A Must See in Seattle

 

Good morning, all! I finally got my eyes open after the whirlwind trip to Seattle. Yes, I was "Sleepless in Seattle." There. Got the joke in there. I was there for the annual Yuri's Day celebration at the Museum of Flight for the Space Oddities book signing and lecture. I've been to many fascinating museums and this one is at the top of my list now. Here are a few photos from the museum. If you are ever in Seattle, I highly recommend strolling through the acres of exhibits. You won't be disappointed.

In the original Boeing factory building from the early 1900s, the original machinery used to make          aircraft still works.

An early mail plane.

  A stealth SR-71 Blackbird.

 

                                                                          

A flight simulator that does barrel rolls. I did NOT take it for a spin.

An Apollo test capsule # 007.

A good looking mock up of the Apollo lunar module.

     A little perspective on just how big the Apollo Saturn V engines were.     

 

A flight battered Russian Vostok capsule.

Not a bad backdrop: Mount Rainier.

Book Presentation/Signing Alert

I hope you will join me for a discussion of Mobile Alabama history May 16th at 10:30am at the beautiful Bellingrath Gardens in - where else? - Mobile. It all begins with a presentation on my books, Hidden History of Mobile, A History Lover's Guide to Mobile and the Alabama Gulf Coast, and Baseball in Mobile. The lecture is free with admission to gardens and they will be absolutely incredible this time of year. See you there!

 

Biggest Signing Yet

 

I can't thank Ashley Mead and the staff at the Seattle Museum of Flight for the incredible hospitality they showed me during my visit and presentation at Yuri's Day. It was an incredible day with a great and receptive crowd for the presentation. I even got to meet and chat with one of the four crew members who made up the first all civilian crewed flight into space, Chris Sembroski, who gave a very powerful and inspiring presentation about his time in space. Here are a couple photos from the presentation. I'll have more about the amazing museum soon.

And a couple of astronaut Chris Sembroski:

Updates

I have a couple reminders for you today. First, for all of you out on the West Coast, this Saturday I will doing a lecture and book signing for Space Oddities: Forgotten Stories of Mankind's Exploration of Space at the Seattle Museum of Flight. The schedule is:

3:00pm - Space Oddities Lecture followed by Q&A session

4:00pm - Book signing in the gift shop

6:30pm to 7:00pm - A Meet-and-Greet at the annual Yuri's Night party

Oh, and here is a sample of what the museum is all about after the daytime events with Yuri's Night:

And just in, something a little closer to home. I'll be doing a lecture and signing of my Mobile history books, Baseball in Mobile, A History Lover's Guide to Mobile and the Alabama Gulf Coast, and Hidden History of Mobile Thursday May 16th at Bellingrath Gardens in Mobile. The lecture / signing is free with paid admission to the gardens that you really need to go see especially this time of year. The time of the lecture will be announced shortly.

 

I Should Be Dancin'...Not!

And the clock has started (as they say at NASA.) 10 days until it's "HELLO, SEATTLE!" and the big Yuri's Day celebration at the Seattle Museum of The Museum of Flight. I can't wait to meet all of my west coast friends during the Space Oddities presentation and book signing. The museum is also hosting an incredible music and dance experience that day for the deaf and hard of hearing called DanceABLE. Just don't ask me to dance! I've only danced twice in my life, once at my senior prom (I "think" it was dancing. Could have been just walking around) and during the LitCon event for authors in Mobile a few months ago. We were all asked to "bust a move" for a 360 video and as you can see in the accompanying video, that didn't go well. Tragic. LOL!

Cozying Up with a Mystery

Congratulations to all who put on the Mobile Literary Festival (MLF) this past weekend. It was another huge success. I arrived a bit late but the presentations that I did see were great and so informative. I have written 18 (going on 19) books now and I always need a little push to get motivated again. MLF is what I needed.

Eons ago I wrote a murder mystery and didn’t do much with it. I thought I might resurrect it and start re-editing it for possible submission to publishers but first, I wanted to see if anyone thought it was a good idea. I sent an “elevator pitch” to MLF’s Pitch War and was shocked with the glowing review the crowd and agent gave it! It was that spark that had me dusting off the old manuscript this morning to give it a look over. Here is the pitch I submitted that received high praise. What do you think? Would you read that book? (I’m opening myself up here for disaster, LOL!):

"Staffers at a wartime radio station in a bustling Southern port city watch with horror as the body of their dear friend, radio actress Samantha Starr, is wheeled down a hallway. Her arm, now pale white, dangles from the blanket covering her body; the only color is her highly polished Chen Yu Opium Dream nail polish. Her husband is accused of her murder, but the station’s foley artist, Art Foley (he will tell you the name is just a coincidence), believes an innocent man is being hung out to dry-- perhaps literally--and he sets out to prove his innocence."

The Local Gang Series

 

We all love the old Our Gang and Little Rascals shorts, right? Well, did you know that there was another series of Our Gang-like movies called, “The Local Gang”? I’m researching and writing this story for my latest book (to be released early next year), “The Pig War and Pelican Girls: 21 Extraordinary Stories from Forgotten American History.” 

The films were produced by itinerant filmmakers beginning generally around 1915 who would travel from town to town across the country to make the same film over and over again, perhaps hundreds of times, using the kids from the town they were visiting as the cast. One of the most famous of these filmmakers was Melton Barker who made the same movie, “The Kidnapper’s Foil”, countless times between 1930 and the early 1970s. Barker would come to town, hold an audition (there would be a small fee charged for the honor), a few of the kids would be selected for lead roles while the rest would be extras…HUNDREDS of extras. 

For Barker’s film, the plot was that a girl, Bette Davis (not THE Betty Davis), is kidnapped. The gang saves her and is given a reward. What do they do with the money? As with any Little Rascals shorts, they put on a show, of course. It wasn’t a scam. Barker really made the films which would be crudely edited and then shown prior to the main feature film at the town’s theater for a limited time. Many of the films have been lost to history, but some still exist. Here is a short example of one of the many versions of “The Kidnapper’s Foil.”  Warning: The film is awful, but it's history.