A Father’s Day Remembrance

My Father’s Gardens, a Remembrance

Typically, my gardens are puny things. Besides flowers, they usually include herbs like basil, mint, chives, parsley, and occasionally a tomato plant in pots on our patio. But my father’s gardens were often superb.

My father, Homer Dale Willman, Sr., used to say, “When the Corps hired me, they took a great farmer and made him into a half-assed engineer.”

Still, though he worked over twenty years for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, my father always had a garden. Until his last summer, he grew at least a little something, maybe vibrant begonias, a geranium in a big pot, a climbing rose, possibly hollyhocks, and usually mint so he could watch the telecast of the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May with an icy julep in hand. And always, always, he had a tomato plant or two.

Back in the fifties and sixties, the prime years of his backyard gardens, he put lots of effort into his tomatoes. We lived in the tri-state region of Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia where winters were mild (though Dad always hoped for some snow to put nitrogen into the dirt). After the ground warmed and softened along about Easter, Dad took his shovel out to his garden patch to prepare the soil.

My mom used to kid my dad about “digging to China” because to him preparation meant digging a pit eighteen inches across and three feet deep for each tomato plant. He partially refilled each hole with compost, manure and other nourishing substances mixed with loose dirt.

The newly planted tomato plants–named Big Boy, Better Boy, Early Boy and Rutgers–looked scrawny so far apart, their sparse leaves insufficient to fuel growth. They did grow though. Usually by the Fourth of July, Dad would push aside those leaves, releasing the acrid odor that set our stomachs to growling, and with a gentle tug, pick the first tomato of the season. Mom, Dad, my brother Dale, and I fought over that first tomato, so ripe the skin peeled off clean and biting the tongue with its acidity. By late summer, the plants, lovingly tied to their stakes with strips of old sheets, stood eight feet high and loaded with tomatoes that Mom canned, made juice with, or begged neighbors to haul away.

Maybe the secret of Dad’s tomatoes lay in his compost pile that he researched, constructed, and maintained like a true engineer. The compost pile I remember best was a four-foot cube of vegetable peels and melon rinds, musty grass clippings, twigs, lime, and goat manure he got as partial payment for a ship model he built for a friend who owned a herd of goats.

Dad made a hole in the center of the compost pile so air got inside and furthered the controlled decay. Once, out of curiosity, he tied some string to a thermometer and lowered it into the hole. In less than a minute, the thermometer broke. Later, with Mom’s candy thermometer, Dad discovered that the compost pile had reached 135 degrees.

After we moved into town, Dad scaled his gardens small, but back in the late forties when we lived in the aptly named Garden Court over in Ohio, he almost filled the back yard with his vegetable plot. Forty by sixty feet, it ran from the house back almost to the tree-lined creek. Pieces of string stretched between sticks defined the plot so meticulously it looked like Dad had laid the garden out with a surveyor’s transit.

Dad bragged about that garden having fifty different varieties of plants. They included tomatoes of course, potatoes, corn, green peppers, red peppers, scallions, onions, cucumbers, and Black-seeded Simpson leaf lettuce. Instead of cantaloupe, that Dad said didn’t prosper in our climate, he grew muskmelons. Radishes started the growing season and beets finished it. Many of the vegetables he planted I’ve forgotten now, but I still love to recite exotic names like zucchini, kohlrabi, and cocozelle.

We all got involved in Dad’s gardens. One year we had so much cabbage that Mom canned it. Dad paid Dale a penny a hundred head to pick bugs and beetles out of the garden. Dad never let me forget that those pretty yellow hollyhocks I picked one year were actually squash blossoms. Once, we tried to shell tough-hulled soybeans by putting them through Mom’s washer wringer. The beans popped out the other side, and Dale and I chased them as they bounced around the kitchen floor.

My father’s gardens . . . Whenever I think of them, I picture him in my mind. Small-boned, with a mustache, my father wears a billed cap to keep his scalp from burning, a tan shirt dark with sweat under the arms, tan pants cut off and neatly hemmed above his knobby knees, and muddy shoes too worn to wear to work anymore. He leans against a shovel stuck into a pile of dirt. And dreaming of fresh tomatoes by the Fourth of July, he grins.

 

 

 

Spring Things

 

You know what? Life isn’t too bad at our house right now. After all it’s spring. Plus I’ve had both my shots and Jess has had the first. Having them has lowered our stress and helps us sleep better.

 

 

On the slightly down side, my WiP is going slower than I’d hoped. This time it was supposed to be a quick final draft except for one last copy edit. But, I keep thinking up really cool plot developments, pieces of dialogue, and details. For instance, as I was working on Chapter 15 of Apart in April, the fourth novel and Book 5 of my calendar mystery series, I decided that the dashing detective Daniel Price should wear Navajo jewelry when he’s undercover as an itinerant salesman, so two young chambermaids get the impression that he’s been to Santa Fe. He hasn’t He bought the lot at Jesse James, Jr.’s pawnshop over on Main in Kansas City earlier in April 1901. Things like these make a story come alive, but they also might introduce errors like missing words or repeated phrases that must be found and fixed. Still, I hope to have the eBook of Apart in April out by the end of April.

Meanwhile, the boxed set of the first three novels and a really cool short story called “Detectives’ Honeymoon” is now available for only $2.99 at www.amazon.com/dp/B07QDKF413 and £ 1.99 at www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07QDKF413 through Tuesday March 30.

And look for Old Time Stories, a collection of nonfiction and fiction that includes the original short story “The Shackleton Ghost,” for the discounted prices of $0.99 at www.amazon.com/dp/B07F4JL8D5 and £0.99 at www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07F4JL8D5 from April 1 through April 7, 2021.

Till next time, stay safe and well. Best, Juliet

 

Bargain Fiction

Get real Black Friday and Cyber Monday bargains in a boxed set.

The Calendar Cozy Historical Mystery stories and novels by Juliet Kincaid tell the story of business girl Minty Wilcox and dashing detective Daniel Price from newly met to newlywed and beyond in Kansas City, a place that could get downright deadly a hundred years or so ago.

The boxed set includes January Jinx, Fatal February, Mischief in March, and the bonus short story “Detectives’ Honeymoon,” all for only $2.99 at www.amazon.com/dp/B07QDKF413 and £2.99 at www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07QDKF413 from 11/28/2019 through 12/03/2019, many pages for your holiday reading pleasure. Happy Thanksgiving.

Praise for JANUARY JINX

Book 1 of the Calendar Mystery Series

The delightful, creative, and charming January Jinx introduces a terrific character in Minty Wilcox, a good old-fashioned cozy mystery persona who will surely be able to carry the planned-for series. It’s Minty who drives the readable narrative, and author Juliet Kincaid keeps the pace steady and fast at the same time for quite a readable experience . . . The unique setting of 1899 Kansas City is full of flavor that never overwhelms the story and the characters. With a terrific, original, but still comfortable series concept, there are certainly big things afoot for Juliet Kincaid and Minty Wilcox’s Calendar Mysteries.

 

 

 

St. Valentine’s Day 1900

A Kansas City newspaper suggested an avian theme for Valentine’s Day parties in February 1900 like the one described below.

Minty stepped back from the dining room table that she’d just finished setting with Mama’s best china in the rose pattern . . .

A pair of turtledoves made of stuffed cotton and feathers hung from the two chandeliers. In the middle of the table sat an elaborate nest made of interwoven twigs and filled with hard-boiled eggs. More eggs would follow for the dinner since after all Valentine’s was the birds’ mating day . . .

In front of each plate stood a place card Peach and Eddie had made in sets of two: pairs of doves and canaries to sit on the side of the table closer to Minty, larks and blue jays on the other, and cardinals split between the head and the foot of the table.

Minty patted her pocket that held the folded red paper heart Peach gave her when she got home from work in the afternoon. On it Eddie had written a verse about blue jays, not Minty’s favorite birds, too noisy, but she had to admit their plumage was lovely . . .

To find out whom Minty’s brother and sister paired her with, buy FATAL FEBRUARY, Book 2 of the Calendar Mystery series, for only $0.99 today through 02/19/19 at www.amazon.com/dp/B017081JHM

“New China Special”

In “New China Special,” a Memoir of a Marriage, a brief, intimate piece that combines personal memoir with creative nonfiction, a mother shares with her child a series of vignettes – all related to Chinese restaurants in some way – about events that occurred before the child was born or not old enough to remember.

 

 

Here’s an excerpt from the first vignette:

Outside in the fire lane, your daddy waited in the Beetle, my first car. (I hate to say it, but I can’t remember its color now. Peacock blue? Emerald green? One of those.)

I slid onto the passenger seat as your daddy put the car in gear. He drove straight down the fire lane, right off campus and down the avenue due west eight blocks. In Huntington, WV, laid out along the Ohio River by a railroad engineer in the 1870’s, this meant the university and the restaurant were precisely eight-tenths of a mile apart.

On the way, your daddy said, “Bet I can do it faster than you.”

“Bet you can’t,” I said.

Your daddy parked a couple of spaces past the restaurant and we scooted out of the car.

The green pagoda sign was on and New China was serving lunch.

My stomach growled as we sashayed arm in arm in the door between the display windows. The one on the right contained what looked like an orange tree, only tiny. Sometimes its scrawny branches held white blossoms or knobby little fruit. The left window featured an arrangement of packaged Taiwanese tea and fossilized egg rolls.

Menus tucked under his left elbow, the maître d’ met us by the front counter. “Hello, how are you?” he said, stressing the lo and the you.

The maître d’ was a middle-aged Asian with a nearly bald head. He wore a gray cotton jacket over his shoulders that rounded forward and tan pants. As we walked by him, he bowed and launched his usual question after us: “Uh, a booth or a table?”

He should have known the answer. We always asked for a booth. In New China a booth was a little room made of rickety partitions about seven feet high and, for a door, a curtain on a rod across the opening. (He didn’t know the reason why we always wanted a booth. At least, we hoped he didn’t know.)

“New China Special” is now available for only $0.99 as a Kindle Short Read at www.amazon.com/dp/B07ND5F9X9 (and it’s free on Kindle Unlimited.)

Rascally Gang in Free Short Story

The 9th Street Gang

Friday 23 February 1900

Kansas City, Missouri

Happy to be wearing her old brown coat that the wet snow wouldn’t hurt and galoshes over her boots because of the slush underfoot, Minty Wilcox marched along 9th Street at Daniel Price’s side.

Daniel had bundled up in his tan overcoat, pulled his brown fedora down over his forehead, and wrapped a black muffler around the lower part of his face, so she could see only the red tip of his strong, aquiline nose and one dark brown eye squinting against the snow.

He’s my fiancé, Minty thought. We’re engaged! In just a few weeks time, I’ll be Mrs. Daniel Price. And I’ll be in on that secret married couples keep to themselves. Just thinking about solving that mystery set up a tingling in her lower parts.

When they came to the entrance of the New England Building, Daniel put his gloved hand under Minty’s right elbow. “Watch your step, darling girl,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to trip and fall in this mess.”

“Why, Daniel, you treat me like your elderly maiden aunt.”

“You’re decidedly not my aunt. And you’re not elderly either,” he said. “Though I do hope you’re still a maiden.”

“Of course, I am, you naughty boy,” she said.

Review of “The 9th Street Gang”

If you wish for something pleasant to get your mind off the lately awful news, delve yourself into the story of three little hoodlums that steal this story from the endearing main characters and enjoy the tidbits of Kansas City history. A bonus is a peek at Jesse James Jr. as I had no idea he existed before reading this story. Good Job! This author always comes through with an enthralling story.

This fun short story is FREE from October 17 through October 21, 1900 at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B079YYVTTX

“The 9th Street Gang” is just one of six stories included in Old Time Stories that also includes nonfiction about the people and places that inspired Juliet Kincaid to write her Calendar Mysteries featuring smart business girl Minty Wilcox and dashing detective Daniel Price in Kansas City, a place that could get downright deadly a hundred years or so ago. Old Time Stories is now available as an eBook or trade paperback exclusively from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F4JL8D5

Old Time Stories Now in Print

Join business girl Minty Wilcox and detective Daniel Price in old Kansas City as they sleuth, get to know each other, and fall in love in six stories that occur before, between or after JANUARY JINX, FATAL FEBRUARY, and MISCHIEF IN MARCH, the first three novels in the Calendar Mystery series. Included are “Detectives’ Honeymoon” which starts exactly where Book 3 ends and “The Shackleton Ghost,” published here for the very first time. OLD TIME STORIES also includes eleven nonfiction pieces about the real people and places that inspired Juliet Kincaid to tell the story of Minty Wilcox and Daniel Price from newly met to newly wed and beyond in Kansas City, a place that could downright deadly a hundred years or so ago.

Five-Star Review of “The Barn Door”
“This short prequel story to the first book, JANUARY JINX, is fun and introduces us to the two main characters, Daniel and Minty, before they actually meet. I especially like the descriptions of Kansas City in the 1900’s as well as the vivid descriptions of the characters. Read ‘The Barn Door’ and you will not be disappointed.” Amazon Reviewer.

Five-Star Review of “Lost Dog”
“What a delight to find myself in ‘old’ Kansas City again with such wonderfully drawn characters. I feel I know them and would love to follow them along the street while looking for the lost dog’s owner and I could just push that old neighbor back into the bushes after rescuing the poor dog from her vicious beating. Oh, this author brings them so alive and that is what keeps me reading her stories.” Amazon Reviewer

 

 

OLD TIME STORIES is now available as an EBOOK at www.amazon.com/dp/B07F4JL8D5 and a TRADE PAPERBACK exclusively from Amazon.

A Special Memory for Throwback Thursday

One afternoon back in my mid-teen years, I was home alone in the apartment when I heard a car honking outside. When I rushed to the window and looked out, I saw a Chevy like this one pulled up to the curb. Right away my mom and dad got out.

I didn’t realize it then, but this car, the first I remember my family owning, brought enormous changes to our lives, all good. (How many material objects can you say that about?) Here are some of them.

1) My mom no longer had to grocery shop on her own at Kroger’s downtown and wrangle grocery bags home on the bus. This could be an ordeal in the summer especially.

2) We could and did move to nicer apartments in nicer parts of town outside the bus lines.

3) On the typical Sunday afternoon, we’d take a drive instead of staying at home with Mom pouting because Dad and I went to church and she cooked pot roast.

Here’s a really special memory . . . When I was in 10th Grade, Dad drove Mom, our beloved dog Dottie, and me through the countryside on several weekends with frequent stops, so we could get out and collect leaves for my Botany project. I still have it and I still love trees.

4) My family began to take car trips at least twice a year. In the winter break, Dad might drive us up to New Jersey to visit Mom’s folks. In the summer Dad might drive me and my girlfriends up to Camp Luther.

Or we might drive to a reunion on his side of the family like the one described in Old Time Stories, available now through Labor Day for only $0.99 at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F4JL8D5

 

What car have you owned that was really special?

“Write Stuff Down”

An Indie Author Reflects on Senior Moments

Three of us dedicated senior hoofers have gathered near the back of the exercise center after class. We’re all 60+. (Well, to be honest, in my case, it’s 60++.) We’re all normal weight and short but not stooped over from osteoporosis. We all take at least three classes a week, so we’re far more active than the USA norm.

But still the issue of senior moments comes up. “Why . . . ,” says J. “My husband told me something yesterday and a half hour later I couldn’t remember what he said, so I had to ask him again.”

I almost parrot something I heard on NPR or read in the AARP Bulletin about the nerve endings or whatever in our brains not holding onto information like they used to. But frankly I don’t recall enough of it to talk about it, so I keep my mouth shut.

Friend D says, “I write stuff down. That helps me remember. I write stuff on calendars, things like that.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I don’t say since that would be rude. I do say, “Jess and I keep a calendar on the kitchen wall.”  My daughter and I put our appointments, classes and meetings on the kitchen calendar, a sort of plan for the household. But I also put my appointments, meetings, and classes on the engagement calendar Jess gives me every year. I put my daily to-do lists on that calendar, too.

The mention of calendars sends my friend J off into a lovely riff about the calendars her daughter gives her every year with pictures of the grand kids at Christmas, at Easter, probably summer vacations too though if she says it I don’t hear it because I’ve drifted off into a memory accompanied by considerable self-flagellation on the subject of writing things down. (I do that a lot.) Besides jotting down my daily to-do lists on my engagement calendar and print-outs of monthly calendars, I often put to-do lists in the journals I’ve kept since January 1986. Recently I created a checklist to use to track my social media activities.

And then I keep special lists, sort of like flow charts, of steps in the processes of doing new things in my journal or the backs of printouts of my work. For example, recently my daughter helped me with the cover for the paperback version of my most recent work, Old Time Stories. Specifically she told me how to work with some basic Photoshop tools. Before she started, though, I said, “Wait! Wait! Let me write that down.”

So, I wrote down her instructions in my journal, or at least I thought I did. The next day when I tried to work on that cover without her help, I couldn’t find those instructions. What I did find in my journal were many to-do lists, mostly of the same six things over and over again. (You know, some times you can go too far with writing stuff down or following any good advice, for that matter.)

So, I thought that maybe I wrote it on one of the pieces of paper littering my desk. No luck there either because I had a little throwaway party the other day to clear my computer desk. I must have had a mental lapse (aka a brain fart) and put the notes in the recycle bag.

Regardless, I had to take up my daughter’s time for her to repeat the instructions. This time I did write clear notes in my journal. What’s more, I made a frigging tab with a sticky note so I wouldn’t lose those notes. I also transcribed the notes into my typewritten log to help me remember those instructions the next time I need them.

So what’s the big deal?

It’s like this. Senior moments like these strike terror in my heart that I’ve begun that long slide into oblivion. But maybe I haven’t . . . When I was weeping about forgetting the instructions my daughter gave me, Jess said, “That’s not a senior moment, Mom. It’s a technical moment. Anybody can have them.” Thank you, sweetheart.

Here’s the cover for the trade paperback version of my new book (currently in process).  It’s the first one I’ve done more or less on my own. You can pre-order the eBook version from now until its publication on August 29, 2018, for only $0.99 at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F4JL8D5

 

New Story Collection

From fireworks on the 4th of July through a surprising streetcar ride and a troublesome gang to an unusual honeymoon and a haunted house, the six tales in Old Time Stories delight and entertain. This collection also includes a dozen nonfiction pieces about the real people and places that inspired Juliet Kincaid to write her historical Calendar Mystery series that tells the story of business girl Minty Wilcox and detective Daniel Price from newly met to newly wed and beyond in Kansas City, a place that could get downright deadly a hundred years or so ago.

Here’s a review of “Lost Dog,” a prequel story to the Calendar Mystery series that features business girl Minty Wilcox. “What a delight to find myself in ‘old’ Kansas City again with such wonderfully drawn characters. I feel I know them and would love to follow them along the street while looking for the lost dog’s owner and I could just push that old neighbor back into the bushes after rescuing the poor dog from her vicious beating. Oh, this author brings them so alive and that is what keeps me reading her stories.”

Old Time Stories, a collection of fiction and nonfiction by Juliet Kincaid, is available  as an eBook for the reduced price of only $0.99 between August 29 through Labor Day, September 3, 2018 at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F4JL8D5  (And it’s always free from Kindle Unlimited.)