T D P Books - Blog

December 2023

12/5/2023

Hi, everyone. Just a note to let everyone know that there will not be a full blown December newsletter on the www.tdpbooks.com website this month.

I am pretty sure that the publishing company that is handling the fiction manuscript is taking lessons in speed and efficiency from the U.S. Congress. There is no recent news to report on the status of the book or its possible timeline for release. So … in the absence of meaningful things to share with you, these few words and the puns that follow will have to suffice. (Along, of course, with the very best wishes for the holiday season and all the days beyond.)

TRULY AWFUL PUNS

What do you call a child who doesn’t believe in Santa?
A rebel without a Claus.

What kind of cars do Santa’s elves drive?
Toy-otas.

How much did Santa pay for his sleigh?
Nothing. It was on the house.

What do you get if you eat the Christmas decorations?
Tinselitis.

What did Adam say on the day before Christmas?
It’s Christmas, Eve.

These are so bad that by popular demand I had to include some fan favorites from years past – a few Top Ten Elf Pickup Lines from the David Letterman show.

I can get you off the Naughty List.

Just because I have bells on my shoes doesn’t mean I’m a sissy.

I have certain needs that can’t be satisfied by working on toys.

/////

Thanks to everyone for your interest in the website. I hope these few lines will bring a smile to start this very special time of year.

Best wishes, always
Tom Phillips

November 2023

11/3/2023

Hi, everyone. It seemed as if fall came overnight in Nebraska. Leaves dropped from trees – the colors were incredible but short lived – and the temperatures became chilly, if not cold, from one day to the next. Nice time of year though – as long as big-time snow holds off and the temps don’t freeze the mercury in the thermometer. There is a crisp, comfortable coolness in the air (nice football weather).

There is some writing news to bring you up to date on, although major parts of the story remain unsettled at the moment. Several weeks ago, I received a note from the publisher (a British company) indicating that because of the complexity of British copyright laws, the publication process for the fiction novel would likely take longer than originally anticipated. Because of the subject matter of the book, I had hoped that its release could be timed to coincide with the U.S. election cycle. So, the publisher’s news was a bit of a downer. To help expedite the company’s responses to copyright questions, I went through a page by page scrub of the manuscript to provide detailed cites on references to quotes, events, dates, etc., and rewrote a few portions in attempt to remove even the remotest potential questions about facts associated with any of those considerations. That work, which had to be done on short notice, was what precluded publishing last month’s website newsletter (as did some associated pesky computer issues – why does that stuff always happen at the most inopportune time?)

Hopefully, the information I provided will address potential concerns with copyright aspects. Thus far, I have received no feedback that would indicate otherwise. There has been no later word on the publishing timeline.

Then, in mid-month, I received a draft of the editorial staff’s first proofread review of the manuscript. Two items in the draft need further discussion/resolution. First, the text was revised to transpose the wording to British spellings: i.e., color to colour, favor to favour, realize to realise, etc. etc. There were 238 instances of that on the first 250 pages before I stopped counting. I am puzzled – greatly – by the failure to employ “American English.” It is unlikely that there will be a British market for the book. That is quite understandable: it is about American politics, its intricacies, and arcane features such as the Electoral College. Interest would be limited. Conversely, those are features that Americans are presently immersed in on a daily basis – a circumstance that will grow in intensity as elections draw nearer in the coming months. If British usage is retained, American readers – prospective buyers – who browse through it will find it less than enticing. I share the view of a writer colleague: “The worry is that if they do that (publish it with British usage) they may transform it from a potentially impactful work into a seldom read curiosity.”

There is a part of all this that is sort of funny. One of the editor’s proposed changes was to revise references to time from, for example, ‘6:30’ and ’10:15’ to written form. Nothing wrong with that except they suggested using “six half”, and ‘ten quarter’ and similar British wording as replacements. My note back to the company explained that of the 330 million living Americans almost none use those terms and many would probably not recognize them at all. I politely suggested “half past six” or “six-thirty” or something similar. Other British phrases would probably raise American eyebrows as well – most notably ‘mum’ for ‘mom’ and similar usage which, as I told the editor, might get us laughed out of most book stores, book clubs, and reading groups on the North American continent.

The manuscript is clearly written with an American readership in mind. The effect of using “British English” spelling seems to minimize, if not ignore, the major market for the book. It seems unlikely that marketing staffs and book distributors would be comfortable with that approach. I asked the publisher to reconsider.

The second item, of equal or perhaps greater concern than the ‘British English’ usage, is what seems to be the arbitrary placement throughout the text of commas following the words ‘Maybe,’ ‘maybe,’ and ‘that.’ In almost every case they disrupt what are intended to be complete, uninterrupted phrases or thoughts, hampering the flow of the narrative and in some cases confusing it. It was almost as if whatever grammar- or spell-check mechanism they were using automatically inserted commas after each of those words no matter where they appeared in the text. My note to the publisher identified each of those circumstances along with explanations of why the commas where unnecessary and inappropriate.

So, we’ll see what happens. I am hoping that my letter to them had the right mixture of logic, common sense, and whining . I am not especially optimistic that the company will agree to these changes. Until this point they have been delightful to work with. I would like to continue the connection. I have requested that the company let me know their decision as quickly as possible. If they choose not to make the adjustments, I will need to decide whether or not to continue with the process. If their decision comes quickly, perhaps there might be sufficient time to seek an alternate publisher or, most reluctantly, self-publish.

My thought at the moment is to play the publication of a December newsletter “by ear” pending the company’s decisions on the proposed changes. If they have responded by early December, I’ll let everyone know the outcome and will keep readers in the loop on the next steps (if we know them at that time). If no response has been received by then, I may just close the year with season’s greetings and a few appropriate puns.

And now, the far more important (and interesting) segment of the website: TRULY AWFUL PUNS (WITH A THANKSGIVING FLAVOR).

The guest’s Thanksgiving jokes were so bad everyone at the table told him to be quiet or leave.
So he quit cold turkey.

There’s a new book about a love story between a pilgrim and a turkey.
It’s called 50 Shades of Gravy.

Gosh, those are bad.

/////

Best wishes for a very special Thanksgiving and Holiday Season.
Tom

October 2023

10/16/2023

Hi, everyone

This is just a brief note to let everyone know that there will not be an update to the website newsletter this month. (Please hold down the cheering, the noise is waking up the cat.) Sorry for the delay in letting everyone know. We’ll resume transmissions on schedule in early November.

I have been working on some short-notice material to get to the publisher – responses to questions, reference cites, etc., that have involved page by page review and occasional rewrites. That obligation has been further complicated by some computer issues, and possible system incompatibility problems with the publisher’s equipment. If all goes well, I will tell that story in next month’s update. There also has been a mysterious health malady that seems to refuse to go away. It is probably related to that troublesome disease called “old age.”

When I mentioned to colleagues that this month’s newsletter would be cancelled some insisted that, at the minimum, Halloween puns needed to be sent. Those are included below. You actually get twice as many for the usual exorbitant price – I have included those that would have appeared in the newsletter in addition to those planned for the update advisory note.

Warning: Viewer’s discretion is advised. These are really bad.

Why did the headless horseman go to college? He wanted to get a head.

Where does a ghost go on vacation? Mali boo.

What do you call a ghost that haunts small hotels? An inn spector.

Why did the scarecrow get a promotion on Halloween? He was outstanding in his field.

What did the skeleton bring to the potluck dinner? Spare ribs.

Why did the vampire join the police force? So he could learn how to get a stake out.

What type of street does a vampire live on? A dead end.

So bad.

Hope you are well. Best wishes, as always,
Tom

September 2023

9/6/2023

Hello, everyone.

Welcome to September. For the sports fans among us, September and fall present us with an especially interesting menu to choose from: the final month of the major league baseball season with playoffs and World Series to follow, and beginning games on the college football schedule. Now, if Mother Nature would cooperate and rid us of the 100+ degree temperatures and other severe weather events across the country, conditions would indeed be ideal.

Actually, the University of Nebraska recently hosted a worldwide headlines making athletic event that was not related to baseball or football. On August 30 – on what turned out to be an idyllic summer evening – the women’s volleyball team played before an audience of 92,003 people in Memorial Stadium. That was not only the largest audience ever to see a game in the stadium, but it is also set the world’s record for the largest crowd ever to see a women’s athletic event, breaking the previous record of 91,648 for a soccer match held in Barcelona, Spain, between two European teams. Incredible night – one of those happy ending rare occasions where everything seemed to work out well. It took workers six days to configure the football field for a volleyball match. It was exceptionally well done – a real compliment to the university.

It was also a tribute to an incredibly loyal and dedicated fan base and to an iconic coach. When the university first decided to form a women’s team, the school did not even have a suitable venue to play in. For a year or two, they played in a PE facility in a women’s residence hall, where as one player said, “about the only people who watched us were boyfriends and family members.” They eventually moved to a venue formerly used by the basketball team that housed 4,000 or so fans. They played there for several years then moved to a rehabbed facility with 8,000+ capacity also abandoned by the basketball team. That remains their present home. The 8,000 plus seating arrangement makes it one of the largest volleyball venues in the country.

But … who’d have thought, 92,003?

That makes for quite a story. When the university first decided to field a team, volleyball was a sport that was not widely played in Nebraska. The coach, Terry Pettit, took it upon himself to travel throughout the state, even to the smallest schools – he was known to have held a clinic where only three players showed up – and introduce the game to fans and prospective players (some of whom in later years became All-Americans and Olympic Champions). In the early days, Pettit was also known to attend other university athletic events and hand out free tickets to the volleyball games to build the fan base. He sent some of his players to do the same. Early on, he scheduled volleyball games after football games, inducing people to stay and attend the matches. Eventually, sooner than expected, all that and an equally iconic successor coach (John Cook) led to several conference titles, five national championships, this year’s number one recruiting class, and a statewide fan base that is absolutely enthralled by the team. The Harvard Business School once used the case study method to teach students how to build successful organizations. I’ve often thought the school should use Nebraska’s women’s volleyball team as an example.

Well, enough about all of that. I must admit, though, that with all else that is going on in the world it is enjoyable to write about a success story that inspires and brings people together.
Some writing news: first, thanks to those who have asked about the status of the fiction book mentioned in previous updates, and wondered about the steps involved in the publication schedule. Here is the process used by the company that is publishing The YouTube Candidate.

Initial formatting of the draft manuscript (sizing for content, fonts, headings, page numbers).

Proofreading/editing (company proofreaders check grammar, spelling, facts, make recommendations as appropriate).

First proof (proofreader recommendations sent back to me for review).

1ST Amendments (production team reviews report and marked-up manuscript, incorporating the changes agreed to by me and the proofreader).

Second proof (final read to insure errors have been corrected. Back cover blurb and press release are decided upon).

2nd Amendments (second opportunity to make editing changes. If the book has illustrations – none are planned at the moment – they would be inserted at this time).

Final edits, finalization, and sign off (final check of complete manuscript. Manuscript will be formatted and finalized for print).

Graphics (cover design with advice and input from the production and marketing teams. Draft will be sent to me for comments and amendments, if necessary).

Graphics editing and finalization (cover will be sized to fit inside and back cover blurbs; price, book number, etc., will be added).

Project finalization (final check of unbound book. Main production run begins).

Publication (completed book is turned over to the marketing department).

Marketing department (establishes a release date, makes the book available worldwide, works with wholesalers and distributors, arranges book reviews, .connects with bookstores and trade contacts).

The length of the production run varies depending on the style and type of book. The contract calls for the book to be published within 325 days after its final form has been presented to the publisher. I was hoping that it would be available on bookshelves during the course of next year’s election campaign. I now think that is unlikely due to the length of the process outlined above.

Hope this finds everyone well. The most important part of the newsletter follows below.

TRULY AWFUL PUNS

What is the difference between a hippo and a zippo?
One is really heavy and the other is a little lighter.

What do you call a bee that can’t make up its mind?
A maybe.

/////

Best to all,
Tom Phillips

August 2023

8/4/2023

Well, gang … we’re back. I will proceed as if I did not hear the groans like “oh darn,” “so soon?” and “I had forgotten you were gone” in the background…

This month’s edition has some interesting writing news and, for those who might be interested, an England, Scotland, Orkney Islands, Shetland Islands, Arctic Circle, and Norway trip report.

Writing news: Unless things come unraveled, it looks like we have a publisher for the fiction novel. The most optimistic timing for publication will be six to ten months after contract signature with a benchmark for publishing of 325working days after signature. The YouTube Candidate is a “political thriller” that parallels many of the events that occur during the course of an election cycle, so it would be great if we could get it out sometime during the course of next year’s presidential campaign. Regardless, it is a great relief to have an apparent commitment. The post-COVID publishing industry is a difficult place to operate. So many smaller and medium sized firms closed up shop and nearly every company, including the giants in the industry, cut back on staff. The result, as noted in earlier newsletters, is often lengthy delays in the entire process from initial decisions about the book through the entire editing, printing, and marketing cycle. There’s still lots to be done: editing, formatting, cover page decisions, copyright certifications, pre-release reviews, etc.

Anyway … more news to follow in coming newsletters as we get further into the process. You will of course remember our protocol to celebrate book contract occasions: you are obligated to take your significant other out to dinner (and, if that doesn’t work out, take someone else’s significant other).

A second, sort of humorous book-related situation occurred while I was traveling. Reuben Rieke, who a few years ago co-authored a small book titled Fire in the North with me, received calls from an organization purportedly wanting to make a movie or a documentary of the story. The book is about a significant but little known event that occurred during the course of the Civil War – a massive Native uprising in Minnesota that involved Reuben’s ancestors in a major way. Though epic in scale, the episode has been almost obscured in history because major battles of the Civil War were ongoing at the same time. Reuben tried to reach me at about the time we were crossing the Arctic Circle. I managed to get word to him that we would talk when I got back. The deal sounded shaky to start with, since the company asked for front money to help defray the production costs (to be recovered when the film was marketed) and later added a second more substantial required contribution. When I got back, I researched the outfit and found them prominently displayed on a list of scam companies identifying themselves as being involved in purchasing, producing, and marketing films. Reuben quickly turned the company down and closed communications with them. He admitted, though, that he had sort of envisioned both of us accepting an Oscar at a future awards ceremony.

Full disclosure: what follows next are touristy comments – condensed version - with some military touches thrown in. Those not interested can skip immediately to the TRULY AWFUL PUNS.

The saga begins June 21 with Karen flying from Boston and Nita, Laura, and I from Omaha via Denver. We met at Heathrow airfield in London on the 22nd (London is a plus seven hours from Nebraska time). After we checked into a hotel, the girls did some immediate shopping at Harrod’s. I graciously deferred. The next day we walked to the Churchill War Rooms, the underground facility where the British government convened during WWII, and took a hop on/hop off bus tour of the city. That evening we walked to Buckingham Palace and had the neatest time wandering around on a wonderful night. The next morning we moved to Greenwich, where our boat was moored, but had that day and much of the next one free, so we took a ferry back to London for a boat tour of the city the first day and went to the Imperial War Museum on the second. The museum focuses mostly on WWI and WWII items. Wow, the WWI tanks were the size of small motor homes. It was also neat to see a Spitfire and a German V2 missile up close and personal. After a day at sea, the girls toured Edinburgh, Scotland, saw the castle and did some additional, but apparently necessary, shopping.

On the 28th, we stopped at Kirkwall, Orkney Islands. Nita and Karen saw the prehistoric monoliths at the Ring of Brodgar, while Laura and I opted for Orkney’s Wartime Legacy Tour. The Orkney Islands are the site of Scapa Flow, the huge natural harbor where the British anchored their battle fleets during both world wars. When Germany surrendered after WWI, the entire German fleet was brought to Scapa Flow and interred there. Rather than turn it over to the allies, the Germans secretly scuttled all 73 vessels. Only seven now remain; over the years the others have been raised, cut up, and sold for scrap. At the beginning of WWII, a German U-Boat (U-47) made its way through the submarine barriers and torpedoed the battleship HMS Royal Oak, taking the lives of more than 800 British sailors. A memorial service is still held every year at the site. The U-47’s skipper was personally decorated by Hitler. In March 1941, the U-47 was sunk with the loss of all hands, possibly after striking a mine.

The next day took us to Lerwick in the Shetland Islands. Nita, Karen, and I took a panoramic tour of the island, while Laura opted for the ‘Shetland Pony Experience’ tour. If she could have stuffed one into her large suitcase, she would have brought it home with us. The next day was a travel day at sea made memorable by witnessing the helicopter evacuation of a sick passenger.

On July 1, we crossed the Arctic Circle. Amidst high winds and a rough sea, Nita watched a “blue nose” ceremony commemorating the event. After setting our watches ahead another hour, we landed at Honningsvag, Norway. Karen drove as she and Laura took an ATV tour of the rugged surrounding area. Later, Karen, Nita, and I took a bus to North Cape, advertised as the northern-most point on the European Continent. It was a wild, windy, cold, rainy day, but wonderfully enjoyable. The cape overlooks a 1000’ drop to the sea below. The day ended with a 45-minute bus ride back to the boat – lots of reindeer, tundra, sheep, and incredible fjords along the way. About 100 or so miles east of the North Cape, Norway shares a border with Russia. It would have been interesting to see what that looked like. Fortunately, Vladimir decided not to attack while we were nearby.

July 3: Tromso, Norway. A tour of the city and shopping before closing the day with a spectacular voyage through the fjords to Lofoton, where the ship moored for the following day –tours, shopping, and a Fourth of July celebration on board. The next couple of days were really special. En route to Geiranger, Norway, we saw whales. The entrance to Geiranger took us through a fjord with the “Seven Sisters” waterfalls – each one falling more than a 1000 feet into the fjord. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Later in the day we took a bus tour on a narrow road through to the Eagles Point Overlook and Panoramic Drive, a site 2000 feet above the valley below. On the 7th, the tour ended at Bergen, Norway with city tours and an all-afternoon shopping excursion. Up the next day at 2:40 in the morning to catch a flight from Bergen to Frankfurt, Germany where Karen took a flight to Boston, and Nita, Laura, and I flew first to Chicago O’Hare – the world’s most congested, obnoxious, and chaotic airport – then to Omaha. We finally pulled up at home at about one in the morning. Delays at almost every stop, accompanied by several gate changes, made for about 37 hours of pretty much continuous travel. Marvelous experience, though, with record numbers of pictures taken. It is a good thing that we no longer take photos on 35mm slides, or we would have filled up the downstairs closet. If Nita wins the lottery, we may buy a place in one of those little fishing villages that sit along the fjords – though it would be dark four months of the year. We’d have to adjust.

And now, TRULY AWFUL PUNS.

A pirate was worried about some growths on this back and went to see a dermatologist.
“You’re fine,” the doctor said. “They’re benign.”
“Arghh,” said the pirate. “Check again, “When I counted there be ten.”

The Lord said to John, “Come forth and you shall receive eternal life.”
But John come fifth, so he only got thirty years.

/////

I know, these are worse than usual, but I’ve been gone for a while.

Have great summer.
Tom

June 2023

5/31/2023

Hi, everyone. It’s a gorgeous day in Lincoln as this is being written. Hope your day – and your entire summer – will measure up accordingly.

Just a note or two to keep you in the loop on the writing front. We’re still waiting for any responses that past mailings and more recent epistles to agents and publishing companies might bring. There are two prospective books in the works. One is a military history titled (at least tentatively) Glory in the Shadows: America’s Forgotten Military Leaders – Cold War to the Present Day. The other, The YouTube Candidate, is a fiction piece that hopefully might strike a chord with next year’s mid-term elections coming up. (Or maybe not.) We’ll see. Later this month we’ll be out of pocket for a while on a trip-related adventure, so I will let the dust settle on those mailings while we’re away. If there is no news waiting for us when we return, it will probably be time to explore an entirely different set of publishers and/or follow-up with any of the agents who expressed a degree of interest.

The mention of the out of town trip brings us to the second major item of news: there will be no July Newsletter! Once again I can hear the resounding shouts of great joy echoing across landscapes that span the entire globe. Absent unforeseen circumstances, the newsletters should resume in August. Of course there is always a possibility of the ship striking an iceberg as we approach the Arctic Circle or of an unrepentant German U-Boat torpedoing us somewhere between Scotland and the coast of Norway. (There’s always that ten percent that don’t get the word.)

A few days ago, I was browsing the shelves at Barnes & Noble while Nita did some pre-trip shopping (additional excursions are sure to follow) in preparation for the journey. (My own wardrobe is pretty much set: sneakers, blue jeans, and a couple of sweaters – my usual look of casual, understated elegance… I probably won’t take the Nebraska corncob hat with me.) Anyway, while I was waiting, I happened to pick up a small book titled 150 Great American Events. One entry that I found especially intriguing was that the North Platte Canteen was listed among the unique, out of the ordinary episodes in our nation’s history that warrant a special place in our collective memory.

For those among the readers who may not know the story, North Platte is a modest-sized city in central Nebraska that during World War II was a stop on the Union Pacific Railroad. All rail traffic halted there for a few minutes while crews topped off the reservoirs of the steam engines that at the time powered all locomotives. The troop trains that stopped there transported soldiers to the east and west coasts where they would embark on ships and head off to battlefields in North Africa, Europe, and the Pacific. The remarkable thing about North Platte was that beginning on Christmas Day, 1941, (18 days after Pearl Harbor) until April 1, 1946, the people of North Platte – and eventually 125 other communities, some as many as 200 miles distant – met every train that came to the station. Soldiers were showered with sandwiches of various kinds, cookies, cakes, pies, coffee, soft drinks, and, as appropriate, hugs and conversation. Some soldiers asked that notes to family members be written on their behalf. When the trains carried wounded soldiers who could not disembark, canteen members boarded the trains and served them. This went on around the clock for more than four and a half years. By the time it ended, more than six million soldiers had been cared for and given a touch of home by the people at the canteen.

Many of the veterans remembered those moments for the rest of their lives. In 2016, a network news program interviewed a soldier from Iowa whose train had stopped at North Platte on November 10, 1942. Seventy-four years later, the veteran still vividly recalled how much those ten or fifteen minutes had meant to him and his buddies.

One of the many things that showed the depth of commitment of the hundreds upon hundreds of volunteers who helped in various ways during the canteen’s existence was with everything else that was going on, with all they had to do to prepare and sustain the canteen effort, they were, of course, subjected to the same rationing restrictions on butter, sugar, meat, coffee, gasoline and other items that applied to all citizens. Thus, they and their families sometimes “went short” in order to assure sufficient food and treats for the canteen.

My first real awareness of the canteen occurred many years ago when I happened to catch a 60 Minutes or 20/20 episode that devoted a segment to the canteen experience. Volunteers (almost all were women) who had worked at the canteen told several stories that have always remained with me. One volunteer spoke of a colleague who was scheduled to work an evening shift at the canteen. That morning her friend had received a telegram notifying her that her soldier son had been killed in action. “She insisted on coming to work,” the volunteer said, “and through her tears she sat at the piano and sang songs with the soldiers and even danced with some of them.” I remember the interviewer seeming stunned by the story. I think he then asked something like “Why would she do that?” or “Why did she do that?” The volunteer replied, “Well, that’s Nebraska ….” That was gratifying to hear, of course, but it should be immediately noted that lots of marvelous people like her friend also came from distant places in Kansas and Colorado to help at the canteen. Full disclosure, though, I used that story in a speech that the Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command gave to Nebraska’s business and political leaders at a banquet at Offutt AFB commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the command. I thought it represented the qualities that make the state special. (I also mentioned football, of course.)

Fortunately, the canteen experience created far more moments that were happier and life-affirming. Some of the younger lady volunteers who danced or talked with soldiers affixed their mailing addresses to sticky popcorn balls that they handed to servicemen that came into the canteen. Most did so apparently intending only to provide a pen pal opportunity to young people about to go in harm’s way. However, at least two marriages are known to have resulted from the sticky popcorn ball messages.

As the war continued and news of canteen operations spread, donations in money and food commodities flowed in from private citizens, businesses, church groups, and service organizations throughout the country. President Franklin D. Roosevelt even sent a personal check ($5.00).

Thanks to all for indulging me with this sidetracked discourse. When I first heard that news segment years ago and then read about the canteen, it occurred to me how truly special that occasion was and how exceptional were the people who made it happen. So, I was surprised, and touched, when I opened the book to find that the canteen had been singled out for its unique significance and placed alongside other of the most momentous events in our history.

Those who might wish to read the full story of the canteen should pick up a copy of Once upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen by Bob Greene.

One final small item of full disclosure before turning to other things: in later years, Nita and I learned that her dad had been on some of those troop trains. Early in the war “Hutch” was the senior noncommissioned officer on three or four of the trains that carried troops to ports on the west coast. The train station where the canteen was located was torn down in 1973. However, the doors to the canteen were taken to the local museum where they still reside. Nita and I visited there a few years ago. Seeing those doors – knowing her dad had once walked through them – was a special moment.

And now, as always, that unique, much maligned, consistently disrespected feature: TRULY AWFUL PUNS.

The present-day ban on plastic straws was actually predicted by a 16th century prophet.
His name was No-straw-damus.

Two bacteria walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve bacteria here.”
The bacteria reply: “No, no. We work here – we’re staph!”

/////

Hope you have a great summer.
Best wishes – see you again in August.

Tom

May 2023

5/3/2023

Hi, everyone. It hardly seems as if it should be May. It’s great, though. The snow stakes are gone and the peach trees on the streets leading to the house are in full bloom. Really attractive. Those extra vivid colors – white and cherry pink – don’t stay with us for very long but they really dress up the place while they last.

Interesting start to the major league baseball season: Tampa Bay won their first 13 games to tie a long standing record. I happened to catch an interview with a player from the 1987 Milwaukee team that also won 13 in a row at the start of the year. He mentioned that despite that great start, by the time of the all-star break at mid-year, their winning percentage was already below .500. He didn’t know why things fell apart to that extent, but that the experience was a good reminder that it is indeed a long season. This morning newspaper indicated the Ray’s record is now 23-6, so they are still doing well. But … it’s early days, etc.

Feedback is still pending on the query letters to agents and publishers regarding the fiction manuscript, so there is still not a lot of writing news to talk about. I sent a status report note to the helpers in Lincoln who so graciously read and critiqued the early drafts. Several replied that they would join me in keeping my fingers crossed. The first batch of queries went out in early December, followed by a second series in early February. Most agencies indicate that in the post-COVID world with its reduced staff sizes, six to nine weeks is probably the norm for receiving feedback – and almost all indicate that they do not reply re submissions that they aren’t interested in.

So, as I told the crew who helped with the proofing/editing process, if nothing major evolves from the initial queries, I think the plan will be to focus on a few of the remaining agents that appear most promising and also begin researching smaller publishers that enable authors to work directly with the staffs. We’ll see what happens. As it turns out, the timing for the third round should probably best happen in mid-July. If all goes well, we’ll be doing some traveling in late June-early July and I don’t want to be ping ponging back and forth with agents or companies while we are spending time pretty much off the grid.

Change of subject: as I was double-checking some World War II stats in a military history manuscript, I ran across an excerpt from Rick Atkinson’s book An Army at Dawn that in a unique way captures the enormity of the losses in that conflict. The quote is from Atkinson’s prologue to the book.

“September 1, 1939, was the first day of a war that would last for 2,174 days, and it brought the first dead in a war that would claim in average of 27,600 lives every day, or 1,150 an hour, or 19 a minute, or one death every three seconds.”

Soon thereafter, Atkinson narrows the focus by describing losses in the war’s initial campaign. Although fairly brief and rather small in comparison with many operations that were soon to follow, the casualty numbers were horrific. “Within four weeks of the blitzkrieg attacks on Poland by sixty Germany divisions, the lightning war had killed more than 100,000 Polish soldiers, and 25,000 civilians had perished in bombing attacks. Another 10,000 civilians – mostly middle-class professionals – had been rounded up and murdered and twenty-two million Poles now belonged to the Third Reich. ‘Take a good look around Warsaw,’ Adolph Hitler told journalists during a visit to the shattered Polish capital. ‘That is how I can deal with any European city.’” Eighty-four years later, those words could have been spoken by Vladimir Putin.

A second change of subject: as do some other localities around the country, Lincoln conducts its elections for local offices this month. There are some good, qualified candidates, but I am weary of the attack ads. Tons of money has been spent on them. That approach apparently appeals to many and often has special impact. Too bad. Hopefully, the good guys (and gals) will win.

Well, that’s more than enough about manuscripts, military history, and politics. It’s time for that thought provoking, far more important feature: TRULY AWFUL PUNS.

I gave a handyman a list of ten things to do, but he skipped numbers two, four, six, eight, and ten. He only does odd jobs.

My wife left me because I was obsessed with becoming a tailor. I told her “Fine, suit yourself.”

/////

Best to all,
Tom

April 2023

4/8/2023

Hi everyone:

Well, after shoveling snow a week or so ago, it is a totally nice day – sunny, warm, the snow is gone, and the major league season is underway. The Cubs’ record is two wins and three losses as this is being written. But … it is early yet and we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

For the past few years, I’ve traded emails during the baseball season with a high school classmate who also follows the Cubbies. Pat Vincent Dusek and I hardly knew each other in school. Our paths connected at a class reunion when Pat shared a table with Nita and me. It was a delight to meet someone equally as addicted. Pat lives near Chicago so she can occasionally see them up close and personal. The Cubs most recent World Series Championship was in 2016 – that was a great cause for celebration (and emails). Before that the last one was in 1908. That’s right: one hundred eight years in between. Hopefully, Pat and I won’t have that long to wait for the next one …

And now for something far less important: a bit of writing news – though admittedly, there’s not a lot to report. As noted in earlier newsletters, there are query letters out on both a military history manuscript and a fiction work (first ever for me). There’s been a little feedback on the fiction story – one publishing company has routed it higher in the organizational channel for additional consideration.

In the publishing world it seems that this part of the writing process unfolds very slowly. That’s a bit frustrating for those who come from backgrounds where things typically are decided rather quickly. The state of the current world is that most of us who attempt to do some writing will have to adjust to the additional delays. COVID forced numerous companies out of business and caused reductions in staff sizes to many, many more. So … as I mentioned in the March update, the effect has been to slow down the process of evaluating and publishing. The current norm is eight to nine weeks to access the manuscript and from one to three years to publish it.

My notion is to wait until June for any feedback on the current round of query letters. If nothing surfaces by that time, I’ll go out with further queries to different agent prospects and/or smaller publishing companies. We’ll see what happens.

While I wait for word on the manuscripts, I’ve been attempting to catch up on some outside reading. Here are some tidbits in event others might share similar interests:

Tom Clancy Red Winter: A Jack Ryan Novel. It was good to take a break from history for a while and get back to something that I’ve always enjoyed. The book is actually written by someone named Max Cameron. It features Clancy’s character Jack Ryan. This one is set in East Berlin during the Cold War. Ryan attempts to prevent stealth technology from being passed to the Russians after the crash of a USAF F-117 stealth aircraft. Red Winter was clearly written by someone other than Tom Clancy and, for me at least, didn’t have quite the pizzazz his stuff does. But, it’s a good book and I enjoyed the break.

Nero: Matricide, Music, and Murder in Imperial Rome. I found this one among the new releases while Nita and I were browsing through the library. Wow. Life in Rome’s upper class in the 40-60AD period must have been a combination of Peyton Place; Murder, Inc.; and The Godfather. Assassination was almost a cottage industry – experts in poison were especially in demand – as emperors went to great lengths to rid themselves of potential contenders. (And it seemed there were always some of those.) Nero killed his mother, one of his wives, and several others who, with varying degrees of proof and suspicion, he saw as opponents or potential adversaries. And yet, ironically, the authors believe that he was fairly well regarded by the Roman populace. The government regularly distributed food handouts to the 200,000 or so citizens at the lowest end of the poverty scale. (The city also had 400,000 slaves among its one million people.) The regime also sponsored 50 or more days of games and festivities each year to keep the populace entertained. All this was going on while some extraordinary architectural feats were being accomplished. Nero built a residence called the ‘Golden House’ (Domus Aurea) near the Forum that must have been bigger than the Havelock suburb of Lincoln and more grandiose than the plushest residences of the world’s current set of billionaires – surfaces gilded with gold, a rotating dining room, a massive lake, and much more.

The authors contend that the “Nero fiddled while Rome burned” accusation is not valid. Large fires were rather routine in the congested city and while the major one associated with Nero’s reign was huge (it burned for nine days; 10 out of city’s 14 major districts were destroyed or badly damaged) his work in putting things back together was generally well received. Still, someone had to be blamed for starting the devastation and the Christian community was a ready target. Nero did not play the fiddle (the violin hadn’t been invented yet). He did play a lyre-like instrument. The authors state that he saw himself has an actor and musician and probably would have preferred that life over that as emperor – a role which involved duties and responsibilities he was less than enthusiastic about.

Despite all the internal machinations, the empire continued to grow, eventually extending to Great Britain, encompassing much of Western Europe, stretching east to Armenia, and reaching well into North Africa. My first overseas assignment was to Morocco and one of the highlights of that tour was spending a day at Volubilis, the remnants of an incredible Roman city that is now a World Heritage Site.

Soldier: Great Stories of War and Peace. This is a new work edited by Max Hastings, a British writer and military historian. It contains 350 short stories (some are very short, not much more than a paragraph) that provide examples of courage, heroism, tragedy, and humor that have encompassed soldiers’ lives, famous as well as humble, from Greek and Roman times through recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One story that Hastings includes relates to James Whistler, the famed American artist. Whistler was a cadet at West Point whose demise occurred when he failed a chemistry exam. According to the story, his instructor asked Whistler to discuss silicon. Whistler began his reply by saying “Silicon is a gas.” He didn’t last much longer. Later, he was quoted as saying, “If silicon was a gas, I might have been a general.”

Another less than serious story that I liked very much concerned Winston Churchill and General Sir Bernard Montgomery, a man known for his arrogance but not for his hospitality. (Churchill once characterized Montgomery thusly: “In defeat: indomitable; in victory: insufferable.”) The story that Hastings choses to use concerns Churchill’s reply to a questioner in the House of Commons who complained that Montgomery had invited General Wilhelm von Thoma, the defeated German commander of the Afrika Korps, to dinner in his desert Caravan. “Poor von Thoma,” Churchill replied gravely, “I too have dined with Montgomery.”

Before getting to the puns, there’s a bit of rhyme I found in a crossword puzzle a day or so ago that I thought I should make use of before I lose track of it. The author wasn’t noted but I suspect it may be Ogden Nash.

To keep nuptials knitted
To top off your loving cup
If you are at fault admit it
And if you’re right shut up.

There’s a lot of wisdom in those four lines – I wish I had seen them years earlier.

And now, that seldomly acclaimed and highly disabused feature: TRULY AWFUL PUNS.

What do you get when you cross a bell with a humming bird?
A humdinger.

A square, a triangle, and a hexagon walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Looks like you boys could use a round.”

I know, really bad – but the death threats have actually subsided lately.

Have a great spring.
Tom

March 2023

3/6/2023

Hi, everyone.

Just a little writing news in this edition. As I’ve mentioned in previous newsletters, lately much of my time has been spent doing the part of the writing process that I enjoy the least – sending out query letters to book publishers and agents. Two manuscripts, a nonfiction military history work and a fiction novel, are finished or are close enough to being completed to check and see if anyone might be interested in them.

With the military history work I’ve been querying book publishers who deal with that genre. Military history is a comparatively narrow market so as with other things I’ve written of that sort, I’ve been mostly working directly with publishers. At the suggestion of others, with the fiction novel I’ve corresponded with agents as well as publishers. Literary agents have niches too – preferred subjects for fiction works that they specialize in working with – so the process involves researching their sites and checking their track records to try to identify those that might be good fits to handle a prospective book.

Queries for both works have now gone out. Depending on results, or a lack of them, an additional series may follow at some point. One of the effects of Covid has been a considerable reduction in the number of book publishers and, in many cases, in the sizes of the staffs in the companies that remain. The smaller staff sizes have lengthened the review process; waits of eight to nine weeks are now fairly common. In those cases where the manuscript is eventually selected for publication, the further consequence is to delay the initial publication date. Many books may not hit the streets until one to three years after acceptance. (That’s not news that I react to with great enthusiasm, by the way.) There has been one glimmer of hope among the few responses that have filtered back thus far. One publisher responded to the query letter for the fiction book with a note that said: “I’m intrigued. I’ve passed it to a reader.” We’ll see what happens. The note was from a small book company, so even if the manuscript is eventually accepted by that company it could be a long, long time before it sees the light of day.

One of the interesting – and unfortunate – things that I ran across while researching companies and agents was the considerable numbers of book companies that have gone out of business or scaled back since the last time I went through this process in a major way for books that were published in 2017 and 2018. The “bible” many authors use to identify prospective companies or literary agents is a publication called Writer’s Market. The present-day numbers are considerably smaller. I ran across several instances where after identifying a prospective company or agent, I went to the appropriate website and found the statement that (the company or agent) is “no longer accepting unsolicited submissions.” The big companies mostly remain (although some have consolidated) but some have stultifying levels of bureaucracy. Too bad. Maybe I should have kept playing baseball. Have you seen the salaries those guys are making?

Change of subject. In the January newsletter, I mentioned a book by Jon Meacham titled And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle. Part of that newsletter discussion was about how vulnerable Lincoln was in terms of the physical threat to him and how tenuous the change of administration process – especially the Electoral College count – was. Even then, 163 years ago, it was recognized as a possible problem area, a weak point in the transfer of power from one administration to another. I recently watched a discussion of that issue and went back to re-read Jon Meacham’s discussion of it. Interesting stuff. Days before he was sworn in, Lincoln himself identified the major moment of vulnerability. The quoted material that follows is taken from the book. “It seems to me that the inauguration is not the most dangerous point for us,” the president-elect told Seward (note: William Seward, who would become Lincoln’s Secretary of State). “Our adversaries have us more clearly at a disadvantage” if they could disrupt of delay the Electoral College count. “It is, or is said to be, more than probable,” Henry Adams wrote (Note: Adams was the son of a Republican member of Congress), “that some attempt or other will be made to prevent the counting of votes and the declaration of Lincoln’s election” – and thus prevent his presidency.

“Much came down to a single man, and a single moment: the vice president of the United States, John Breckenridge, and the transfer of the Electoral College votes from the Senate to the House, where he was to preside over and certify the election. Defeated for president, sympathetic to the Southern cause, yet constitutionally charged with being an honest broker, Breckenridge was the object of all eyes on Wednesday, February 13. ‘The certificates of the electoral votes from each State are kept in the sole custody of the Vice President, who, on that day, with a messenger carrying the two boxes, and followed by the Senators, two by two, proceeds from the Senate Chamber through the corridors and rotunda, always crowded and pressed on either side by people following to witness the ceremony to the House of Representatives,’ Dawes (note: Henry L. Dawes, a Representative from Massachusetts) recalled. ‘There, in the Speaker’s chair, and in the presence of the two Houses and a crowded gallery, he opens the certificates, counts the votes, and declares the result.’

“Dawes captured the fears of the hour. ‘The ease with which desperadoes, mingling through the crowd, might fall upon the messenger as he passed through the corridors and rotunda, and violently seize the boxes, or from the galleries of the House might break up the proceedings, was apparent.’”

“’Breckenridge did his duty, Dawes recalled, ‘with Roman fidelity … and the nation was saved.’” Once in the House chamber, Dawes recalled Breckenridge as being “pale and a little nervous … but firm on his feet and unfaltering in his utterance, as he announced : I therefore declare Abraham Lincoln duly elected President of the United States for the term of four years from the fourth day of March next.”

Two things struck me as I read that.

One was the irony of Breckenridge’s circumstance. He was one of three others who ran against Lincoln for the Presidency in 1860, and, in fact, after Lincoln, he received the highest number of electoral votes {Lincoln – Republican Party– 180 electoral votes; Breckenridge, Southern Democratic Party – 72 electoral votes; John Bell – Constitutional Union Party – 39 electoral votes; Stephen Douglas – Democratic Party – 12 electoral votes.} Later, Breckenridge became a general in the Confederate Army.

The second was how closely that circumstance paralleled the events of January 6, 2021.

There were other considerations as well; that is, how vulnerable we were and how close a call it was. There is still some continued discussion about the relative security of the process. Hopefully, the passage of a bill titled “Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022” has strengthened the procedure. Among other things, the new law specifies that the role of the vice president is purely ceremonial.

Well, that’s enough of that “heavy” stuff. The moment has clearly come for something ridiculous, totally irrelevant, and of no earthly value to anyone: TRULY AWFUL PUNS.

Recently, I started getting on my clothes online.
My neighbors now take their laundry in at night.

Did you hear about the victim who was found dead in a bath tub full of milk and Wheaties?
Police suspect a cereal killer.

Have a great March – and for those in many parts of the country, keep faith that better weather will someday be upon us. Stay safe.
Tom

February 2023

2/6/2023

Hi, everyone.

I hope all of our friends in the South and Northeast portions of the U.S. emerged unscathed from the horrifically bad weather system – ice storms, high winds, etc., etc – that so devastated those parts of the country. Some of our Texas friends had troubling power outages, flight cancellations, and travel disruptions, among other hazardous frustrations. And in the Northeast, I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere near an interstate highway or a major thoroughfare. The photos of pile ups, cars skidding out of control, people ice skating down main street, and snow plows at work, made me very content to watch from a distance in the comfort of a recliner.

I mentioned in a newsletter a few months ago that during a trip our daughter Karen had taken us through Eastern Canada and the New England area, we visited Mount Washington, New Hampshire, which in 1934 was the site of the highest wind ever recorded on the North American continent (231 miles per hour). Indeed, there is still a weather station and research facility at the summit. Nita texted Karen to tell her that the network news had reported a wind chill temperature of – check this out – a minus 109 degrees with wind gusts as high as 135 mph on Mount Washington. The paper this morning labelled it as the coldest wind chill ever recorded in the U.S. The wind chill reading was taken on Friday, February 3; the wind gust was, I believe, in the early morning hours of Saturday, February 4. The ambient air temperature was a minus 46.9 degrees.

Once years ago (far too many years ago) as an enlisted weatherman at Minot AFB, North Dakota, I recorded a temp of minus 33 degrees with a 33 knot wind blowing. Despite parka and all the accoutrements, as I walked back to the barracks that night, I thought several parts of my body were going to freeze over and fall off. I don’t know what those readings would have translated to in terms of wind chill. The charts we used to brief the aircrews didn’t go that low. It is hard for me to fathom what a minus 109 temp and a 135mph wind gust would feel like.

Two small bits of writing news to talk about. First, for those who have asked about a print version of the Doomsday 3.0 short story, please be advised that the magazine has published a book edition containing the material that appeared in the magazine this past year. The book is organized by month, with each section displaying the material that appeared in the on-line magazine in the magazine’s monthly edition. Doomsday 3.0 appears on p. 136 as the first story in the December portion. For those interested, the book is available on Amazon under the title Spank the Carp 2022 Anthology. Special thanks to those who have so kindly commented on the story.

Second item: I received an interesting note from the editor of the Baseball Bard website regarding an upcoming event – an invitation to read a poem of mine at the National Baseball Poetry Festival. A couple of years ago, Baseball Bard had arranged with the Boston Red Sox to do a program like this at Fenway Park, with the poems being displayed on the scoreboard as they were being presented. The Covid outbreak prevented that event from happening. The Red Sox organization is going to sponsor the event again this year. It will take place in April, this time in Worcester, Massachusetts, at the ball park and in several open mic venues. I took a pass on the invitation. Other things are going on at that time and, truth be told, I really am not much interested in it. (My daughters suggested that if I really got into the open mic entertainment business, I should probably wear a beret while doing the reading. A beard or goatee might be appropriate too.)

The poem that the Spank the Carp organization suggested I present is included below. Pitchers and catchers report to spring training this month – hooah! – so the timing is appropriate. Readers are authorized to visualize it in an open mic setting. (I personally picture the scene as looking something like Rick’s American Café in the movie Casablanca.) Beret and goatee are optional.

THE SLUGGER

Pinch runner “Slugger” McBickell got
caught in a run down pickle
(and was tagged out near second base).

The steal might have worked had
misfortune not lurked
(Slugger stopped to tie his shoe lace).

Slugger dusted off with a grin and
waved to his mom as he jogged in
(while the coach tried to keep a straight face).

In the field Slugger watched a soft pop fly
and watched it further as it rolled on by
(then tripped while giving chase).

On deck, Slugger could hardly wait
to take his turn at the plate
(but stepped into the wrong batter’s box space).

Can he possibly be that bad? Mused
his tormented dad
(who slipped away to a quiet place).

Maybe we should try another sport …
maybe take him to a tennis court
(something more suited to his natural grace).

Or he might take to track with a bit of a hint.
We could probably try a dash or a sprint
(after all, he did well in that Easter Egg race).

When the umpire reminded Slugger to put on his hat
his dad resolved to sell his glove and his bat
(But not yet … just in case).

Then everything became settled and clear;
for sure we’ll do this again next year
(Slugger hit a dribbler off the other team’s ace).

And now for that increasingly less acclaimed feature: TRULY AWFUL PUNS.

A man who made tie-dyed shirts was trying to borrow money to expand his business. While filling out the forms, he had a heart attack and collapsed, spilling bottles of dye all over his paperwork. The poor man dyed a loan.

I’m having trouble downloading the Titanic soundtrack onto my phone.
It won’t stop syncing.

Yes, I know. Truly bad – but no raunchy comments, please. Some of these were sent to me by very nice people whose feelings are easily hurt ….

Have a great February. Best wishes, always
Tom