Tag Archives: rural life

Isabel Long Mystery Series

Writing about Strong Women

When I decided to write a mystery series, I wanted to create strong female characters. They wouldn’t be damsels in distress but women who knew what they wanted and went after it. 

Topping the list, of course, is Isabel Long, the protagonist of the series, which began with Chasing the Case. The next two are Redneck’s Revenge and Checking the Traps. All three were re-released Nov. 15 by their new publisher Bloodhound Books. (Note: I am writing no. 8.)

Isabel Long is a former journalist turned amateur sleuth after she lost her job as editor-in-chief of a newspaper. Isabel is smart, sassy and doesn’t take crap from anyone. She’s also a good listener with a big heart, which makes it easy to connect with people, especially since she encounters a rather rough crowd while investigating her cases. A recent widow, Isabel is also done grieving and takes a part-time job at the Rooster, the local watering hole where she develops a relationship with its owner.

Many sleuths have a sidekick. When I chose one for Isabel Long, I went for someone unusual — her 92-year-old mother, Maria Ferreira, who’s come to live with her. A big fan of mysteries, she gives her daughter ideas to ponder and even goes on interviews. Maria is just as excited as Isabel about finding new cases to solve. She says it is boring without one. By the way, my late mother is the inspiration for Maria.

Annette Waters aka the Tough Cookie makes her  first appearance in Redneck’s Revenge when she hires Isabel to investigate the death of her SOB of a father. She runs the garage and junkyard that used to belong to him. She’s a single mother who is raising her son via a regimen of tough love. Annette is a woman who loves a good time with men and doesn’t hesitate to say what’s on her mind, usually with a sense of humor. I so enjoy Annette I carry her through the rest of the series. 

Other women in my mystery series includes Marsha Dunlop, who is Annette’s cousin. Aka the Floozy, she was a suspect in the first case and connected Annette with Isabel in the second. The two cousins are often seen together. Eventually, they buy the Pit Stop, a convenience store in the middle of nowhere. Isabel can count on Marsha for intel on the locals when she stops by the Pit Stop.

Then there is Ruth, Isabel’s daughter, who isn’t happy about her mother’s new career choice as a private investigator. She worries about the danger although it’s interesting she also made sure her mother has business cards. Ruth has a successful career and is the mother of Isabel’s only grandchild. 

Other women in these three books: a police chief, the first woman in her town to serve in that role, and the co-owner of a gas station, who eventually finds her inner strength after being in an abusive relationship.

Once again, here are the links: to Chasing the Case, Redneck’s Revenge and Checking the Traps.

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Isabel Long Mystery Series

Meet the Old Farts

I call them the Old Farts. Actually, that’s what Isabel Long, the protagonist of my mystery series, calls them — with a capital O and a capital F. And they are an amusing source of intel for her.

The Old Farts are a group of six gossipy old men who hang out early mornings in the back of the Conwell General Store. They appear to know everybody’s business for miles around, including Isabel’s.

For that reason, she finds the Old Farts useful when she takes her first case — in Chasing the Case — trying to find out what happened to a woman who went missing 28 years earlier in that town of a thousand people. They know all the players.

That’s true of the next cases she investigates — Redneck’s Revenge and Checking the Traps.

Chasing the Case, Redneck’s Revenge and Checking the Traps, which now have a home with Bloodhound Books, had a Nov. 15 release date on Amazon. Just clink on the titles below and you’re there.

Actually, Isabel takes this relationship one step further and gives the men secret nicknames. Here they are: the Fattest Old Fart, Serious Old Fart, Bald Old Fart, Silent Old Fart, Skinniest Old Fart, and the Old Fart with Glasses. You can guess how she came up with those names.

The Old Farts, of course, don’t know a thing about it. It’s likely the only one they don’t.

And once in a while, there are Visiting Old Farts, but they aren’t regulars.

Isabel started visiting the Old Farts in the back room on a regular basis after she lost her job running a newspaper and decided to be an amateur P.I. She always sits on a bench besides the Fattest Old Fart, who could rightfully be called the Loudest Old Fart, because nobody else does. He always announces her arrival.

The Serious Old Fart always offers Isabel a cup of the store’s crappy coffee along with a joke that the expresso machine is broke — yes, he mispronounces espresso.

The conversation is lively although the Silent Old Fart lives up to his reputation and rarely speaks. (When he does, it’s significant.) They like to tease Isabel about her personal life. But they do give useful tips or at least some history because unlike Isabel, they are all natives of Conwell. They’ve known each other forever. And they have no better way to start the day than to drink coffee, eat a donut, and shoot the shit, so they love it when Isabel shows up and groan when she leaves too early.

Perhaps you have a group of Old Farts who meet in your town. They might meet regularly at a coffee shop or like mine, in the back room of a general store.

So many readers say they get a kick out of the Old Farts. You can meet them in the first three books in the series. Here are the links: Chasing the Case, Redneck’s Revenge and Checking the Traps.

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Hilltown Postcards

Stacking Firewood

The wood stove we bought was our only source of heat in that funky house we rented in Ringville. It wasn’t our first go-round keeping warm this way. We did that when we lived for a year in a cabin in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire.

When we first moved to that part of Worthington, we bought long slabs of hardwood from a lumber yard. As you can see in the photos below, Hank used a chainsaw to cut the slabs into burnable pieces that were then stacked beneath the house’s front overhang. I don’t touch power tools, especially ones with a blade, so I helped with the stacking.

We brought in enough wood to last a few days or longer depending on how cold it was. The warmest part of the house was in the living room, which had the wood stove. The rest of the house, especially the bedrooms, was quite cold with ice on the single-paned windows. I seriously doubt the house’s walls had much if any insulation.

Fortunately, our thoughtful friend, Win Donovan came to our house to keep the fire going when we visited my parents at Christmas, the only time we were away during the winter. Otherwise the water pipes would have burst.

I recall someone saying you should only have burned half of your wood supply by Christmas. I always assessed the amount we had at that time. Fortunately, we never ran out.

As the years went on, we upped the quality of the hardwood we burned. It was necessary to burn seasoned hardwood, that is, logs that have dried at least a year after they were cut. (When we lived in Taos, New Mexico, we burned softwood in our passive-solar home because that was all that was available.)

Seasoned wood costs more than unseasoned. The smart thing would be to buy green wood, and then let it dry for a year. We weren’t able to afford that until we moved into the home we built — stay tuned for future Hilltown Postcards. We burned three cords to heat that house.

Each fall we bought firewood from Dean, who lived in town and cut wood year-round. One year we splurged and bought six cords of dry and green wood. We burned the dry wood and let the green logs be. Next year and from then on, we only needed green wood delivered because we were ahead of the game.

In the fall, the green wood was stacked in long rows for a year. We brought most of the dry wood into the house’s walk-in basement and stacked what couldn’t fit beneath the deck. We had to carry the logs to the wood stove upstairs although we also had one in the cellar for those really cold days. 

Yes, we moved those logs a lot.

The chore of stacking firewood fell to Hank and I although I recall our three sons were helpful. The girls would start and somehow wander off before the job was finished. We worked at it for weekends.

I’ve always liked the puzzle of making a free-standing stack. You need a solid base and crisscrossed squarish logs at the ends to keep the rows in place. I so enjoy that clocking sound of wood falling in place. 

It was satisfying to watch the neat stacks rise, and later in the winter, use the wood to keep us warm.

I was inspired to write this post the other day while stacking firewood that will heat Hank’s workshop in our home. He burns one cord max. A half cord arrived to replenish our supply, thanks to our town’s program that supplies up to a cord of firewood free to residents. (Thank you Buckland and the state Department of Conservation and Recreation.) The logs came from trees felled by the power company. Volunteers helped prep the wood.

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Hilltown Postcards

My Teaching Experience

Suddenly, Hank couldn’t work due to a serious injury that was no fault of his own. That meant, I had to step up to support our family. What I made writing stories for the local newspaper would only fill a bag of groceries. Thank goodness, the certificate I earned 18 years earlier as a college senior meant I could teach in public schools, and it was our good fortune, I was hired to fill in for a teacher on sick leave who decided not to return.

At Gateway Regional Middle School in Huntington, I taught fifth and sixth graders, who needed extra help with reading, and seventh and eighth graders, who needed the same for writing. They came in groups to the oversized room I shared with two other teachers. The students sat at tables on my side. 

It had been many years since I took the courses required for my minor in education or did student teaching. So, I counted on what I had learned from my own inspiring teachers. I was lucky to have had many. Plus, as the mother of six, I was used to kids. Five were now school age, including our oldest daughter in high school. One son was among my reading students.

I wanted to make the time my students spent learning a comfortable experience. For instance, I let them chew gum in my class. I figured it helped them relax. But I had one rule: I couldn’t hear or smell it. They caught on fast.

Several had an I.E.P., that is, an Individualized Education Plan because they had been identified as special needs students. To me, it meant they learned in a different way than the larger pack. Two of my sons had I.E.P.s.

Fortunately, I worked with an aide who was a great teammate. I recall one fifth-grader, who I will call David, liked to stir things up instead of learn. So, my aide and I came up with a plan — she and David would trade places for a class. David would be my aide while the real one acted like him, being a disruptive pain in the you-know-what, even wearing his trademark suspenders. Was our idea a success? I believe so. At the end of the school year, I gave David an award for being one of my most improved students, which he accepted with gusto at a school assembly.

The curriculum was set for the reading students. My aide and I worked closely with them. However, it was up to me to come up with ways to inspire the writing students. So, I gave them writing prompts I felt would motivate them as they wrote on one of the classroom’s early model Apple computers. Here’s one prompt: “I am your worst nightmare” — the line from a Rambo movie. Yes, that was a hit.

In the spring, the school held a short story contest every year for the seventh and eighth graders, so my students worked on their entries during class. The contest was judged by people outside the school. Needless to say, I was thrilled when three of my students’ stories placed.

Meanwhile, Hank was healing from the torn tendons in his shoulder. He did what he was able to keep the home going. Our youngest was only a toddler. The next-to-youngest went half-day to kindergarten. Plus, we had moved Hank’s father, who could no longer live on his own, into a rest home in Northampton. 

We scraped by as best we could. Hank has always been a careful woodworker, but unfortunately someone on the contractor’s crew wasn’t, so he fell through a hole 18 feet onto his shoulder. The contractors declined to give him any money while he was unable to work because he was a subcontractor.

Yes, we contacted a lawyer, but any kind of settlement was at least three years off. Those who were treating Hank’s injuries agreed to wait for the money owed them. His goal was to get better, and he did finally, that summer when he returned to work. By the way, those contractors had the nerve to ask him back.

How did we manage on a starting teacher’s salary? Barely, but then household expenses were rather minimal. TV channels came free through an antenna on the roof. No cell phones or computers. (I wrote my stories for the paper on a funky laptop it supplied and transmitted the copy through the phone line.) No car payments and the vehicles had basic insurance. Water came from a spring in the cellar. We heated with wood. Our rent was $300.

I recall a few days before Christmas finding a box of food and an envelope containing $70 on our doorstep. When we asked around, no one would claim responsibility for this good deed.

My thoughtful mother sent boxes of quality clothes for the kids she found at rummage sales held in her town. She took them shopping at a jeans outlet in Fall River when we visited. One time she mailed me a box of clothing. My mother was a cafeteria worker, so she knew what would be suitable for a teacher to wear. I smile thinking of that.

The end of the school year was approaching. The district was having a tough time financially, so positions were being cut. I found out I wasn’t being hired back when a first-year teacher rushed into my room, saying joyfully her job was saved because “they were letting the reading teacher go.” I recalled saying, “That’s me.” Flustered, she left. Minutes later, the principal came rushing into my room to break the news in a more professional way.

For a while, I contemplated getting my master’s degree, soon to be a new requirement for a permanent teaching license, even taking night courses at a state college. I applied for an open position at Gateway, was a finalist, but didn’t get the job.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the classroom experience, I concentrated instead on finding opportunities in the field of journalism. Later, when I became an editor, then an editor-in-chief, I most often hired rookie reporters. I would tell those who were recent grads: welcome to grad school. Once again, I was a teacher.

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Hilltown Postcards

An Unfortunate Accident

It was supposed to be an ordinary Monday. Hank went to work that summer morning 36 years ago, doing finish carpentry for local contractors building a house in the next town. I stayed home with our six kids. 

But that day Hank got badly hurt because of somebody else’s carelessness. 

Hank and his helper were setting up to work on the house’s third floor, which required moving a pile of wood left on a large sheet of plywood in the room’s center. But when Hank lifted the plywood, he fell through the large hole it was covering. The sheet of plywood should have been nailed, but it wasn’t, so he dropped 18 feet through the hole and managed somehow to land on his shoulder on the first floor. If Hank hadn’t, he would have gone another eight feet or so to the cellar floor. 

Hank got himself out of there and drove to a hospital’s emergency room, where he was told it was probably a bad sprain, and then he went home. I was stunned when I heard what had happened.

But his injury wasn’t a bad sprain, as we found out during a visit a couple of days later to another hospital. The impact had torn muscles in his shoulder. He was in pain. 

It was obvious Hank wouldn’t be able to work for a while, so he reached out to the contractors to see if they could pay him until he was able to work again. But they said no. Hank was a subcontractor and not an employee. He had no benefits.

We were in a fix. Hank did his best to keep our family going with what he earned although we lived modestly, renting a small house in Worthington’s Ringville section. We had an old pickup and a station wagon. Most everything we owned used to belong to somebody else. 

I remember going to the house to help Hank remove his tools. I saw the piece of plywood covering the hole, now nailed in place as it should have been. On the advice of others, we contacted a lawyer, but our case wouldn’t be resolved for years. 

This accident also meant our plans to build our own home on land we bought the previous year would have to wait.

But more importantly, how would we be able to take care of our family. I was working as a correspondent for the local newspaper, getting paid by the story, but that was a pitiful amount of money. I would have to get a real job.

Fortunately, I had listened to my mother and got my teaching certificate, which in those days was permanent, when I went to college. You never know when you might need it, I remember her telling me in what turned out to be prophetic piece of advice. (Thank you, Mom.)

So, I applied to be a substitute teacher at the Gateway Regional School District. Hank would stay home with our youngest child who was not school age, plus the next-to-youngest who went a half day to kindergarten. We would live as simply as possible while he recovered.

Then luck was on our side once again. I had only worked a couple of days as a substitute teacher when I was asked to fill in for a teacher who would be on a six-weeks leave of absence for medical reasons. She taught reading to fifth and sixth graders and writing to seventh and eighth for those students who needed extra help. Later, the teacher decided not to return. 

This turn of events meant a steady income for our family and an experience I treasure still. More to come.

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