Love Lock Bridges

            The other morning on my Google feed I found an article about the Old Red Bridge, which I wouldn’t have thought at all interesting except it is a love lock bridge. And it is in – what, this can’t be right – Kansas City? That’s less than five miles from where I live.

            The first time I heard about “love locks” bridges was during my trip to Paris five years ago. The Pont des Arts or Passerelle des Arts is a pedestrian bridge in Paris which crosses the River Seine. It links the Institut de France and the central square (cour carrée) of the Palais du Louvre. For years, lovers come to the bridge and profess their undying love by locking a padlock to the bridge, sometimes with their names engraved, sometimes with other poetic messages. Then they would throw the key into the River Seine. Unfortunately because over 700,000 locks have been secured to the bridge, with an additional 7,500 every year, the bridge cannot handle the weight. So in 2015, the grilles were removed and replaced with glass panels so locks couldn’t be attached. When I was there, metal grilles were again in place but separate from the structural part of the bridge.

My picture looks rather forlorn as I seemed to have captured a day when love was just not in the air. At one time, sections of grille and boxes of locks were auctioned off, so even if your lock no longer appears on the bridge, it may be out in the universe somewhere standing guard over someone else’s love, or perhaps it has been melted down to become part of another artist’s representation of love.

Although Paris is known as the city of love, it is not actually the origin of this loving tradition. The first notion of love locks appeared in a poem titled “Prayer for Love” by Desanka Maksimovic, a Serbian poet. The poem takes place before the First World War and is about a soldier and young woman who were madly in love and secretly met every night at the Most Ljubavi Bridge in a town called Vrnjačka Banja. When the young soldier was sent off to Greece, he eventually met the love of his life. When his first love found out, she died of heartbreak. Out of superstition, local women started hanging love locks on that same bridge, the Bridge of Love, in an attempt to safeguard their love.

The popularity of love locking really took off after the release of the Italian movie “Ho Voglia di Te” (I want you) in 2007. It was inspired by the same-named novel from Italian author Federico Moccia, which was published in 2006. One scene features the protagonists locking their love by attaching a padlock to a lamppost at the Ponte Milvo in Rome and throwing the key into the Tiber River.

I began to think there had to be more to the tradition than just these two incidents – a poem and a story, so I researched and found a link to twenty love lock bridges, of which not all are actual bridges. 20 Love Locks Bridges Around the World (brides.com) Some are sculptures, others are trees and yes, some are bridges. They all appear to be inspired by the original poem or movie. There are other internet sites that list numerous places in the United States with love lock bridges, sculptures and places of tradition, none of which have much of a history, except perhaps for the people who live there. Places like Loveland, CO use the idea as a promotion of its town and name.

But what I did not find was information on the one particular love lock bridge that had appeared on my Google feed just this morning – Old Red Bridge, in my own back yard. So back to the original reason for my research. Although the original Red Bridge was built in 1859 by a Scottsman, it was wood and was replaced twice over the years. Then in 2011, the New Red Bridge opened, so the previous one became called the Old Red Bridge (because they are both painted red, of course). It was designated as a love locks bridge in 2013, so it’s “history” isn’t even as old as that of many others around the country. One significant difference is that after locking in their everlasting love to some appropriate spot on the bridge, people are requested to put their keys in a designated box instead of throwing them into the Blue River. The metal from the keys is bad for the environment, especially the fish. Instead, these keys will be used by the organization Monarchs on the Move to create a sculpture of the iconic Monarch Butterfly that travels through Kansas City on its amazing multi-generational migration. That’s a rather romantic notion, don’t you think?

           More romantic reads are available at Amazon.com, or at my website.

 

Love to all,

Barb

http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

https://bookswelove.net/baldwin-barbara/

 

Subliminal Advertising

 

Subliminal Advertising

How many of the following products can you recognize?

1.      You’ll wonder where the yellow went…

2.      Wake up to _____ in your cup.

3.      They’re magically delicious.

4.      Plop, plop, fizz, fizz…

    I wish I was an __________.

6.      Double your pleasure, double your fun…

When television advertisers created jingles, they discovered a very important fact. Jingles were catchy, short songs easily remembered and repeated by children. Thus for every time a jingle played on TV, children would repeat it and basically gain the product “free” advertising. If you completed the six examples above, did you sing the jingle as you tried to finish it? Uh-hum. J

Another way companies brand their product is by developing a spokesperson who is in all their ads. Recognize these?

Is it possible to say their name without adding the company they’re associated with?

Companies also get you invested in their products by having celebrities in their commercials. State Farm is probably the best known as they use several football icons in their commercials. And if you’re a football fan, you think “if it’s good enough for them maybe I should take a look.”

Back in 1967, I did a term paper on subliminal advertising*, the art of projecting indiscernible objects onto a movie or television screen to see if people watching would be influenced by that projection. For example, a small picture of a popcorn box was put into the top corner of the movie screen – flashed for only a tenth of a second – and statistics were kept as to whether popcorn sales increased. Keep in mind sight is only one of our senses; therefore advertisers can bombard us in any number of ways. Think of the last time you walked through a mall (I realize that was a really long time ago) and you smelled caramel popcorn or the rich aroma of roasted coffee. How easily your feet moved you in that direction. * What Is Subliminal Advertising? Definition, Types & More - ShareThis

I find this subject fascinating although I know there can be far reaching effects from such “brainwashing”. You need to be aware that suggestions are being made to you not only with actual commercials (which we tend to walk away from to get our lunch or use the restroom) but within the program itself. For those familiar with the movie “E.T.”, remember what candy became an overnight sensation when the movie came out? Hershey agreed to spend $1 million promoting E.T. in exchange for the rights to use E.T. in its ads. The payoff was huge—the little peanut butter candies saw a reported 65% to 85% jump in profits just two weeks after the movie's premiere.

The examples, of course, are everywhere, but I started thinking about how much closer to home such things were as a writer. Without consciously thinking about it, my heroine asks for a Kleenex when she sneezes; the hero opens the door of his F-150 pick up to take her to the local pizza joint where they have cokes and wood fire pizza. I am certainly not getting paid to use brand names in my writing (wouldn’t that be nice) but do I have to be concerned about saying “coke” instead of “soda”? In some cases, the need to use a brand name helps distinguish and define the people. For example, the hero putting on a North Face jacket tells you he has good (and more expensive) taste and enjoys outside activities. Naming a premium wine choice at the restaurant is similar.

Today is so much different from fifty, or even twenty years ago. There was radio, then television; billboards on the highways. Now we are bombarded with advertisements on all social media. I swear once my son looked something up on google and when I got back to my house and went on line, there were advertisements for the same product on MY phone, even though I hadn't looked up the product before. So as a writer, what do I have to worry about with regard to using a brand name product in my writing?

Rights of Writers: Can I Mention Brand Name Products in My Fiction? Is an excellent article by Mark Fowler about the four basic types of brand/trademark problems in writing, with examples of each, but his bottom line is, “The use of brand names in fiction is not a sleep-depriving issue.  It would be obsessive (and stylistically unpalatable) to use the R-in-a-circle symbol or the TM symbol every time you refer to a brand name in your text.  And, as long as you do not write falsely and disparagingly about real brands and the companies who manufacture them, you are unlikely ever to run into a problem.”

I had the delight of sharing some of this discussion with my characters, JC and Charlie in “Loving Charlie Forever”, a time travel. They were trying to figure out what they could “invent” back in 1850s to support themselves, but were having a bit of an integrity crisis worrying about taking away another’s invention before its time. I’ve always liked writing time travels because of the knowledge that some characters have given they’re from the future. Usually though, they don’t have the wherewithal to invent a particular item. And afterall, what fun would that be for the real inventors?

In your reading, and perhaps your writing, you’re likely to run across brand names and chances are, you read right over them with the intent to which they were used. If it bothers you as an author to “promote” a brand name, (afterall, they’re not paying you to mention their product) then use a generic form or eliminate the reference altogether.

All Best Wishes,

Barb

http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

https://bookswelove.net/baldwin-barbara/

 

Opening Lines

            

I recently started reading a book; put it aside; picked it up to continue then put it aside again. Why? The first 2 chapters (one each for the hero and heroine) were about the two main characters – all their angst, regrets, problems and troubles. It was their thoughts and reflections with the only action being that they were thinking and reflecting while eating or driving. This sounds harsh, but too much information at the beginning of a story can very easily cause a reader to stop reading altogether. Yes, the information is needed, but throwing it all into the first chapters is sometimes called an “information dump” and is not always the best way to start a story. The fact that the 2 main characters don’t meet or interact in any way until well after page 80 was another problem for me, especially considering this was a contemporary romance.

Industry standards for fiction writing have changed over the years and there are probably not hard and fast rules as to what a writer must do and there are as many ways to start a book as there are books written. Oftentimes, historicals have more background and descriptions before getting into the actual story. I know that I write differently when creating an historical than when I’m doing a contemporary. There is usually a slower flow to the scenes and more detail.

My question is – what pulls you into a book from the get-go? Is it a long idyllic description of the setting? Is it a monologue by the main character of all he/she hopes for as he/she looks longingly in the mirror? Is it a first sentence or paragraph that drops you right into the middle of the action? Take a look at the following opening lines and paragraphs from 5 different books.

1.  “Stop! Thief!” (Snowflakes and Kisses)

2.  “You can’t take my kin,” Joe shouted, struggling against the deputy who had pinned his arms behind his back. (Tenderhearted Cowboy)

3.  “Suicide,” Michael Grant stated in a flat voice as he stared at the cold body on the warehouse floor. (Love in Disguise)

4. To whoever finds this journal: I started out this rainy November morning in 1988 as an archeology intern uncovering sunken treasure from the Steamboat Arabia, but due to circumstances I don’t understand, at the end of the day I found myself on board the Arabia, back in 1856, the year it sank. (Hold on to the Past)

5. Cheyenne stepped onto the boardwalk outside the Bed & Breakfast and slipped on her sunglasses to cut the glare of the late morning light. The only redemption from the hot July sun was the breeze blowing off the nearby bay. She sighed. She wasn’t here to enjoy the pristine beach and crystal blue water of the small tourist town. She was on a mission and today she would run her quarry to ground, if she had to burn down every tavern in a two mile radius. (Prelude and Promises)

First let me say these are opening lines from five of my books. Given I have over twenty published books and I am only sharing five openings, it is safe to say that I might not always follow my own advice as to how to start a book. (Some of the 20 are historical and time travels so I plead paragraph 2 above.) Some of my stories take a little more than a paragraph to get in gear and there’s nothing wrong with that. But here’s the thing. I once cut an entire opening chapter (as my heart bled because it was good writing) for the simple reason that it did nothing to get the story going. It was background – important information – but not as necessary at the beginning of the story as I originally thought. That didn’t make it any easier to delete. Some writers will tell you “edit” is a 4-letter swear word, especially after you’ve spent hours and gallons of coffee constructing that one page.

            I like to read books that quickly put me into the middle of the action, and so those are the types of books I try to write. That’s what happened with my newest holiday romance, so I leave you with the first few pages:

 

“Stop! Thief!”

Rem jerked upright from tying his shoe and saw Mrs. Peacock drop to a bench against the wall as a youngster grabbed her grocery bag and darted down the sidewalk. He took off and caught him by the collar within half a block, jerking him around.

“Robbie Jenkins, what the hell?” The kid was a local; a good kid as far as he knew and never in trouble of any kind. Grabbing him in a head lock, he dragged him back to where the older lady still sat.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Peacock?” he asked, easily keeping a squirming Robbie locked against his side.

She turned to look at him in surprise, then quickly glanced straight ahead. “I’m…I’m fine, Sheriff,” she said loudly. “He may have gotten my groceries, but he didn’t nab my tickets to the Winter Festival!” She held up two cardboard tickets, grinning somewhere off to his left.

“Cut! That’s a wrap!” A voice hollered from across the narrow thoroughfare.

Rem stood on the sidewalk, Mrs. Peacock grinning like a loon and Robbie struggling to get free. As he tried to process the scene, Gwendolyn, his twin sister, hurried across the street.

“Oh my gosh. That was totally unscripted but so much better than I could have written,” Gwen exclaimed when she stepped onto the sidewalk. Behind his sister stood a man with a camera and a couple of other people he didn’t recognize.

 “Let him go, Rem,” Gwen said, tugging on his arm.

He kept his grip on Robbie. “He took Mrs. Peacock’s groceries,” he said but even as he spoke, he didn’t sound very convincing. His sister laughed and the others joined in. Rem could feel his face heat.

“We’re making a marketing video,” his sister said with a sigh. “Now let him go.”

Rem looked back at Mrs. Peacock who slowly nodded in agreement, a smile on her wrinkled face.

“Did I get my lines right, Gwendolyn, dear?” she asked sweetly.

“You were awesome,” Gwen answered before turning back to Rem with a brow raised.

He slowly released Robbie but latched onto his sister’s arm instead. None too gently, he tugged her away from the rest of the people clustered in front of Nobbie’s Grocery.

“What the hell, Gwen?” He spun her to face him.

“Seriously, Rem, with all your literary skills, can’t you come up with something more original?”

“Don’t push me, Gwendolyn Elizabeth Matthews. Spill it.” His twin had been the bane of his existence for thirty years and that didn’t appear to be changing anytime soon.

She pulled her stocking cap off and shook out her hair, the black curls swaying around her face. It was like looking into a mirror except for the length of her hair. The same green eyes stared back at him, the same straight nose and high cheekbones defined their Irish heritage although her features were somewhat softer than his. Unfortunately, the same stubborn chin rose in defiance.

“You know you can’t bully me, Rem, even if you are the sheriff and even less because you’re my brother. We were shooting a video for the community calendar to advertise the Winter Festival.” As head of the Chamber of Commerce, his sister went overboard sometimes to put Cherrywood on the map.

He rubbed a hand over his face. “You could have told me. I thought we were having an actually robbery.”

“Hungry for a little action?” She grinned at him and the last of the tension slid away. He had to admit being sheriff, albeit part time, in the sleepy little town of Cherrywood didn’t lead to many bragging rights at the national law enforcement conventions. The entire town had only a few thousand people; more in the summer as it was a hot beach destination on the east coast.

However, once the first frost came, the tourists left and residents hunkered down for the winter. Now that December had arrived, the wind off the Long Island Sound often blew bitterly cold. So far this winter, the snow accumulation promised a brisk business for the Winter Festival with all the activities the town had planned.

“Delete that video,” he ordered as he tugged his stocking cap over his ears and turned to finally start his daily run.

“No way,” his sister called behind his back. “Don’t forget to stop at the office and sign a release.” Her laughter followed him down the street.

***

            I hope you’ll join Rem, Gwen and the residents of Cherrywood for a fun filled, very festive holiday season in my newest romance – “Snowflakes and Kisses”. Erin Thomas has already made her reservation and while she’s looking forward to all the holiday activities, she has no idea of the surprises awaiting her. Available now at https://bookswelove.net/baldwin-barbara/ or in print from Amazon.

All Best Wishes,

Barb

http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

 

 

 

Is Your Name Unique?

 

Free ebook in August from www.bookswelove.net

 

Names are important to writers. We spend a lot of time researching titles and even more time finding just the right name for each character in our books. I remember early in my writing career, I had settled on a name for my heroine which was tied to a twist in the plot. When my editor read it she told me that name was a well known romance author and perhaps I should change it. (Not really a suggestion.) In changing her name, I also had to change other names and modify the plot. After that, I began taking a little more time when deciding on names.

Just this week, I discovered a whole new perspective on names. My sister came to visit me in Kansas City. Because of COVID we hadn’t seen each other in a couple years, plus the fact she lives in Illinois. But there was an ulterior motive to her visit. You see, her name is Linda, and she was also coming to the L.I.N.D.A. convention being held here. You read right. They have a convention for people named Linda. Check it out at L.I.N.D.A. Club – Lindas Involved in Network Development (lindaclub.org). They’ve been having conventions since 1987 and my sister has gone to so many that she had enough tee-shirts for me to make her a quilt!

Well, of course, I had to see if there was a Barbara convention, but regardless of whether I looked up “convention”, “conference” or “club”, I couldn’t find one. I did come across My Quest to Find All the People Who Share My Name - The Atlantic. It’s a fun and interesting article from the Atlantic about “All the other Julie Becks and Me”. Even if your name isn’t Julie Beck, the article has interesting information about how the internet has changed our sense of identity.

Within that article was the website http://howmanyofme.com/. You can put in your first and last name and find out how many people in the U.S. have the same name as you according to the census, although the site does state the numbers aren’t absolute. There is also a section on statistics and famous people with your name. It even lists names similar to Barbara: Barb, Barbie, Bobbi, Bobbie, Bobby.

Because I know you’re curious, there are 1,638,172 people in the U.S. with the first name Barbara. There are 98,093 people with the last name Baldwin. There are only 481 people named Barbara Baldwin.

I tried to find a site that gave a list of all the different “name clubs” around the country but without spending days going down a rabbit hole in the internet, I had no luck. I did find

Same-Name Clubs - American Profile, which gives information about clubs for people named Betty, Bob, Linda, Phil Campbell, Jim Smith. You would think there would be a club for John Doe or Jane Doe or at the very least “Karen”. I did look to see if there were actually real people with those names and there are 236 John Doe; only 18 Jane Doe. It didn’t surprise me that there are over a million people named Karen. Make yourselves a club, ladies!

No matter how unique you might think you are, chances are there’s more than one of you out there. (Or in my case 481.) I decided to check out a few of the characters from my novels. According to the “how many of me” website, which as I said is not absolute, the numbers in parenthesis indicate how many real people have the same names as my fictional characters.

            Charles Cannon (644) and Jacy Douglas (1 or fewer!) from “Loving Charlie Forever”

            Joseph Donovan (354) and Cheyenne Tucker (only 3!) from “Prelude and Promises”

            Erin Thomas (652) and Remington Matthews (1 or fewer!) from “Snowflakes and

Kisses” (upcoming release Oct2021)

It’s no wonder many books have a disclaimer at the front stating that characters and places are fictitious and not related to persons past or present.

To find out more about others with my name, I googled myself. I found an actress, realtor, VP of Marketing and an artist to name a few. I was WAY down on the list, but when I put in “Barbara Baldwin author” I was number 2 on the Google search. Not bad! Just so you know if you Google yourself, there are also obituaries!

The U.S. Census Bureau statistics tell us that there are at least 151,671 different last names and 5,163 different first names in common use in the United States, although some names are more common than others. No matter how you do the math, you’re probably not going to get by without someone else having your name.

Barb Baldwin

http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

https://bookswelove.net/baldwin-barbara/

 

           

 

 

 

            Have you ever tried to capture a childhood memory -- that illusive remnant of an adventure softened by the shadows of time? As adults, we might wonder if those events really happened, or if they are only figments of our imagination.  We might laugh now at our naiveté, but at the time, those painted carousel horses were very much alive, the pirate ship held tons of gold, and the cowboys always won.        

            For me, there was a candy dish; but not your ordinary candy dish of course…

 

            "Are we there yet?"

The road was bumpy, and Dad swerved to miss a snake slithering across the gravel.  It was hot, but July is always hot in Iowa, and back in 1956, air conditioning wasn't included on the sticker price of our Chevy station wagon.  It didn't bother me, though, because I was seven years old.  I was tough, and not about to let hot weather stop me from enjoying the drive that would take me to my adventure.

            Bugs splattered against the windshield, and a big grasshopper ricocheted off the rear view mirror to land on the back seat.  Dad said to get it out of the car, but one look at those beady eyes convinced me it wouldn't hurt if the grasshopper went with us. 

            Dad was taking me to my Aunt Bea's -- a farm with horses and other animals and homemade cookies and my cousin Craig.  We would take baths in a galvanized tub hardly big enough to sit in; we had to hand-pump water into the kitchen sink.  We played from sun-up until Aunt Bea rang the huge dinner bell, then after meals we played some more.

            At that time, there were no convenience stores on the corners, no public swimming pools and skating rinks or shopping at the mall every afternoon.  There were no computers, video games or cell phones; no colored TV in every room or central air conditioning. 

             Instead, we had acres and acres of green grass and blue sky in which to play; square hay bales to hide behind when playing cowboys; a big house with a huge porch and cookies hot from the oven.  Our imaginations never limited the source of our adventures, and we didn't need a lot of toys to occupy our time.  Unless, of course, you counted the dollar's worth of plastic cowboys we bought at the local Five & Dime. 

            Aunt Bea had a big old farmhouse -- far too large for just the three of them, so the front rooms had been closed off by a set of pocket doors.  White slipcovers blanketed the furniture and the draperies were always closed. Voices echoed eerily off the chill walls and hardwood floors should anyone happen to step into what looked like a mausoleum.    

            It was as though an entirely different family lived there, but they were never home.  Even so, you had to walk past the connecting doors quietly, for it wouldn't be polite to disturb them. 

            "Don't say a word," my cousin would whisper, a finger to his lips.  Of course, I believed him -- he was older than me and he lived there all the time.

            It was more fun living in the back of the house, anyway, because there were two kitchens.  In one, Aunt Bea put up summer vegetables from the garden.  There were big wooden worktables, the pump to get water into the sink, and a big, pot-bellied stove. 

            Aunt Bea made cookies in the other kitchen.  It was by the living room, where Uncle Clair watched black & white TV and an old sidesaddle hung on the wall.  My cousin and I would lie on the hardwood floor and play with little cars that went in a metal garage and rolled down the ramp to the car wash.

            Every day we played cowboys, hiding behind hay bales and shooting at each other with plastic handled pistols.  We'd take turns being the cowboys and bad guys because it was only fun when there was someone to shoot at.  After all, with just two of us, it would be too easy to steal horses from imaginary outlaws.  Even so, it was easy to get bored.  So we would hide out and try to decide what to do next.

            We could go get something to eat or drink.  It was hot and we played hard.  Of course, we couldn't just walk in and ask -- that would have been too simple -- so we decided to sneak in through the front of the house.

            The old weathered boards of the porch creaked beneath our bare feet.  The screen door swayed on rusty hinges and created eerie noises that belonged to the inky night, not to broad daylight.  I giggled and my cousin shushed me -- we couldn't dare be caught.  We silently crept closer to the door, keeping low beneath the windows.  Craig turned the handle -- a soft click and the door squeaked open, inch by noisy inch.  I held my breath, sure that any second we would be discovered.  Craig pushed on the big wooden door -- I grabbed his arm and hung on.  After all, he was bigger than me and much, much braver.

            Shadows loomed gigantic across the wood floors.  Shrouded furniture turned to ghostly shapes before our eyes and towered larger than any monster either of us had ever seen.

            "Let's go," I whimpered, ready to forget the entire escapade.

            "We can't," Craig jerked me to a stop and pointed. 

            There, like a glittering crystal crown, a candy dish perched on top of the dark wood coffee table.  We stood in silent awe as it beckoned us.  Sunshine filtered through a gap in the draperies to form a spotlight, causing the crystal to wink knowingly at us.  Dust motes floated down the sunbeams and danced around the crystal, paying homage.

            We crept on hands and knees now, our eyes wide and our hearts pounding.  Any minute unbidden creatures would jump up and screech at us from behind the white sheets.  Beasts from beneath the couch would snatch our legs and drag us, screaming and fighting, beneath the draped edge, never to be heard from again. 

            Regardless of the danger, we slithered closer, for the candy dish proved a stronger lure than the threat of unseen monsters.

            Even as our grubby hands touched the sparkling cut glass, we cast furtive glances over our shoulders toward the doors that separated this section from the real house.  Craig whispered to be careful, for we not only had to remove the lid without letting it click against the side, but we must put it back so no one would know we had been there. 

            Our adventure became more difficult the minute Craig lifted the lid.  It had a fluted edge, and if the little curves didn't fit together just right, it would fall off to the side and break.  Not to mention making an incredible noise. 

            I could hear Aunt Bea moving around in the kitchen on the other side of the pocket doors.  The dog barked outside, and a horse neighed in the distance.  My heart beat louder than any ordinary noise, and I knew for sure she could hear us.  I held my breath as I reached into the bowl.  My hand closed around the prize -- sweet, hard bits of sugar.  As quietly as we had come, we left, pulling the door softly closed behind us.

            Those few seconds were as long as we could remain quiet.  With whoops of laughter, we jumped off the porch and raced for the hay bales, falling down to the ground only after we were safely out of sight and no one the wiser.  We laughed as we ate the spoils of our adventure, arguing already over who would lead the secret raid tomorrow.

            We never questioned the reason for a candy dish in a room no one ever entered.  After a week of raids on the ghostly haunt, we never once thought it unusual that the candy dish, sitting alone in a room never used, was always full.  After all, it was summer on the farm, and at seven years of age, it's easy to believe in magic.

***

If you like short stories for a change of pace, I invite you to grab a copy of “Before Tomorrow Comes” -- Can five women with tender hearts find the love they deserve before their secrets and pasts are exposed? This, and all my romance novels are available at your favorite online bookstore.

Here’s hoping your memories are magic.

 

Barb Baldwin

http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

 

Legacies

 As defined in the dictionary, a legacy is a gift, by will, especially of money or other personal property; something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past.

I’m not sure that today’s generation feels the same way about legacies as those of generations past. Our lives today seem more filled with disposable things and things not meant to last. As I look around my house, it’s certainly not filled with antique furniture from my grandparents or pictures that once hung in the parlor. I do have a small packet of letters that my dad wrote my mom back in 1946 when he left for Germany a month after they were married. When my parents died, they left the grandkids money, which according to definition is a legacy, but it’s not the same as something lasting such as jewelry, a pocketknife or other small memento from a life well lived.

Our history is also being lost because of technology. We don’t write letters; we send emails which are read then deleted to make room for more. We don’t have to write diaries or journals for those who come later to know our history. Everything you ever wanted to know is posted on multiple sites on the internet. While information is readily available, it has lost the personal element of the writer who took the journey. If you are one of the few who journal, you have a legacy for your children and grandchildren. You don’t have to have done something incredible like bicycle across the country or climb the highest mountain and then write about it to leave a legacy.

While the definition I found tends to make one think of physical objects, a legacy can certainly be intangible. I was brought up in a strict household where you said “yes, sir” and were expected to do your best – in school or at a job. I tried to instill those same attributes in my children. I can remember once when my high school daughter not so jokingly said “damn your work ethic” because her friends were playing hokey from work and she couldn’t make herself call in sick to her work place.

My love of writing a good story is another legacy I hope to pass down, although it has apparently skipped my children and gone directly to my grandchildren. At age “almost 13”, my granddaughter has been writing stories for several years, some with quite involved characters and plot lines. My 10 year old grandson prefers his stories full of monsters and explosive action, accompanied with original drawings of said exploding universes. That same grandson has my father’s surname as his middle name…another legacy from the past.

Do you have legacies – things passed down to you? Are they from more than one generation in the past? More important, do you know the stories behind them?

Writing “Her Scottish Legacy” led to quite a bit of mystery in the process of Heather and Hunter discovering her legacy, left undetected for over twenty-five years. Available as an ebook at any of your favorite online retailers https://books2read.com/Her-Scottish-Legacy and in print through Amazon. Her Scottish Legacy: Baldwin, Barbara: 9780228616153: AmazonSmile: Books  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did while writing-- especially all the Scottish history and learning about the textile industry of the time.

Wishing you a creative and healthy New Year,

Barb Baldwin

http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

https://bookswelove.net/baldwin-barbara/

 

 

 

 

Antiques and Auctions

 Every September I like to remember the Steamboat Arabia, which sank in the Missouri River near Kansas City in September of 1856. Because the river changed course over the next hundred or more years, it was discovered in a cornfield in 1988, and a wonderful museum was opened for the preserved artifacts in 1991. I have visited the museum every time I am in Kansas City, and as I walked through the exhibits my imagination soared. What was life like back in that time? This was the premise for "Hold On To the Past", a romantic time travel I wrote about being on board the Steamboat Arabia during its last fateful voyage.

Of course, the cargo on board now falls under the definition of antiques, which got me thinking about other ways we salvage the past through auctions and antique malls.

Years ago, I went to an auction with my sister. I have to preface this by saying I'm afraid of going to auctions. You see, I talk with my hands (not sign language; just gesturing) and waving your hands around at an auction can get you in trouble. Plus I never understand exactly what the auctioneer is saying and worry that if I bid and think it's for 50 cents, it might actually be for 50 dollars. So while I go, it is with hands tucked under my arms or in pockets, and I have my sister bid for me.

The best auctions are estate auctions, as I am always on the lookout for old things. I don’t collect antique furniture, china or Depression glass. I hunt for diaries, journals, old ledgers –written glimpses into the past. At this particular auction, I found baggies of old letters, written by a young man stationed in Europe during WWI. In addition, there was a small book with rules for enlisted men upon discharge. THIS is the world of antiques that interests me.

The downside was that I only had letters he had sent home to his family. I didn’t have the letters from Iowa that were sent to him. Even so, I came to know this man and some of his family. For one example, he did not particularly like the young man his sister was spending time with. His life, and who knows how many stories, lie within the words he penned over one hundred years ago.

At another auction the same sister bid on and won a quilt top. When she spread it out at home and we took a closer look, we found it had been hand stitched, not machine sewn. At that time quilting was my sister’s thing, not mine, but then she said “I wonder who made this quilt and why. I wonder where they lived and how they managed.”

As a writer, that was something I could get my teeth into. Her simple statements led me to write a story I called “The Christmas Quilt” about a quilt, made for a daughter having a child at Christmas, and how that quilt was handed down through the generations.

Auctions are good for the creative process in different ways. Studying the items for sale can give you a sense of life as it was played out for a family in a particular community. (Realizing that a rural community will possibly sell farm implements right along with the family dishware.) It can give you a feel for the value people placed on particular items.

And more than even the items up for auction, the participants at these festivities can provide you with a wealth of background and characterization. Everything from facial expressions to stances can give away a person’s interest in an item being auctioned. If you watch, you’ll soon discover who is a frequent participant and buyer; who knows who and who knew the deceased owner of what is being auctioned.  Even more important, if you’re the auctioneer (or a writer looking for inside information), see if you can discover a bidder’s “tell.”

I went to a cattle auction once with my dad and throughout the entire affair, the auctioneers and helpers kept pointing and saying “yep”, “yep” but I never saw anyone raise a hand or their bid number. I particularly studied my dad, who was in the market for calves, but he sat there with his arms crossed over his ample stomach and never said a word. When I whispered my question, he said simply, “watch.” And then I saw it – the slight lift of a finger; a simple wink; the touch of a hat brim. It was a small town weekly auction, and I daresay the participants knew each other as well as their “tells”, but it was a game everyone participated in.

Many times instead of an auction, the remains of a family estate find their way to antique stores. Antiques by definition are items 100 years old or more, and too often their stories are lost through time. People live through tough times and must sell family possessions to have money for food. The very last great-grandchild of a family rooted in the community for hundreds of years dies, leaving no one to inherit the curio cabinet or the jelly glasses much less to pass down the stories behind such items.

Almost every town has an antique store or perhaps a mall, where several vendors have booths. While I enjoy looking at various items, I am dismayed to see things that I had as a child are now in antique displays! According to definition, I am not yet an antique. I prefer to consider myself a collectible, or perhaps like a fine wine – I am vintage. 

Barb Baldwin

http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

https://bookswelove.net/baldwin-barbara/