Late last night I was snooping around YouTube and found a few book reviews for a couple of my books and was surprised to find this video created by Charles Harvell. He and his wife used my "Hiking Waterfalls Alabama" guide to visit one of my favorites in north Alabama, Bethel Springs. Nice video and so glad Charles and Gabby enjoyed the hike and found the guide useful. Copies are available at your favorite local book store or online.
I recently completed my cozy mystery set in a 1943 radio station, “Dead Air.” In the book, the station’s main actress, a seductive temptress named Samantha Starr, is murdered. I relied heavily of research dealing with life on the home front during World War II and the fashion of the day but there was a fact that I did not know that friend, author, poet, songwriter Mike Turner sent to me – how red lipstick became a symbol of patriotism during the war.
Red lipstick was considered blasphemy when the United States was born. Preachers of the 1700s called the makeup frivolous and it made American women look Oriental.
The first use of red lipstick to make a protest statement came in the early 1900s when cosmetic manufacturer Elizabeth Arden, who was a staunch supporter of the suffragette movement, handed out tubes of her red lipstick to marchers and protestors who were demanding the right to vote. The lipstick would show solidarity between the marchers.
Suddenly, World War II propaganda posters began springing up across the country featuring women like Rosie the Riveter wearing red lipstick. Red shades with patriotic names such as Victory Red, Tussy’s Fighting Red, and Regimental Red appeared in stores and the women of America loved it. In fact, the government would not allow rationing of the ingredients to make the cosmetic because women needed to “maintain their femininity while working in factories and on the front lines of the war effort.”
An interesting and forgotten fact from American history. Thanks for sharing, Mike Turner!
One of the toughest chapters to write, and read, in my book, “Space Oddities”, tells the story of using animals to study spaceflight technologies. There was a few happy stories as well including the story of Pushinka, the Russian space dog. Adding to the story is this clipping from the New York Times from this date in 1963.
As the story goes, in early 1963, President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev were having a heated discussion on some issue. To ease the tension, First Lady Jacqueline walks into the room and starts talking to the Premier. She asks how the Russian space dog Strelka was doing after her flight. Khruschev told her she’s doing fine and recently had a liter of puppies. Jackie got excited and asked that he send the Kennedy’s one of the puppies. A few weeks later, a fluffy white dog named Pushinka (literally translated means “fluffy”) arrives at the White House.
The Kennedy kids loved the dog, even teaching it how to climb up the ladder of a slide and slide down.
Well, Pushinka had a one-night-stand with the Kennedy’s other dog, Charley, and had a liter of puppies herself. The press called them “Pupniks” and on this day 61 years ago, the White House mail room and switchboard was inundated with phone calls. People wanted to adopt one of the space pups.
This Saturday, July 20th, is the 55th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. In commemoration, a brand new episode of the companion podcast to my book, Everyone’s Gone to the Moon: July 1969, Life on Earth, and the Epic Voyage of Apollo 11, has just posted! The bonus episode takes a look at some of the television coverage of that historic event on July 20, 1969.
You can listen to the episode on my website by following this link or clicking the image below.
Sunday July 20th is the 55th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon and in honor of the event, I will be releasing a bonus episode of the Everyone's Gone to the Moon podcast. The podcast is a companion series to my book of the same name that tells little known stories of the flight of Apollo 11, but also the forgotten stories and pop-culture events of that historic month, July 1969.
Details coming next week!
According to Walmart and Hobby Lobby, we have skipped summer and are already into fall so it's not too early to mark your calendar for a big literary event coming this fall: Oakleigh Mansion's Literary Lawn Party, Saturday October 12th from 11 to 4pm. 40 local and regional authors will be there signing and discussing there books and I will be one of them!
More details to come but for now, here is a writeup on the event that appeared in Well Read Magazine.
