Happy Thanksgiving

What I'm thankful for:

1. My family's love and support, as always. Especially during the past two years which have been ones of upheaval for me.

2. That I'm still employed and that my employer lets me work at home for most of the week. Saves the wear and tear on the car and my health.

3. That I've been able to stay healthy and so has my family.

4. My circle of friends located here in California, who came to help me move on New Years Day rather than relax and watch football on TV. One friend in particular, Sheri Ann, flew all the way down from the Bay Area to help me move.

5. That I've had the opportunity to write about my grandfather and his career in pulp fiction. Through that, I've found my own voice and have also been introduced to a whole new circle of friends.

6. That I was smart enough to make the leap and go to PulpFest this year. Not only did I have a great time, I met some of the most wonderful people, including those of you who read and comment on my blog. I consider you all like family now and I hope that continues.

7. My best friend Kris, who has been there for me for over 20 years now. She always has a willingness to listen and is always supportive, no matter how off the wall I've become. And her daughter Sara, who is my goddaugther, who has turned into a beautiful young woman. Both of these women continually to show me on a daily basis what friendship and unconditional love is all about.

8. The new friends I've made this year, including my circle of "Dodger friends." Together we've had some unforgettable times at games, but I consider them friends for all seasons, not just baseball.

9. My friends on the Internet, some of which have become very close. Regardless of where they live, and that we've only talked on line, they're still very important to me. One friend in particular has allowed me to travel down a road which I haven't navigated in a long time, and for that I'm grateful.

10. Those who come and read my blog and comment. You've made my blogging experience a true joy and have given me the confidence to keep going and explore new topics. I couldn't have done that without your comments.

So I guess it is all about the people who come in and out of your life, huh? So everyone enjoy your day with the people you love, and thanks again for stopping by.

Five Favorites from 2009 (and a couple more)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

I'm following pattinase's suggestion and listing some of my favorites from 2009. And while Patti stuck to film, TV and dvd, I think I'm going to modify it a bit.

I think you all will see a pattern here, which is that most of my favorites have been around a while - there's nothing new on this list except for one or two. That's because I'm stubborn and tend to stick to what I know.

Favorite TV show: Family Guy. I admit with more than a little embarrassment that I've never been a regular Simpsons watcher. Just have never gotten in the habit of watching it, and I'm not one who necessarily gravitates to animated shows. I don't care for South Park; I just don't get the humor of shock and revulsion.

So I missed the first four years of Family Guy. Then a friend turned me on to it this year. Once my head stopped spinning, I was hooked. The show is irreverent without being distasteful; well, sometimes it is distasteful but somehow they pull it off. It's the one and only show on television right now that can make me laugh out loud nonstop for a half hour.

Favorite book: Sons of Texas by Elmer Kelton. What a fantastic story and so well told. Michael Lewis' journey into Texas kept me riveted and incapable of doing anything else until I had finished it.



Favorite book I reviewed: The Tarnished Star by Jack Martin. Best discovery of the year. Great story and stunning writing.


Favorite Internet site: This is a no-brainer. Facebook. Another phenomenon I resisted for God knows how long. Now I have reconnected with people I lost touch with 30 years ago, schoolmates, friends that normally I wouldn't get to see other than every few years, and family. And have made a lot of new friends. Yes, there are negative aspects of Facebook: most notably privacy issues, the creepiness of Facebook stalkers and the risk of hackers. But I find the benefits far outweigh the risks.

Favorite blog (other than my own): This will be a surprise to some people, who think I'd pick something pulp or Western-related. But my favorite blog is currently my new best friend Melissa Marsh's blog, Writing with Style: One Dame's Thoughts on the Writing Life. Melissa combines so many things that I love and I feel are very important to feeding my feminine soul: writing, history, needlework, and vintage collecting. So many girly things, so little time.

Honorable mention: Davy Crockett's Almanac. Dave combines so many things that I love: pulp, Western, vintage radio, and sometimes things that really surprise me. Plus he's just an all around great guy and fellow writer who appreciates those who read and comment on his blog.

And a couple more:

Favorite subject I've blogged on: No surprise here. The Movies of the Santa Clarita Valley series. It's gotten me interested in writing again. What could be more rewarding?


Favorite local haunt: It's a toss-up between the Long Beach Dog Beach and Dodger Stadium. The Dog Beach for the friendly atmosphere - you can't go away from the place without talking to at least one stranger. Dodger Stadium is a gorgeous place and the favorite hangout for a lot of people. Despite the wretched ending to the season, it was a pretty terrific year.



That's it for me. Your turn!

Thanksgiving Means Turkey on Pulp

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I know it's early but I figured that most people will be on the road or in the kitchen Thursday morning. I'm supposed to go to a friend's, but it depends on how bad this head cold gets by Thursday morning.

To commemorate the day, here are four pulp covers that feature Thanksgiving themes - which, in most cases means a freshly killed turkey and in a couple of cases, buzzards. Finding these was hard going - I even went into the Fiction Mags Index and started to hunt around. But I don't have an extra 20 years to go through the entire index looking for November issues so these will have to do for now. To compensate, there's a funny photo at the end of a model that you will all recognize if you read my post from yesterday.

So have a good one, everyone. Enjoy your friends and family and drive carefully.

The Story With No Name, Part 17

It's Wednesday (or at least close to it here on the Pacific Coast) and that means The Story With No Name is on. Part 17 is by Peter Averillo and is featured on Open Range. If you missed any or all of the first 16 parts, they are now all combined on one blog now, The Culbin Trail.

Now this story is not going to go on forever. There will be an end to it, and it's coming sooner rather than later. So if you want to get caught up in all the action, better to do it before it rides off into the sunset.

My Favorite 60s TV Show: That Girl

This essay is part of a series that ran yesterday on several blogs called My Favorite TV Show. Mine is late. If you want to check out the other contributions, go to pattinase.


In January of 1969 my stepfather moved us from Germany back to California. He had been an executive for an airline, but had quit to be a carpenter. I guess he wanted to get back to nature or his roots. That's the only thing I can come up with to reason why he decided on such a drastic change.

We ended up in the Sierra Nevada in a little town called Dorrington, way up Highway 4 and about an hour from Angels Camp. There was the historic Dorrington Hotel, a motel across the way, and a small grocery store next to the hotel. That was it. And tons and tons of snow. That winter, in fact, would break records for snowfall.

It was a shock for me and my sister, going from living fairly well on my stepfather's salary and being the center of attention in foreign lands, (we were "the American girls" who lived in the downstairs apartment) to living in a place that might have been on another planet. We went from being distinct and financially well-off to being no more special than any of the other kids and, worse, rather poor. Hal didn't get work right away, and so my mother went to work as a secretary. She had always worked as a secretary; it was the only job she had known and the only thing that I figured I'd be doing after I got out of school. College? That was for really smart, really rich kids.

The one consolation was that when we moved into the cabin on Ben Thorne Drive, that the television became my and my sister's property. Hal hated television and didn't want anything to do with it. And so the big console, probably manufactured in 1960, ended up in our bedroom.

So I settled in to watch the television for the winter. One night, a perky brunette with a hat with ribbons waltzed onto the screen. She was very pretty with the blackest hair and the thickest eyelashes and the biggest black eyes I'd ever seen. She was living in the big city, in New York. She was on her own and on her way to being an actress or a model. She had her own place. She strode through the streets of New York as if she owned the place and she knew how to fly a kite. And she had a boyfriend. She was That Girl.


She was everything I wasn't. She was gorgeous and I was a twelve year old with an overbite with, judging from my parent's financial situation, no chance in hell of ever getting braces. I already had acne spreading across my face and wore glasses with thick brown frames. Ann Marie, played by Marlo Thomas, was ditzy and talkative and kind of flied through life with a childlike wonder and enthusiasm that never wavered. I was quiet and withdrawn, shell shocked after being moved all over the European continent - four different schools in one year - and beginning to realize that my stepfather had a serious and sometimes treacherous drinking problem.

But it wasn't as if I watched Ann Marie, as she went through her mad cap life with her long suffering boyfriend Donald(comedic genius Ted Bessell), with jealousy. In fact, she opened up another life full of possibilities for me. A possibility that once I was out of school, I could go out on my own. Up to that point, I only had my two older sisters as role models, and both of them had married almost immediately after graduating from high school. Ann Marie was following her dream. I could do that - I could move to the big city and get my own apartment. And I could be anything I wanted to be.

Ann Marie navigated the big city with ease, her mini-skirts short enough to be sexy but not enough to shock middle America. She got into situations, yes, but always managed to get out of them (albeit not without the help of her Donald, who always seemed on the verge of having a nervous breakdown). She made friends in the city, learned several skills, and never, never forgot to smile. She was doing it, and though externally,she was a ditz, she really did have some brains. Even at twelve, I knew I was smart. If she could make it, I certainly could. I began to make my plans.

Now, looking back on the show, I imagine I'd probably shudder at Marlo Thomas's somewhat still very conventional role. The show premiered in 1965, and the woman's liberation movement was in its infancy. Yes, she was pretty, but she was so naive and a little goofy and still relied on Donald to get her out of scrapes, so she wasn't threatening to male watchers. Yes, she was out on her own, but she was still trying to do what pretty (translation: dumb) women were supposed to do: act and model. (I guess if she was trying to be a lawyer or doctor or even a banker it wouldn't make good television.) She wasn't married, but it was pretty much a given that at some point Donald would get some cojones and pick up Ann Marie, kicking and screaming in that squeaky voice, and carry her off to the altar. As for premarital sex, are you kidding me?

But still, That Girl showed me that women can go out on their own and be something other than secretaries or file clerks. They could navigate the urban jungle, make friends, and didn't have to be married in order to feel that their lives were whole. Mostly, seeing her cheery smile and sunny disposition was a haven for me, a twelve year old girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Marlo Thomas got me through that winter and her reruns got me through several summers. Later she married Phil Donahue and supported various causes and much, much later, she played Rachel's mother on Friends, still looking great and managing to get some pretty sweet gigs on television. Looking back on it now, you could say that Marlo showed us how it could be done even after her big role in show business was long gone and she was old enough to be a grandmother. We could do it all and still stay feminine even when society thought we were past our prime - and even have some fun in the process.