to act with a reasonable expectation of success. Sitting in isolation, fretting over a problem, and literally, worrying ourselves sick – is self-defeating.

“If you want to conquer fear…” assume the responsibility for its defeat, and act.

[image error]John Fioravanti

Author Bio:

John Fioravanti is a retired secondary school educator who completed his thirty-five-year career in the classroom in June 2008.

Throughout
his career, John focused on developing research, analysis, and essay writing
skills in his History classroom. This led to the publication of his first
non-fiction work for student use, Getting
It Right in History Class. A
Personal Journey to the Heart of Teaching is his second non-fiction work;
it attempts to crystallize the struggles, accomplishments, and setbacks
experienced in more than three decades of effort to achieve excellence in his
chosen field.

John’s
first work of fiction is Passion &
Struggle, Book One of
The Genesis Saga, and is set within
Kenneth Tam’s Equations universe (Iceberg Publishing). He claims that, after
two non-fiction books, he’s having the time of his life bringing new stories
and characters to life! Book Two is Treachery
& Triumph.

At
present, John lives in Waterloo, Ontario with Anne, his bride of forty-six
years. They have three children and three grandchildren. In December of 2013,
John and Anne founded Fiora Books
for the express purpose of publishing John’s books.

Predictions About the Future In Historical Novels

One of the more enduring activities of human beings has always been to imagine what the future will bring. We all do it, some more than others.

It’s what separates us from the rest of earth’s creatures, most of which are too consumed with daily survival to think past their last meal or their next one.

As authors of historical fiction we invent characters and put them in various bygone eras. Then we create conflict for them to deal with, people to love and to hate, obstacles to overcome, tragedy to rise above, and joyous moments to take pleasure in.

But how often do we have our characters speculate about what the world will look like in the future?

Not often, I am sure. And the reason is probably the same one I gave for earth’s “other” creatures. Our characters are often dealing with one conflict after another or just trying to survive. What the world will look like one hundred, two hundred or three hundred years is simply not within their intellectual compass.

Authors who write science fiction and specifically books about time travel think about these things all the time. I do and I don’t even write science fiction (though I do enjoy a good time travel story when I find one).

So what has all of this got to do with historical novels? you may be asking.

I think having characters wonder about the future either via dialogue or in unspoken reflection adds another dimension to the people we create in eras such as the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment or, in the case of my book, the 19th Century.

So how might we do that? Well, considering that truth is always stranger than fiction, you might examine predictions made about the future from some pretty famous and creative people.

Recently someone sent me a copy of a story that appeared in the 1911 edition of the now defunct Miami Metropolis newspaper.



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Thomas Alva Edison




The story was an interview with none other than Thomas Edison in which America’s most famous inventor made some rather astounding predictions about the future. Some were quite accurate and some were, shall we say, a bit off target.

For example, he rather amazingly predicts the e-book reader and at the same time predicts by 2011 we will be able to transmute metals and turn iron into gold. Ahem….

Here is that article in its entirety. Enjoy.

“What will the world be a hundred years hence?
 
None but a wizard dare raise the curtain and disclose the secrets of the future; and what wizard can do it with so sure a hand as Mr. Thomas Alva Edison, who has wrested so many secrets from jealous Nature? He alone of all men who live has the necessary courage and gift of foresight, and he has not shrunk from the venture.
 
Already, Mr. Edison tells us, the steam engine is emitting its last gasps. A century hence it will be as remote as antiquity as the lumbering coach of Tudor days, which took a week to travel from Yorkshire to London. In the year 2011 such railway trains as survive will be driven at incredible speed by electricity (which will also be the motive force of all the world’s machinery), generated by “hydraulic” wheels.
 
But the traveler of the future, says a writer in Answers, will largely scorn such earth crawling. He will fly through the air, swifter than any swallow, at a speed of two hundred miles an hour, in colossal machines, which will enable him to breakfast in London, transact business in Paris and eat his luncheon in Cheapside.
 
The house of the next century will be furnished from basement to attic with steel, at a sixth of the present cost — of steel so light that it will be as easy to move a sideboard as it is today to lift a drawing room chair. The baby of the twenty-first century will be rocked in a steel cradle; his father will sit in a steel chair at a steel dining table, and his mother’s boudoir will be sumptuously equipped with steel furnishings, converted by cunning varnishes to the semblance of rosewood, or mahogany, or any other wood her ladyship fancies.
 
Books of the coming century will all be printed leaves of nickel, so light to hold that the reader can enjoy a small library in a single volume. A book two inches thick will contain forty thousand pages, the equivalent of a hundred volumes; six inches in aggregate thickness, it would suffice for all the contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica. And each volume would weigh less than a pound.
 
Already Mr. Edison can produce a pound weight of these nickel leaves, more flexible than paper and ten times as durable, at a cost of five shillings. In a hundred years’ time the cost will probably be reduced to a tenth.
 
More amazing still, this American wizard sounds the death knell of gold as a precious metal. “Gold,” he says, “has even now but a few years to live. The day is near when bars of it will be as common and as cheap as bars of iron or blocks of steel.
 
“We are already on the verge of discovering the secret of transmuting metals, which are all substantially the same in matter, though combined in different proportions.”

Before long it will be an easy matter to convert a truck load of iron bars into as many bars of virgin gold.
 
In the magical days to come there is no reason why our great liners should not be of solid gold from stem to stern; why we should not ride in golden taxicabs, or substituted gold for steel in our drawing room suites. Only steel will be the more durable, and thus the cheaper in the long run.”
 
Golden ocean liners and cabs? I think we can all be thankful that Edison missed the boat (and the taxi) on that one.

America, the Neo-Tribal Nation

It is unsettling and sad to witness what is happening in our great country today.

Never in my lifetime—and I’m older than Methuselah in dog years—have I ever witnessed such hysteria over the occupant of the White House. No, not even during Watergate—in which a real crime WAS committed, albeit a two-bit burglary. I covered the fallout from the Watergate break in, so I know of what I speak.

What bothers me about the frenzy on the left is its capitulation to identity politics rather than to the rational and intelligent liberal ideology that used to define the Democrat party.

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What attracted me to the Democrat party when I was young and guileless was its issue-oriented, logical approach to dealing with the nation’s social and economic problems. I can still remember a time when voting for a Democrat didn’t mean you were embracing socialism and by definition, extreme loathing and disgust for anybody who was not a Democrat.

Sadly, those days are gone given the Democrat party’s wholehearted embrace of socialism and identity politics.

What do I mean by identity politics?

It means that each of us belongs to a sub-group defined by race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. Let’s look at the behavior of the Democrat party in the last couple of Presidential elections. Instead of focusing on broad issues such as jobs and income growth, Democrats catered to members of different sub-groups, promising to give them power.

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Did Hillary Clinton offer the middle class (strangled by the Obama administration’s focus on the nation’s professed social ills) an agenda for which they could vote? No, she catered to sub-groups hoping that they would coalesce enough to send her to victory. It didn’t work.

In essence, the Democrats apparently want to divide us into competing tribes, each with its own agenda, its own set of grievances, and its own view of what America should look like.

The problem with that is this: if one or two tribes win, then the others lose. The result is now a country that is tearing itself apart, ripping away the very fabric of our nation, and destroying the excellent idea that makes America unique in world history.

Look at what it says on the nation’s Great Seal: “E Pluribus Unum”—Out of Many, One.”

Think about what that means. Out of many peoples, races, religions, languages, and ancestries has emerged a single people and nation.

We used to talk about America being the great melting pot—a fusion of different cultures, ethnicities, and nationalities.

That is no longer politically correct. Today we are taught there is no need to assimilate, to “become an American.” Instead, we each have our own identity: African-American, Mexican-American, Transgender, LGBT, Muslim, Evangelical, Jew, Democrat, Republican, etc.

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This is neo-tribalism, in which we are identified by what sub-group or tribe to which we belong. We are no longer “Americans.” We are something else.

That means instead of thinking about the whole and the many, we think about ourselves and what sub-group we belong to first and the country last, if at all.

It means that instead of allowing reasonable debate about issues, those who belong to a sub-group JUST WANT TO WIN. Debate is no longer a means to a solution. In their minds violence, rioting, burning, destroying property, shouting down those who don’t agree with them, and ignoring freedom of speech is the new modus operandi.

Concepts that we were once taught to respect and cherish such as freedom of speech, the rule of law, the nuclear family, patriotism, adherence to religion and belief in God are under assault by a profane and secular left.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson has said it very well:

“At the outset, we were fortunate to have a group of people write essential documents that gave us a good deal to think about.  And I think that a lot of the higher quality of American discourse, when it has been high, is out of respect for the fact that these are valuable things that impose respect for people of other views.

“And, at this point, things have deteriorated to the point that it is morally wrong to have an attitude of presumptive respect toward someone you disagree with. That’s just bizarre, and it’s obviously not a formula for civilized society.”

I am saddened when I hear those on the left say that our Constitution is no longer germane, that our traditions are not noble, that our Bill of Rights is irrelevant, and that we do not live in an exceptional country.

I remember listening to what President John F. Kennedy said during his 1961 inauguration speech. It still resonates with me today. (Yes, I saw that speech on TV and I voted for Kennedy).

“My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

I took those words to heart. I joined the U.S. Army and served four years gathering intelligence for the National Security Agency. Others joined Kennedy’s Peace Corps and went to third world countries to help people produce clean water, build decent housing, and eliminate illiteracy.

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I am proud of my service to this country. I hate seeing it ripped apart today by self-centered politicians and others who put their political party and themselves before country, who feel it is acceptable to ignore the results of a legitimate election, and who want to use any means possible to remove the candidate they didn’t vote for from office.

That is exactly what we see today when Democrats howl for Donald Trump’s political lynching—which is what an impeachment is.

The way to remove a president from office is with the ballot, not by decree, violence, or a political coup d’état.

I hope it is not too late.

Here Are 11 Skills Your Great-Grandparents Had That You Don’t

Those of us who write historical fiction are always striving to make sure our characters are part of the period in which our novels are set. A farmer in 19th Century Kansas, for example, had to know how to hunt and fish, how to forage and how to butcher livestock, pluck chickens, and shoe a horse, etc.


There were no supermarkets, no computers or online shopping, no clothing stores or malls. Yes, there were Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs where women could order ready-made dresses and men could order pants and shirts, but ordering from them was considered an infrequent luxury.

I recently received an e-mail from Ancestry.com, the online genealogy service that asked:
 
“How old school are you? Do you think you’ve got what it takes to live in your great-grandparents’ era?”
 
I was intrigued by this question, having just completed the third book in a my Finding Billy Battles trilogy, the first of which is set in the late 19th Century American West. As someone who spent time on a farm, who hunted and fished and cleaned hundreds of chickens, rabbits, and squirrels, I figured I would be OK if I were suddenly transported to my great-grandparents’ time.

But there was more to living back then than hunting and fishing. Life was much, much harder, and so were the people.

Take a look at what Ancestry.com had to say:

Our parents and grandparents may shake their heads every time we grab our smart phones to get turn-by-turn directions or calculate the tip. But when it comes to life skills, our great-grandparents have us all beat. Here are some skills our great-grandparents had 90 years ago that most of us don’t.
 
1. Courting
While your parents and grandparents didn’t have the option to ask someone out on a date via text message, it’s highly likely that your great-grandparents didn’t have the option of dating at all. Until well into the 1920s, modern dating didn’t exist. A gentleman would court a young lady by asking her or her parents for permission to call on the family. The potential couple would have a formal visit — with at least one parent chaperone present — and the man would leave a calling card. If the parents and the young lady were impressed, he’d be invited back again, and that would be the start of their romance.
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2. Hunting, Fishing, and Foraging
Even city dwellers in your great-grandparents’ generation had experience hunting, fishing, and foraging for food. If your great-grandparents never lived in a rural area or lived off the land, their parents probably did. Being able to kill, catch, or find your own food was considered an essential life skill no matter where one lived, especially during the Great Depression.

3. Butchering
In this age of the boneless, skinless chicken breast, it’s unusual to have to chop up a whole chicken at home, let alone a whole cow. Despite the availability of professionally butchered and packaged meats, knowing how to cut up a side of beef or clean a rabbit from her husband’s hunting trip was an ordinary part of a housewife’s skill set in the early 20th century. This didn’t leave the men off the hook, though. After all, they were most likely the ones who would field dress any animals they killed.
 
4. Bartering
Before the era of shopping malls and convenience stores, it was more common to trade goods and services with neighbors and shop owners. Home-canned foods, hand-made furniture, and other DIY goods were currency your great-grandparents could use instead of cash.
 



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Before Clothes Dryers, There was the Sun



 
5. Haggling
Though it’d be futile for you to argue with the barista at Starbucks about the price of a cup of coffee, your great-grandparents were expert hagglers. Back when corporate chains weren’t as ubiquitous, it was a lot easier to bargain with local shop owners and merchants. Chances are your great-grandparents bought very few things from a store anyway.

6. Darning and Mending
Nowadays if a sock gets a hole in it, you buy a new pair. But your great-grandparents didn’t let anything go to waste, not even a beat-up, old sock. This went for every other article of clothing as well. Darning socks and mending clothes was just par for the course.
 
7. Corresponding by snail mail
Obviously, your great-grandparents didn’t text or email. However, even though the telephone existed, it wasn’t the preferred method of staying in touch either, especially long-distance. Hand-written letters were the way they communicated with loved ones and took care of business.
 
8. Making Lace
Tatting, the art of making lace, was a widely popular activity for young women in your great-grandparents’ generation. Elaborate lace collars, doilies, and other decorative touches were signs of sophistication. However, fashion changed and technology made lace an easy and inexpensive to buy, so their children probably didn’t pick up the skill.
 



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Tatting, the Art of Making Lace




9. Lighting a Fire Without Matches
Sure, matches have been around since the 1600s. But they were dangerous and toxic — sparking wildly out of control and emitting hazardous fumes. A more controllable, nonpoisonous match wasn’t invented until 1910. So Great-grandma and Great-grandpa had to know a thing or two about lighting a fire without matches.
 
10. Diapering With Cloth
Disposable diapers weren’t commonly available until the 1930s. Until then, cloth diapers held with safety pins were where babies did their business. Great-grandma had a lot of unpleasant laundry on her hands.
 
11. Writing With a Fountain Pen
While it’s true that your grandparents were skilled in the lost art of writing in cursive, your grandparents probably were, too. However, the invention of the ballpoint pen in the late 1930s and other advances in pen technology means that your great-grandparents were the last generation who had to refill their pens with ink.
 
Thanks to Ancestry.com for sharing this. I hope it helps you realize how easy you have it today compared to 100 years ago.`

Here is a link to Ancestry.com’s website:  http://home.ancestry.com

Just for Fun: A Story & Some Obscure & Generally Trivial Information

Today I am sharing some obscure knowledge with you, as well as a short and dubious yarn. Just what’s needed for a Blue Monday. Enjoy!

Yesterday I got my permit to carry a concealed weapon. So, today I went over to the local gun shop to get a 9mm handgun for home/personal protection. When I was ready to pay for the pistol and ammo, the cashier said, “Strip down, facing me.”

Making a mental note to complain to the government about gun control wackos in California running amok, I did just as she instructed. When the hysterical shrieking and alarms finally subsided, I found out she was referring to how I should place my credit card in the card reader!

I do not get flustered often, but this time it took me a while to get my pants back on. I’ve been asked to shop elsewhere in the future. They need to make their instructions a little clearer. I still don’t think I looked that bad! I just need to wear underwear more often.

Welcome to the WATCH “RWISA” WRITE Showcase Tour! #RRBC #RWISA

Welcome to the final day of the #WatchRWISAWrite Showcase, where each day I have featured a different author. Today, it’s my pleasure to introduce author Bernard Foong and his collection of four short stories, VIGNETTES PARISIAN.

[image error]Bernard Foong

Vignettes Parisian

By Bernard Foong

[Vignettes Parisian is a collection of four short stories about the Author’s past and present experiences in the French City of Love and Romance, commonly known as Paris.]

Christian Dior
Couturier Du Reve

It is
impossible not to have a close encounter with fashion when I am in Paris. Even if
I had to wait in the freezing cold for an hour and a half to enter the Christian
Dior Couturier Du Reve (Christian Dior
Couturier of Dreams) exhibition
at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Museum
of Decorative Arts). My husband, Walter, and I were the
lucky few who arrived early before the museum opened its doors. The late
arrivals were banished to the back of the queue for a five hours wait before
admission was granted.

This
spectacular exhibition was worth the wait. Not only were the lives, times, and
accomplishments of Christian Dior, one of the great French couturier and his
successors well documented, the exquisite
fashions and well-thought-out displays were equally impressive.

Since
my first visit in 1966 to the French capital of romance, luxury, and fashion, my
love for Paris has never waned. Before I
left sunny Maui, I had designed and made a haute couture gold, silver, and
black embossed velvet fleur-de-lis patterned coat to wear during my recent holiday
in France. It was at this exhibition that I received compliments for my one-of-a-kind
creation.   

A
stranger approached me at the exhibition to buy the coat off my back because he
loved what I wore. Perhaps I should be the next designer to take over the reins
for this resplendent Maison – The House of Dior. After all, I am a knowledgeable
and seasoned fashion designer who knows every aspect of the international fashion
industry.

Shopping In
Paris (Then & Now)

I am one of those blessed
individuals with a pair of discerning eyes and can detect items I wish to
purchase in cramped spaces on my crazy shopping sprees. It was in such a
circumstance that Walter and I found ourselves in the middle of the crowded shopping
Avenue, des Champs Elysées.

A sole of my shoe had divorced
itself from the body of my long-lasting suedes and left me to hobble around
Paris like a circus clown with flapping feet. I had to take immediate action to
remedy this unanticipated situation before the remainder of my footwear
disintegrated onto the wet and soggy ground, while my beloved, sniggered at my
fashion malfunction.

I remembered an amusing incident
that happened in 1969 at this boulevard. Back then, I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed
fashion student. Accompanying Moi was Count Mario, an accomplished Vogue
fashion photographer, Andy, my model-looking lover and Valet, and Sammy, a flamboyant
young fashionista. The four of us were shopping at the avenue, that drizzly day.

To elongate his petite stature beneath
his wide bell-bottom jeans, Sammy wore a pair of eight inches high platform
shoes. He also donned a fitted denim jacket over a sassy body-hugging bodysuit.
To complete his eccentric ensemble, his dyed cornflower yellow, emerald, and turquoise
hair flowed behind him like an exotic mane as our quartet floated down the street.

Eyes turned in our direction as we
trotted around Paris in style. Before I realized what had transpired, Sammy was
flat on the pavement. Colorful socks bounced around him like raptured pom-poms.
The lad had stuffed pairs of rolled-up socks inside his footwear so he could fit
his tiny feet into the platforms. He had stumbled on the wet and slippery
sidewalk.

Mario, wasted no time whipping out
his camera to capture this unanticipated fashion faux pas, while Andy and I
looked on in shock.

As if modeling for a Vogue fashion
shoot, the quick-witted Sam posed this way and that on the wet thoroughfare while
the photographer clicked away at the gaffe. A pedestrian circle had formed in
the middle of Avenue des Champs Elysées to witness this “fashion happening.” Advertently,
our friend had transformed an embarrassing situation into a photo-opt as the
applauding crowd showered the boy with accolades. By the time Sammy got on his
feet, he had saved his face with poise and grace.

The Magical Power of The Written Word

“Why are there beds located at
different corners of the bookstore?” I asked Monsieur Mercier, an
assistant at the Shakespeare & Company bookshop.

“The beds are available for writers
to stay a night in Paris for free,” the man
responded before he resumed, “ Are you a writer? Do you intend
to stay the night?”

Surprised by the man’s inquiries, I
evinced, “I am a writer. But no thank
you to the lodging offer.”

“What genre of books do you write,
Monsieur?” Mercier queried.

“I’m an autobiographer,” I replied.
“Because of its controversial and
provocative contents, my books are often classified under the Erotica genre.”

The bookseller questioned, “What are the titles of your books, and what
is the author’s name?”

“A HAREM BOY’S SAGA; A MEMOIR BY YOUNG. It’s a
five-book series,” I declared.

“I believe we have your books in
the store. Are the titles: INITIATION, UNBRIDLED, DEBAUCHERY, TURPITUDE, and
METANOIA?” he promulgated.

I nodded, delighted by his
information.

The Frenchman led me through a
series of narrow pathways covered with volumes and pamphlets of the written
word. When he finally extracted five volumes of my autobiography from a shelf,
my heart nearly leaped out of my chest.

“I read the series. What a
compelling teenage life you’ve led. I wish my school had a secret fraternity
program like yours,” the teller quipped smilingly.

He recommenced,
“Our store is a focal point of English literature in Paris. Anais Nin, Henry
Miller, and Richard Wright are frequent visitors. We also host literary
activities, like poetry readings, writers’ meetings, book readings, writing
festivals, literature festivals, photography workshops, writing groups, and
Sunday tea.

“Ms. Sylvia Whitman, the owner, might
invite you for a book reading at our store.”

“That will be splendid.
Unfortunately, my husband and I are in Paris for a short period. Maybe we can
arrange a book reading and signing session when we are in Paris again,” I proposed.

Monsieur Mercier and I had exchanged
contact information before I left the Shakespeare & Company bookshop.
Hopefully, during my next visit to Paree, I will get to meet Madam Sylvia
Whitman with a book reading and signing gig in place.

 S.O.W. and
R.E.A.P.

Over the years, I have been asked
by many, “Why do you love Paris so
much?” My reply is always the same – S.O.W.

Although the Parisian cityscape has
changed over the years, these three alphabets continue to shadow my existence
whenever I am in or out of Paris. S.O.W. is also a reason Walter and I chose
France as our home away from home.

In the autumn of 1966, when the Simorgh (one of my Arab patriarch’s private jets) touched down in Charles de Gaulle airport, I had contracted the romance bug. Back then, the ebullient Moi, an inquisitive teenager with a quest for adventure, was whisked to the Paris Ritz Carlton in a luxurious Bentley by my host, Prince P. I had fallen head-over-heels in love and in awe with both the prince, Andy, my then chaperone and Valet, and Paris, the city of romance. That was before our entourage visited the haute couture fashion Houses of Chanel, Dior, Ungaro, Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, Patou, and the fancy eateries, such as Café de Flore, La Belle Époque, Maxim’s, and last but by no means least, Le Folies Bergers. Back then, these infamous Parisian establishments were places to go, to see and be seen. Nowadays, they are tourist attractions.

    Through
the subsequent years, I had accompanied many princes, princesses, sheiks,
sheikas, and their aristocratic Arabian entourages to the French capital. Most significantly,
this city of love and romance had taught me the art of Seduction (S), Originality (O), and Wit (W). Some may say that wittiness
is a congenital trait, but I purport it as a learned art of human
relationships. Whatever definition one chooses to use, I had returned to this
electrifying metropolis of S.O.W.; where I had sown many a wild oat. Now,
with my beloved husband in tow, I’m here to R.E.A.P. its rewards.

“What the hell is R.E.A.P.?” you ask.

I will explain:

R – Romance
continues to exist in this alluring Capital of Love; even amid an influx of
foreign refugees and political upheavals. Another series of stories, I will
narrate another time.  

E – Elegance
in this sordid city of high culture is a trait Walter and I find irresistibly
seductive.

A – Authenticity
is historicity in this Center of Romance. And I am not referring to the faux
reproduction of the Las Vegas ‘Paris’ in Nevada, United States of America.

P – Paris equals Sophistication, Originality, Wit, Romance, Elegance, and Authenticity. But last and by no means least, this French capital is where Perfection reigns supreme. PARIS – Mon Paree!

THE END

Thank
you for supporting this member along the WATCH “RWISA” WRITE
Showcase Tour today!  We ask that if you have enjoyed this member’s
writing, please visit their Author Page on the RWISA site, where you can
find more of their writing, along with their contact and social media links, if
they’ve turned you into a fan.

We ask that you also check out their books in the RWISA or RRBC catalogs.  Thanks, again for your support and we hope that you will follow each member along this amazing tour of talent!  Don’t forget to click the link below to learn more about this author:

MEET #RWISA #AUTHOR, BERNARD FOONG – @BernardFoong #RRBC

Welcome to the WATCH “RWISA” WRITE Showcase Tour! #RRBC #RWISA

Welcome to Day 15 of the #WatchRWISAWrite Showcase, where each day I will feature a different author. Today, it’s my turn on the tour. So if you have a moment and are so inclined, please take a read of my short story, BURNING OUT IN TOKYO.

[image error]Ron Yates

Burning Out in Tokyo

By Ronald E. Yates

Clayton Brandt
stood just behind the glass doors of the Ministry of International Trade and
Industry building waiting for a let-up in the storm that pummeled the hot Tokyo
pavement. Wisps of vapor rose into the air as the rain hit the warm ground.

He searched the eight-lane
boulevard in front of the MITI building for an empty taxi. He knew it could be a
long wait before an empty cab came down Sakurada-Dori. Thousands of bureaucrats
glutted Tokyo’s Kasumigaseki district, and whenever it rained, it seemed like
all of them wanted a taxi.

“Son of a
bitch!” he said, his words echoing through the lobby. Two middle-aged
Japanese bureaucrats standing nearby looked over at the tall foreigner. They understood
that English phrase.

Clayton grinned. “Ame-ga
futte imasu,” he said.

The two men looked
at one another and then back at Clayton as if to say: “Yes, we can see it is raining. But is that any excuse for such a
rude public outburst?”

Clayton sighed, opened
his umbrella, and stepped out into the downpour. He turned right and hurried through
the governmental heartland of Japan, maneuvering his 6-foot, 3-inch frame through
the crowded sidewalk glutted with black and gray umbrellas. Sometimes the edge
of an umbrella held by a much shorter Japanese man or woman slashed at his throat
or slapped against his face. Whenever it rained, and the umbrellas came out,
Clayton always felt Gulliveresque—like a giant trapped in a forest of
undulating toadstools.

He looked up at the
leaden April sky. The rain had drenched Tokyo for the past four days, covering
the ground with a pink and white patina of delicate sakura blossoms. A slow
rumble of thunder curled between the squat granite structures of Kasumigaseki.
Clayton looked at his watch. It was four-thirty and the evening traffic was already
crawling. He had hoped to get his story written and filed by six o’clock, but
the briefing about Japan’s angry reaction to Washington’s decision to bar the U.S.
government’s purchase of Japanese supercomputers had taken longer than usual.

The sky rumbled
again, and bolts of lightning streaked overhead. A taxi pulled up outside the
Ministry of Health and Welfare and was disgorging three Japanese bureaucrats in
dark blue suits. Clayton closed his umbrella and dashed for the cab splashing
through rivulets of water as he ran. The three men had barely climbed out
before Clayton bolted past them and into the rear seat. He gave the driver his destination,
closed his eyes, and rested his head on the seat back as the taxi inched its way
back into the gridlock.

Every so often, his
eyes opened just long enough to take in the somber Tokyo landscape. The perpetually
gray skies of Tokyo didn’t do his already sepulchral spirit any good. In fact, very
little seemed to buoy his disposition these days. He couldn’t help it. He felt depressed
and probably a bit too sorry for himself. A few hours before the MITI briefing,
he had suffered through another of those telephone “chats” with Max,
the foreign editor of Global News Service in London about expenses and the need
to cut back on costs.

“O.K., O.K. Max,”
Clayton had sighed bleakly into the phone. “I get the picture.”

The exchange ended
with Max suggesting that Clayton not be such a “cowboy.” A “cowboy?”
Why? Just because he was from Oxford, Kansas and not Oxford, England? It wasn’t
easy working for a bunch of Brits when you sounded more like Garth Brooks than
Sir Laurence Olivier. But he knew what Max meant.

Clayton was an
iconoclast in a profession that increasingly rewarded conformity rather than
individualism. Newspapers today all looked alike, loaded with the same
predictable stories about the same predictable events. It was rubber-stamp
journalism practiced by rubber-stamp editors who worked for rubber-stamp publishers
who worked for boards of directors who wanted twenty percent operating profit
margins above all else—quality journalism be damned.

 He went over the notes he had hurriedly scribbled
during the MITI briefing, searching for the lead of his story. His pen
scratched heavy lines under the words “ill-conceived” and
“studying our response.” Then he stuffed the notebook back into his bag.

“It’s over,” Clayton thought to himself as he watched the snarl of cars
and trucks crawl along Uchibori-Dori through Kokyo-Gaien, the large plaza that
fronted the walled Imperial Palace. It was as if today he had been forced
finally to confront the inevitable mortality of his professional career; or at
least of his particular brand of journalism. He was writing the same boring
stories over and over again. Where was the challenge? The sense of
accomplishment?

Clayton exhaled and
gazed out the taxi window at the striated, ashen facades of drenched buildings.
They reminded him of the mascara-smudged faces of women weeping at a rainy graveside.
  

He closed his eyes
and nudged his mind away from the depressing Tokyo landscape. Soon it was obediently
shuffling through old images of another, more beguiling Asia. It was an Asia of
genial evenings spent beneath traveler palms; of graceful, colonial-era hotels
in Singapore and Malaysia with their chalky plaster facades and their broad
verandahs peppered with rattan settees and peacock chairs; of slowly turning
teakwood paddle fans that moved the heavy night air with just enough authority
to create a light breeze, but not enough to obliterate the sweet scent of
evening jasmine. THAT was the Asia he missed; the Orient of the past.

Yes, it was ending.
Clayton could feel it. It had been a good run . . . A good career. But now the
journey was ending, like a train that had roared through the night and was now
pulling into its last station. How many times had he almost gotten off only to
be lured back on by the promise of what lay ahead at the next stop? How many
times had he been disappointed by that decision? How many times had he been
rewarded? At first, the rewards outweighed the disappointments, but in recent
years, as he had grown older, the regrets seemed to have gained a definite
edge.

For one thing, the
passengers kept changing. And the conductors. And the engineers. But what did
he expect? Wasn’t that the way the world worked? What was it that Tennyson had written:
“The old order changeth, yielding
place to new?”

Clayton shuddered. Was
he the old order? Should he be yielding? Was he burned out?

Maybe he was becoming
the old order, Clayton thought. But he wasn’t burned out just yet. And if there
was any yielding to do, he wanted it on his own terms. The trouble was, the
gulf of time between his past glories and the imminence of the callow, computer
savvy handlers in the home office who controlled his destiny was becoming
almost unbridgeable.

Most of his career
predated cell phones and computers. For the computer literates at Global, his life’s
work might as well be stored on some remote database. As it was, he existed
only in yellowing newspaper clips, aging telexes, and letters of commendation
that were kept in his personal file back in London. And nobody bothered to look
at that stuff anymore.

It made no
difference, Clayton thought. In the mutable, evanescent province that modern
journalism had become, it was ancient history. Hell, HE was ancient history. He
was like a piece of old journalistic parchment—readable, but, unlike a
computer, much less utilitarian.

What Clayton needed
was another journalistic rush . . . A story he could get hold of and play like
a newly discovered Mozart piano concerto. He needed something . . . Not to
satisfy the yuppies back at Global, but to give him a reason to get back on the
train and to leave the station again.

The taxi slewed to
a stop like a wooden bathhouse sandal skidding
along a wet tile floor. Clayton looked up. They were in front of the Kawabata
Building.

“Kawabata Biru,
desu,” the driver announced.

Clayton fumbled in his pocket, handed the driver a one thousand yen note, and waited for his change. Then he bolted through the swirling Tokyo rain and put his shoulder against the massive glass and steel doors of the Kawabata Building.

Unlike most of Tokyo’s modern structures, the Kawabata Building didn’t have sleek automatic glass doors that hissed serpent-like and opened automatically at the approach of a human being. It was a pre-war relic—an architectural throw-back with cracked marble floors and a fading art deco interior that had somehow survived the allied bombings.

The building’s
deteriorating facade, which was the color of dead autumn leaves, seemed to
glower at the world—like the rumpled brow of an angry old man. But the tumble-down
building had an undeniable individuality in a country that too often prized
sameness, and that was the reason Clayton liked it and had refused an offer to
move into one of the new glass and steel “smart buildings” that
soared over Tokyo’s Otemachi district.

He paused to talk
for a moment with the old woman who operated the small grocery and newsstand tucked
away in the corner of the lobby. From his many conversations with her, Clayton had
learned that the old woman had operated her little concession since 1938 and
knew the building’s history better than anybody.

She smiled as
Clayton’s towering frame bent toward her in one of those peculiar half bows
that Japanese make when they are in a hurry. Japanese could do it with a
certain grace; but not Clayton. When this big foreigner bowed, he always looked
like he was on the verge of crashing to the ground like a gingko tree struck by
lightning. Nevertheless, she liked this gaijin. Ordinarily, she merely tolerated
foreigners, but this one had a solitary charm. He was big, but not threatening;
assertive, but not arrogant.

“So, Oba-san, Genki
datta?” Clayton asked, combining the Japanese honorific for “grandmother” with
the less formal interrogative for “how are you?”

“Genki-yo,”
the old woman replied. Clayton picked up a package of Pocky chocolates and placed a one hundred yen coin in the old
woman’s hand.

“Sayonara,” Clayton
said as he turned and scuttled toward the bank of elevators.

“Sonna ni
hatarakanai ho ga ii desu!” the old woman called after him.

Clayton smiled and
nodded over his shoulder. The old woman was right. He was working too hard, and
where was it getting him? Back on a train to oblivion?

“Oh, get over it,” Clayton thought as the elevator door closed. “You’ve got a story to write. Feel sorry for
yourself AFTER you make your friggin’ deadline! Besides, what else do you know
how to do, you old hack! Burning out is not an option.”

The End

Thank
you for supporting this member along the WATCH “RWISA” WRITE
Showcase Tour today!  We ask that if you have enjoyed this member’s
writing, please visit their Author Page on the RWISA site, where you can
find more of their writing, along with their contact and social media links, if
they’ve turned you into a fan.

We
ask that you also check out their books in the RWISA or RRBC
catalogs.  Thanks, again for your support and we hope that you will follow
each member along this amazing tour of talent!  Don’t forget to click the
link below to learn more about this author:

MEET #RWISA #AUTHOR, RON YATES – @JHawker69 #RRBC