Whimsical Wanderings

This edition of Whimsical Wanderings is free to everyone. If you appreciate this work, please consider becoming a paying subscriber. Poor Fred Merkle. He was a 19-year-old first baseman for the New York Giants back in 1908, and will always be associated with what is known as “Merkle’s Boner.” That may be the second-worst injustice in Major League Baseball history, the first being the color barrier that lasted until Jackie Robinson.

I have been informed that two items of newsletter content seem to get the most interest from readers, namely, cat pictures and recipes. Seeking always to bring pleasure and satisfaction to you, my loyal subscribers, I now take the bull by the horns (note: I have not seen any evidence that pictures of bulls bring much return, but I did not invent the phrase, and who would take a bull by the horns anyway, except perhaps Ernest Hemingway? But I digress) and make my humble contributions.

Today I’d like to wander a bit from my usual whimsy, to give you a peek into my writer’s mind on a couple of issues that recur regularly in discussions about fiction in general and thrillers in particular—sex and cursing. Often I will hear a young writer say something like, “I’m writing about reality. How can you be real without actual sex, or the way people actually talk?” Here’s what I actually tell them.

And my polyester confession Helen Wilson Wantz died at the age of 104. She was born, lived, married, had children, and died in Orchard, Nebraska, which certainly merits consideration for the Dorothy Award from The Wizard of Oz. “There’s no place like home” is the lesson learned, which in mythic structure is called The Return With the Elixir, where the hero returns from the Dark World carrying something that will be a value to the community.

Here’s a news item that deserves to lead off this issue of Whiz Bang. Last month, the Irvine Police Department arrested a man on suspicion of grand theft.

Do love and marriage still go together like a horse and carriage? Notes from Solomon's 700th wife. And I pound D. H. Lawrence Random word: Date You can eat a date or go out on a date (Hannibal Lecter did both at the same time). You can also date yourself by the way you talk about dating. When I was in high school you needed to have access to a car to truly go out on a date. You would call a girl on a rotary telephone or talk to her at lunchtime, and ask her out, usually to a movie.

James Rall died. For thirty years he was a bartender in Avalon, the tourist town on lovely Santa Catalina Island, thirty miles off the shores of Long Beach, California. When you take a boat over you may be escorted by a pod of dolphins, or some flying fish. I’ve experienced both on my excursions to Catalina.

Random word: Heady That’s a word with multiple meanings. Heady can mean willful or rash. Also violent or impetuous. It can indicate intoxication or giddiness, which you get by imbibing a “heady brew.” It can also mean intelligence in action, as in, “He’s a heady ballplayer, boy.” However, if you’re heady with booze, you can’t be heady on the ball field. Or can you? Babe Ruth loved his beer (and hot dogs). Mickey Mantle, the great Yankee slugger, was an alcoholic.

Whimsical Wanderings is a reader-supported publication. To receive all new posts, gain access to the archives and conversations, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. JoLinn Douglass died at age 77. Her obit describes her as mother, friend, Texan, sister, and teacher. In all of these things, she was guided by her kindness and a sense of duty to bring that kindness to the world through her often selfless actions.

I was watching a news program the other day (please don’t ask me why, I have no rational answer, except to say that I was on YouTube watching a Laurel & Hardy clip—which is very rational indeed these days, for to keep sane we must find places to laugh, and those two wonderful clowns keep me in stitches—and was algorithmically enticed by YouTube to click on said news program) where the host had three guests and talked to them about a current and controversial subject (is there nothing that...