HAVE I BEEN TO AMERICA? YES, I HAVE!
A warning - this is a long one. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!
As a girl I stood on the Cornish cliffs with my dad on holiday, pointed to the horizon and asked him what was over there. America, he said. That's when I knew I had to go!
I've had numerous readers of my epic western Alias Jeannie Delaney Books 1 & 2 stating that my descriptions of America are so real that they feel as though they are really there! Firstly - thank you so much! Second, have I been to the States? Yes, I have. Was it fabulous? Yeah - I loved it! So I didn't just spend hours reading brochures (back before the internet) when describing a western location in the story, although I had to do that many times.
The first time I visited the States was after I'd quit a job I'd grown to dislike. I'd worked as a district nurses' clerical officer in London and it didn't suit me. The girls were fabulous, but the bosses were scary and one was just plain nasty. So I quit and went to America and my experiences were good, bad or just plain stupid!
In May, 1978 I rode Greyhound Buses for a month in May, 1978. I was twenty-five and, with my backpack, traveled north and south (or was it east and west?). My tickets enabled me to go anywhere until the month was up. No issues with the language, or navigation (my internal sat nav is negligible. I get lost here at home). The buses took you everywhere and the towns and cities were designed in blocks, making them easy-ish to get around. That trip was fabulous. I enjoyed it so much that I spent two months travelling east and west the following year, taking in places I'd loved last time, and places I'd missed. I wrote a diary and one or two of the entries were enough to make my hair curl even now. I had no fear, was so innocent. That's how I got away with so much. Anyway - read on...
A DODGY NIGHT IN THE OZARKS
The time was 6.30am-ish at the
Greyhound Bus Station in Springfield Missouri, (where the Simpsons
live) and I was halfway through my first Greyhound trip.
I usually didn't do early mornings, but I was
having a fantabulous time. In order to save cash I'd sleep on coaches and find cheap motels, and this
plan worked well.
So I
was in the Greyhound Bus waiting room and dozing in one of the moulded plastic chairs before I bought breakfast and make plans. I ignored the mini TV
screen inset into the arm rest, bemused as I was at such
sophistication. The UK had nothing like this. At around
8am, a
man in his sixties-ish, which seemed ancient to me at the time, approached me. 'Dirty old man' springs to mind. He said he'd been watching me. Dirty old man, much, eh? The precise conversation is lost in the mists of time, but you would have
thought, if you're a sensible person (which I clearly wasn't, or even now sometimes, come to that), I would have
told him to take a hike. Our conversation was along the
lines of my trip. Would I like to stay on his ranch in
the nearby Osark Mountains for a day or two? Apparently his wife and brother were there. Well, that was alright
then, wasn't it? So pillock here said yes. The not sensible
and adventurous minded half of me wants the experience, the sensible
half doesn't. I should have listened to the latter.
Bill was a safe-seeming hillbilly. Well, he would be, wouldn't he? I was incredibly naive and dead lucky. He drove me to his disappointingly modern, one-story ranch in the foothills. Family -
i.e. wife - wasn't there. Surprise! Bill's brother never made an appearance. The whole visit was actually very unsordid and involved a fair bit of driving
around sightseeing. I remember vaguely riding a horse behind him, which was weird. All I wanted to do the entire time was return to the station. I should have told him, but, you know...?
Night time arrived and I slept in his bed, wearing a flimsy blue
cotton hippy top and he slept on his sitting room floor. In the middle
of the night I woke and discovered him beside me in the bed. Whaaat? What did I expect, honestly?! Me, a young, reasonably
attractive British blonde bird is a guest in the home of this single
old man's pad. It didn't occur to me. Really. He said 'I'm just being a
father to you.' I kid you not.
Bill then lifted his
pillow to show me the pistol he kept under it 'just in case'. The
experience was so utterly surreal and bizarre. After I told him
that my father didn't sleep in my bed, he got out of the bed, opened an exterior door and asked me to join him. He listened
and gazed into space 'Can you
hear that?' He asked, cupping his ear to the soundless sound. 'It's a
....' and quoted the name of some bird. Oh,
I wanna leave!
He drove me to the bus station the next morning, and I took a picture of
him in his truck. I've still got it somewhere. He's grinning at me
through his large, bushy grey handlebar moustache. I honestly believe that Bill was
innocent, and genuinely believed in what he was doing when he climbed
into the bed with me. Never had I been so freaked out! It's
unbelievable what I did on those two trips to the States and got away with. Such
incredible innocence and naivety, and I believed that everyone was
genuine.
Oh, the folly of youth - mine, anyway...
ON A LESS HAZARDOUS NOTE...
'Oh, my god! A rocket's
going up!' Someone in the tour bus yelled, or something on those lines. There, in the sky above the far off horizon at NASA Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, a rocket was indeed ascending into space. A small flame making it's way slowly - so it seemed - towards earth's upper atmosphere.
I'll never forget it.
Dammit. My
curse was probably bluer and more succinct than that, because my marvellous small Instamatic Kodak camera, bought here in the States to replace the old one (thankfully not too many photos on it) had served me so well, was stuffed in the baggage holder in the
bowels of the bus. I philosophically committed the rocket vision to memory (I can see it now, in
my head). It's engraved in my skull and shall forever remain. It's not often that an awesome spectacle such as this happens in
one's lifetime. I feel so privileged!
Husband is very jealous. It's not often that that happens. He's an
enormous fan of the Saturn V rocket which took men to the
moon in 1969, and during the pandemic, he built a metre tall Lego
model of it, as you do. Here it is: Groovy, huh?
It wasn't until recent
times that it occurred to me that Mr. Google might give me
some facts about that rocket launching all those years ago. The
search took a nano second. I'd assumed that the rocket might have
been doing a 'local' flight, but, as rockets don't come along in threes,
like buses, a rocket in May 1978 isn't that difficult to track
down. And there were the details: 'On May 20th, 1978, at 1.00pm, the Pioneer
Venus Orbiter was launched. The PioneerVenus project, part of the Pioneer programme, was a series
of United States unmanned space missions designed for planetary
exploration.'. 'The Pioneer Venus
project was part of the Pioneer program consisting of two spacecraft,
the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe launched
to Venus in 1978. The
Pioneer Venus Orbiter entered orbit around Venus on December 4, 1978,
and performed observations to characterize the atmosphere and surface
of Venus. It continued to transmit data until October 1992. The
Pioneer Venus Multiprobe deployed four small probes into the Venusian atmosphere on December 9, 1978, transmitting data throughout their descent.'
To be able to say I witnessed a rocket launch at Cape Canaveral is just so 'out there' and surreal. I do love a bit of surreal.
THE
DAY I MET THE MOONIES
We've all heard of the Moonies, right? A cult following. A nasty cult. If you fall foul of them... we don't like to think of the consequences.
I'm strolling along a street somewhere in San Francisco, minding my own business when a young couple approach me. Nicholas
was white American and Joan was Asian American. They approached me as I strolled, my camera slung around my neck. A dead giveaway. I was just the right age. They smiled at me.
'Hello,
are you a tourist?'
Duh.
I grinned in the affirmative. We chatted
vaguely about my trip and they
asked me if I'd like to join them and their friends for a meal that
night. (Does this sound vaguely familiar?). They handed me a purse-sized address card and told me to think
about it. I thought about it. The card was adorned with a
print of a pen and ink drawing of a Victorian terraced house with
steps leading up to the front door.
It even quoted the bus routes and
times to this address. I still have that card, buried somewhere, gathering dust. As I pondered
over Nicholas and Joan's address card, I returned
to my cheap, gay hotel, listened to an argument in
the hallway, inspected my moth-eaten bed and the bug crawling in
the basin. That clinched it. I was going.
A bus took me to the house and I climbed the steps to
the front door. A welcoming middle-aged woman asked me to
remove my shoes and please donate a cent into the basket on a
shelf to my right. She opened a door
to my left - a living room in which bunches of
kids, all around my age, sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor.
I sat cross-legged with a bunch. We talked about my trip and I was given a plate of delicious stew
followed by equally delicious carrot cake, something I'd never had
before. I asked if they had wine, and they laughed a lot.
'Oh,
no. We only have water.'
Humph.
Call this a party?! What kind of people were these, anyway? The room
was cleared and chairs arranged, as though for a
lecture. Oka-a-ay.
I sat next to Joan, my new found Indian 'friend'. She placed her hand
on my knee and proclaimed: 'I
love you, my sister.' I shifted further apart.
A blackboard
appeared, followed by a middle-aged man in a smart business suit and tie. I remember nothing about this apparent lecture
except when he energetically scrawled
the words 'parental
authority'
on the board, then energetically circled the words in order to
emphasise them. The kids vehemently nodded. I vehemently shook my head. Parents do serve a purpose. I think I had an inkling by then who these people were. I eyed a young man perched on a bookcase
against the wall to my left and thought: 'I
hope they don't get him.'.
Various kids took to the stage playing guitars and reciting poetry wearing syrupy expressions accompanied by cries of : 'My
sister, my sister...'. 'My
brother...'.
Nicholas had sat next to me, with Joan on my other side. Joan or Nicholas or both at once placed their
hands on my knees and proclaimed how much they loved me. I'm
very loveable.
When all their postulations about loving me and all the 'entertainment' was over, everybody
started talking. Nicholas, Joan and their friends said:
'You
must come with us up to Oregon. We have a farm up there. We're a
community and it's beautiful. Do come.'
'Thank
you but no thank you. I have a bus to catch tomorrow and I mustn't
miss it.'
'Would
you like a lift back to your hotel?'
Twit here said yes please. They drove me back to my gay hotel in their Volkswagen
Beetle and Nicholas (or
Joan) - gave me a card with another address.
'This
is so-and-so. She's with the Unification Church in London. She's
lovely and we love her (of course you do!). Do look her up.'
As
we approached my cheap, shoddy hotel, I said: 'Are
you the Moonies, by any chance?'
Huge guffaws of laughter. They dropped
me off. I think they'd given me up as a non-starter. Un-brain
washable. I popped into the hotel and told the young, goatee bearded, silk kimono clad male receptionist where I'd been. He
exploded.
'Don't
you ever
do
a thing like that again! You promise?'
Gay
hotels and bugs in basins had nothing on the Moonies.
THROUGH THE SNOW COVERED SPRING MOUNTAINS TO LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
A vivid experience I recall was driving through snow covered Spring Mountains, Nevada, at night before arriving in hot Las Vegas the following day. Upon encountering thick snow, we
helped the driver attach chains to the wheels in order for the tires to grip the road. We went back to sleep and woke up in
Las Vegas. I had often wondered where the mountains were, because I let Greyhound take much of the strain, so I've literally only just looked it up. Spring Mountains, Nevada. Fabulous!
I sat on a bus in Deadwood, South Dakota, home of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane, on route from A to B. I was on a bus driving from A to B via Deadwood, possibly hoping to hop out for a quick look. The driver parked and gave us passengers firm instructions not to leave the bus. He had an errand to run and would be back soon to continue the journey. Can you imagine that? A wild west enthusiast sitting on a bus staring directly at Saloon No 10 in the distance, where Wild Bill Hickok met his end, and where Calamity Jane was buried up there on Mount Mariah, and I was unable to explore. Sheer torture! The driver returned after a few minutes and on we drove. Aaarrgh! I promised myself that I would return, but whether or not that does happen I haven't a clue. My mental health being delicate,
I might have to accept that I won't manage it.
I'll end on a fun note. I partook of drinks with two cowboys in Tombstone in the Crystal Palace Saloon while the barkeep demonstrated a saucy pull-along toy on his counter, and I stayed with the printer of the Tombstone Epitaph in his cabin for a night while he slept in his truck. The next day he drove me past Bisbee, the Arizona mining town, found a dead rattlesnake on the road, and drank tequila in Mexico before returning over the border.
These experiences are engrained forever in my hippocampus, and they're not going anywhere!
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A JUMBLE OF SOME OF MY PHOTOS! |
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ALIAS JEANNIE DELANEY - THE STORYLINE
Dynamic pants-wearing cowgirl Jeannie Morgan is tomboy beautiful and the fastest gun west of the Mississippi - her snake strike speed and aim are legendary. Her extraordinary sexuality is as fluid as a miner's whiskey, and men and women alike enjoy the magnificence of her love making.
Jeannie must navigate the grit and sweat of the wild frontier and face her desires and identity through deadly confrontations as she seeks acceptance in this big, bad world and kill or be killed. She takes on roles deemed only suitable for men, but her powerful persona and lethal gun make her the perfect candidate. Will she find what she seeks - acknowledgement and acceptance? Or will her tomboy beauty, her powerful persona and her lethal gun finally be the death of her?
IF YOU'VE READ & ENJOYED THE STORY SO FAR, I'D BE INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD LEAVE A POSITIVE REVIEW ON AMAZON. THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Book 2 The Outlaw's Return
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MY ORIGINAL DRAWINGS OF
JEANNIE |
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TWO CHAPTER SAMPLES
BOOK 1 |
 | | BOOK 2 |
My title has been featured in the following blogs & on Festival of Storytellers video:
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