rlfj: Blog

I received lots of emails about crab cakes. Since my wife isn’t from Maryland and doesn’t like anything crab related, I can’t make crab cakes at home. Emails about the wonders of crab cakes are cruel and unusual punishment!

Despite Carl’s hatred of publicity, he seems to be becoming more prominent and well known. We’ll have to see how that plays out.

Just a few side notes on this chapter. Not all state colleges are party schools. The University of Maryland – Baltimore County is actually a pretty good school. It’s very good in the engineering and science fields, as is the main campus in College Park. Towson is quite good, as is Morgan State, which used to be the ‘black’ state school. Some of the other state schools are party schools, but you get that everywhere. Catonsville Community College really is known as USC or UCLA to a lot of the locals; a lot of Towson High’s graduates went there.

On a separate note, crab cakes are an excellent way to tell how good a Maryland restaurant is. They need to be fried or broiled, be firm and a little crisp, definitely not soggy, hold together well, and have plenty of Old Bay spice in them. Maybe I’m parochial, but the best are made on the shores of Chesapeake Bay. Yum-yum! The real Marilyn hates them, but I just don’t pay attention to her!

There have been a lot of comments on Marilyn lately. A few readers can’t stand her and a few more love her and want her to do more. As to why she doesn’t do more, let’s face it, she has a pair of 2-year-olds at home and no pressing need to get a job.

Chapter 87 is just absolutely normal stuff going on in people’s lives. Family and friends and kids and dog - normal stuff. Not much else to say. Some people will find it boring, but most of life is. More exciting stuff is in the offing.

Several people wanted me to somehow have Carl stop the Challenger Shuttle disaster. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the idea that Carl can change these events is actually quite naïve. In most cases, the various disasters that occurred were quite well known and predicted at the time. The problem wasn’t in the knowledge of what could happen, but in the administrative response. The engineers knew full well that the Shuttle could blow but were ordered to launch anyway. The bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon was not a surprise; the Marines knew the bad guys were coming for them, but the State Department ordered them to be non-threatening and ignore Marine standard safety precautions. We routinely see these sorts of things happening. If Carl finds a pay phone and calls it in, nobody will believe him or care.

On the other hand, Carl should have foreseen that he couldn’t be anonymous forever. Fame is coming!

Several people wanted to know why the Tusks invited Carl’s parents to the christening. The answer is that in many churches baptisms are not held as separate ceremonies unless specifically requested. Often they are a part of the regular liturgy, though you have to ask the priest or preacher ahead of time so he can prepare. The entire congregation is invited to watch and welcome the new child to the parish. All three of my kids were christened this way, and that was in several different churches. In effect, you simply insert the baptism into the middle of the program, usually before the communion and sermon.

Several people gave me some more charities Carl should donate to or know about. Two of the obvious ones were the USO and the 82nd Airborne’s College Fund. The absolute truth is that I have them already written into future chapters, along with several others.

That brings me to a different topic. Every once in a while I get a note saying, “How could you forget…” and listing something from the time period. There are two answers to that. First, maybe they just weren’t important to Carl and Marilyn at the time. Second, and more likely, I forgot them! That’s the problem with writing historical fiction. Something might be important at the time to the characters, but 28 years later I forgot about it.

A final note on the drinking while pregnant controversy, such that it is. I got an interesting email from a reader: “Heh! I have actually met several pregnant OB/GYNs who regularly drank a glass of wine with dinner during late pregnancy and would wholeheartedly recommend it to their stressed out patients to unwind so long as they could be trusted not to get carried away. When asked about the apparent medical hypocrisy they just explained that the threshold for fetal harm was definitely greater than the occasional drink but no sane doctor was going to risk the potentially astronomic liability of stating on the record that X drinks were "safe", plus it might actually vary from person to person.” Probably the best explanation I have heard! Thanks!

Welcome back to Carl Buckman’s story. We’ll get back to the Grim Reaper in a few more weeks.

A few interesting notes. A few readers wanted to know if the Bob Turcos character was modeled on the real Bob Turk, a weather reporter on WJZ at the time. Well, while I remembered Bob Turk after I was reminded of him, the reality is that I simply pulled the name Turcos out of my ass. No resemblance whatsoever.

A couple of readers noted that it actually would be possible to tag the sternum, heart, and spine in a straight shot, especially if the bullet fragments. Back when I was taking biology and anatomy, we didn’t get to work on humans but were restricted to the dinosaurs roaming the land. (The dinosaurs kept eating the humans.) I probably heard the sternum-heart-spine linkage on a TV show.

There were a few complaints that a pregnant Marilyn had a drink on the flight to the Bahamas and that Carl should have prohibited this behavior. There was even a demand that I rewrite the scene! Well, you can ask, but you can’t demand. It’s rude, if nothing else. As to the drinking being irresponsible, current medical thought is quite divided on the subject. Everyone agrees that heavy drinking is bad for the fetus, but there is absolutely no agreement on light drinking. The individuals pushing the no-booze-is-safe theory are also the ones pushing the no-booze-is-safe-for-anyone-anytime theory. The rest of the doctors are arguing over whether you can have one drink a day, one a week, and so on. Nobody has researched the limits.

On the other hand, Carl is facing twin daughters and will probably be drinking much more heavily in the future! He has a whole new set of problems starting!