Tag: LocalAuthor

Margerumalia – Pain Experts

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – August 15, 2025

I had something to say to the guy wearing this T-shirt. 

Trust me, I’m not stupid. I know better than to get all confrontational. Especially when the guy next to him looks like he eats three bowls of Steroidios for breakfast every day. Besides, I saw the pack of shirtless teens jogging past me in the park. They’ll be back soon.

I had just finished listening to the latest Serial podcast: “The Retrievals, Season 2.” It’s about women who have gone through Cesarean Sections with inadequate anesthesia. Remarkably, the message from these women is that if they say they can feel everything, that’s because THEY CAN FEEL EVERYTHING.

And you know what the problem has been? Communication. 

The good news is that nurses, doctors, surgeons, and anesthesiologists really don’t want their patients to suffer. The bad news is that they haven’t learned the language skills to understand the difference between discomfort and pain. Until now.

Through the harrowing stories of the patients and staff, we learn what they are thinking, what their expectations are, and what they’re assuming rather than understanding. With the right words, the right communication skills, the difference is revolutionary, giving everyone the basis for understanding and permission to change the process. 

My wife can tell you that I’m more than a bit squeamish about graphic imagery. And I admit to crossing my arms across my abdomen a few times while listening. But that’s empathy. That’s the experience of stories, truth or fiction.

So I had to say something to this marine. 

I approached the car and said that I saw the words on the back of his shirt and wanted to tell him that pain is an indicator. A message that something needs attention. So it’s important to listen to your body. 

I told him how my wife and I encourage one another to take our cues from pain to change what we’re doing or to take a break from what’s causing that pain. 

Both young men listened respectfully—as marines are taught to do—but I saw that quick glance they shared, so I tried to lighten the moment. 

“Age is probably a big factor when you’re 40 years older than those boys running through the park,” and we all smiled knowingly, “but there are times when you have to pay attention to that indicator and not do more damage.” They nodded and thanked me, calling me sir. “I just needed to say after reading your shirt,” I added.

Did I make any difference? I don’t know. Did the NFL listen to accounts of Traumatic Brain Injury? The jury may still be out on that question.

It’s so important to speak up. To communicate. To listen. 

Maybe you can make a difference. 

Serial episodes are available wherever podcasts are offered. Both seasons of “The Retrievals” are excellent. I recommend them. 

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – Jawsiversary

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – August 8, 2025

PHOTO: Pinterest

Jaws. The beginning of the summer blockbuster, they say. 1975. Fifty years ago! 

Jaws. The most intense abs workout of my life. 

My stomach ached more after seeing that movie than it did after 100 sit-ups in junior high gym class for the Presidential Physical Fitness Awards.

I blame the shock value. Hundreds of teenagers screaming at full volume every time the shark showed up…or when, say, a severed human head floated into view. [Spoiler alert.] My stomach muscles clamped together like a rusty bear trap with every screech.

And then there was the shark story delivered at night in the bowels of the little boat headed out to defeat The Great White. Robert Shaw, delivered that monologue with a deft mix of Ahab, Odysseus, and Falstaff. You can find it easily online and it’s worth the watch. Spielberg is quoted as having said that speech was probably his favorite scene from all his movies.

About a decade after seeing Jaws I was talking to a WWII vet and suddenly recalled that another vet had told me about his Navy experience in the Pacific where his ship was torpedoed and hundreds of men floated in the middle of the night while sharks picked them off one at a time. He even remembered having grabbed another sailor who had fallen asleep only to discover that the lower half of the man was missing. 

I’d been so drawn into that story from the film that I actually recalled it as a personal conversation. Imagine my embarrassment on realizing I’d heard it along with several hundred other people in the movie theater.

Wow, what a story. Who knew words could be so haunting?

AND it actually happened. It was the story of the U.S.S. Indianapolis after they had delivered the first atom bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima. 

That’s what makes a summer blockbuster. Real human emotions that you remember like it was your own experience.

To lighten things up, I’ll close with a meme I ran across that made me laugh:

PHOTO: Pinterest

TTFN

P.S. For those of you keeping track, I just made up another word to add to the English Language, a portmanteau: Jawsiversary.

You’re welcome.

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If you received this email because it was forwarded to you by a subscriber, welcome. You can subscribe as well by following the link on my website: ericmargerum.com. A free story awaits you there.

Margerumalia – Thesaurus Anyone?

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – August 1, 2025

PHOTO: Facebook @ForReadingAddicts

Have you had it up to here with hearing the word “unprecedented”? I have. 

The other day a news anchor interrupted herself to apologize for using the word before she said it. Again. When “unprecedented” becomes attached to “sorry for using this word so much” it’s time to stop using it. Don’t ya think?

It’s like the commercials on TV that cause us to dive for the remote and desperately stab at the mute button so we don’t have to hear that annoying voice yet again. 

I don’t do that with Progressive commercials because they’re so creative and humorous, and they’re usually replaced before I can grow weary of them.

Using my Merriam-Webster Thesaurus app, I found several substitutes for unprecedented. Words like fresh, new, novel, original, pioneering, and trailblazing all have a degree of admiration that might be too much praise for a news program, but words like unconventional, unheard-of, and even unique would be welcome replacements.

Notice in the paragraph above I referred to synonyms by mentioning a thesaurus and then used the words “substitutes” and “replacements” rather than using “synonyms” several times over. 

This is the joy of the English Language! We have so many options with so many shades of meaning. 

The other day I started a short story completely unrelated to my drafting of The Most Amazing Museum of Chicago and I couldn’t quite find my way into writing it until I tried it in second person (using the pronoun “you”). Suddenly it landed just right, creating a mood I didn’t even know I wanted. But that word “you” tripped me up a bit. There’s no alternative word in second person, even first person has the variance of I/me. 

That’s my challenge as a writer. What are my options? How do I solve this puzzle so my reader doesn’t dive for the remote. I don’t know yet but I’ll be working on it.

It’s strange, it’s novel, it’s new. Just not unprecedented.

By the way, precedence just means it happened before. It’d be okay to say “nothing like this has ever happened before.”

We have a saying in theatre: less is more. 

Would less use of “unprecedented” be more than I could hope for?

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – A Spotlight on Betty White

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – July 11, 2025

I stood in line behind Betty White. I was nineteen and she was legendary.

I wanted to say something, but knew it had to be worth saying.

This moment happened in Akron, Ohio, where I was working as an apprentice for The Kenley Players. Kenley also had summer contracts with theatres in Dayton and Columbus. Most of the summer I worked in the box office but I also got to do an occasional load-in or a load-out because it was an eleven show season. One week performances with one day of travel between cities. John Kenley was great about making sure his apprentices were included in free dinner events put on by local restaurants. 

I did this for two summers while I was in college.

Betty White was there both times. 

The first season began with the musical Chicago featuring Alan Ludden, known mainly as the long-running host of “Password.” He played the flamboyant lawyer Billy Flynn, who gave them “the ol’ razzle dazzle” to secure a not-guilty verdict for Roxie Hart. He was good with the role, too, playing just the right balance of manipulation and charm. 

He was also married to Betty White. 

Here’s a charming clip of Betty White flirting with Allen Ludden the first time she appeared on “Password” as one of the celebrities. https://tvline.com/news/betty-white-allen-ludden-password-romance-974130

In many of my celebrity meet-ups I only thought of the right thing to say five minutes afterwards, but this time I think I nailed it. After complimenting her work on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” I asked her whether she preferred performing on stage or for the camera. 

She told me that a sitcom like MTM was the best of both worlds. They got to perform in front of a live audience as well as playing for the camera. She proved that a few years later when she co-starred in seven seasons of “The Golden Girls.” Living her best life even after the death of her beloved husband. 

My second year with The Kenley Players I was stationed in Dayton where I spent a lot of time with the stagehands in addition to working in the box office. That was the year Betty White was the star in “Hello, Dolly!” and I played a big role in letting her shine. 

I was assigned to sit in the fly rails for that show, where a huge dimmer board controlled all the lights of the production. The union man, an Old Pro that I looked up to, operated most of the dimmers but in the days before computer-operated boards sometimes three or four hands were needed. I took great pride in pushing the sliders to just the right levels at the right time. 

When there were lighting problems in Akron and the Old Pro was needed there, he told me that I knew how to do it all and that another union guy would be brought in to be my assistant. I was in charge, he told me, mounting his Harley to zip out to Akron.

My new assignment included the moment in the title song when Betty White appeared at the top of the stairs to be serenaded by the waiters in the restaurant. The only part of that entire show that I remember was timing the Betty White Special to the music after the cue from the stage manager. (We could see the top of the stairs but the SM couldn’t.) I’m proud to say the Betty White Special was perfect every time. 

Next time you watch a movie, a TV show, or live theatre, take a moment to appreciate the many names of people behind the scenes who really, really care about getting it right every time. 

I’ve been a fan of Betty White to this day.

TTFN

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If you received this email because it was forwarded to you by a subscriber, welcome. You can subscribe as well by following the link on my website: ericmargerum.com. A free story awaits you there.

Margerumalia – Stories From The Professor

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – June 13, 2025

It’s kind of incredible for me to imagine that this picture of my father was taken when he was younger than I am now. He was almost ninety when he died, so I still have a ways to go, but this picture of him is solidly placed in my memory as “Dad.” 

Dad, whose work as a Professor of Chemistry took the family on two sabbaticals in Europe. Dad, who planned camping trips and canoe trips, who played tennis and squash, who liked listening to jazz, who had season tickets to Big Ten football games. Dad, who was quick to pull out a pen and write on a napkin when we had math or science questions at the dinner table. 

Dad, the teller of stories!

Mom read us books as we travelled cross country and she was very much a part of the hiking, tennis, music, sports, and wanderlust, but when we found our campsite and built the campfire, Dad had a story to tell. 

Dad and his brothers grew up in a small town outside of St. Louis, now part of the greater metropolis, and when he was a teenager he got a summer job with the Parks & Recreation Department that included, among other things, telling stories to the younger kids. I imagine them gathered beneath a shady elm tree to stay out of the sun in the hot, humid Missouri afternoons.

He couldn’t remember the content of those stories. Like improvisation, you’re only in the moment, following your imagination, following your impulses.

I later learned that this was my preferred approach to writing stories, the “pantser” approach (from “flying by the seat of my pants”). I think my improv training played into this approach, but with Dad it was instinctual. 

He got ideas from people around him or the landscape or the animals. When my younger brother was avid about collecting rocks and we were traveling west, Dad invented a character who was nicknamed Rock Hound because he, too, had a huge interest in rocks, and his tracking skills were developed from that fascination.

Fast forward about twenty-five years to when I was teaching Theatre at Carthage College.

My wife and I still talk about the lecture Dad gave when he offered to tell the chemistry students about his latest research. There were about a dozen students and a couple faculty, so we sat in on the lecture, too. 

Neither of us can remember the content of his talk, most of the science was over our heads, but we still recall that he was telling a story. He presented the question that the research team wanted to solve, told about the experiments they created to find the answers, described the hurdles they encountered along the way, and wrapped it all up with what they discovered. 

Classic story structure! Short of ending it with “…and they all lived happily ever after.” 

Thanks, Dad, for raising me with stories to show how it’s done. 

Fast forward another twenty years.

Dad was in Memory Care when I was writing MAMLA and I would spend three days a week with him while Mom was getting dialysis all afternoon. He’d read the newspaper while I wrote the latest adventure of the Shafer Family. One time he asked me what I was writing so I read him the passage where Ryan and Maria were escaping the dire wolves and he said he it was very exciting. 

That memory makes me smile. Approval from the teller of tales.

TTFN

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If you received this email because it was forwarded to you by a subscriber, welcome. You can subscribe as well by following the link on my website: ericmargerum.com. A free story awaits you there.

Margerumalia – Out For A Spin

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – June 6, 2025

PHOTO CREDIT: http://www.swient.com/how-to-recognize-vertigo-in-children

I went to see my doctor to tell her I had vertigo. She said it was all in my head. [Rim-shot.] 

I always wanted to try stand-up comedy, but could never come up with any good material. Having seen the recent trend toward life-experience-as-stand-up I thought I might have something. 

I do. Or I did. I had vertigo.

Do you remember going on a ride at the playground where the whole point is to enjoy the dizzy? Where the spin is the fun? Vertigo feels like that, only it’s not intentional, nor fun.

About 3 AM I woke up to a shout. It was me. I stood up from the bed and the entire room was doing that spinning thing. I fell back into bed. Which didn’t help. At all.

I reverted to the earliest skills of childhood and grabbed onto furniture to toddle my way to the bathroom. I collapsed in front of the porcelain god and waited for the inevitable upheaval. It didn’t come.

I’ve learned a thing or two about my body over the years, and one is that it prepares for the old heave-ho with a few deep breaths, much like a pearl diver getting ready for the big the plunge. That night I spent over thirty minutes clutching onto the toilet bowl while hyperventilating. 

Let me be clear. There were two of us there in the middle of that whirlpool. Me, hugging the bowl. And my body, preparing for that dive.

For. Thirty. Minutes. 

I know because I wear my Apple Watch to bed so I can keep track of my sleep statistics. Turns out that Apple doesn’t clock vertigo. 

Last year I was teaching high school students how to fall safely on stage so they could do it over and over again in performances without getting hurt. THAT was when Siri checked in on me and offered to call 911. During a case of the spins? Not so much.

It was time. I needed help. I called out for my wife.

We sleep in separate bedrooms. I snore. She tosses and turns. We learned long ago that if we wanted to stay together we were going to have to split up. At night.  

I’d like to be able to say I called her name with a robust voice like Tarzan summoning Jane in the jungle. Instead I was more like a toad in the pond. 

“Debbie!” I croaked. “Come here, I need you.” 

I’m sure Alexander Graham Bell summoned Watson with much more panache on the world’s first phone call. 

Debbie, bless her heart, has baby monitor hearing and was at my bathroom door in three seconds flat. Well, I was flat. She was standing there asking me what was wrong, and should she call for an ambulance. 

Why did I do the stereotypical guy thing and say she didn’t need to call the ambulance? I mean, did I call out so she could wake up and enjoy the phenomenon of my total disorientation?

After ten more minutes of hyperventilation and I finally agreed to the ER Express. 

Somehow, even amidst the mind-storm of staggering to the bathroom, I had managed to slip into some sweat pants. Which was handy because one wants to be fully clothed when visitors come to call. I also dragged myself into the hall so the EMT’s didn’t need to extract me from the vomitorium.

In the ER they gave me the vertigo diagnosis, or labyrinthitis. Hey! Perfect for a guy who just released a middle grade novel about a family that has to find their way out of a museum through a maze! …or labyrinth.

I’ve got pills now, because, you know, the world revolves around pharmaceuticals. (Had enough with the revolving metaphors? Me, too.) At least the pills dull the nausea and the rotation sensation. (That was the last one, I promise.)

And I’ve had an MRI. Who knew a brain could be clinically described as “grossly unremarkable”? 

That phrase sounds like it should be from a play by Oscar Wilde: “She lacked poise, she lacked depth, she had a distinct paucity of charm, wit, and acumen. She was, in fact, grossly unremarkable.” 

The acupuncturist is the only doctor who has helped me get better. I hate needles, but that’s another story.

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles, is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – My Brush With Fame

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – May 30, 2025

PHOTO CREDIT: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/obituaries/george-wendt-cheers-dies-76-rcna208080

“Norm!” everyone yelled when George Wendt walked into the bar. We raised our beer mugs in tribute to his passing this past week.

I started watching “Cheers” on TV the first year it came out. The show had an endearing theme song and it centered around a group of people who were a little quirky and enjoyed a good chat. I felt like I knew them immediately.

I almost did.

I was working as an assistant manager at Crown Books in Studio City when one of our regular customers—not unlike the regulars on “Cheers”—came into the store and asked me if I’d heard the news about the actor playing Coach. He had died.

Yes, I assured him, it was on every channel. The befuddled but sweet character was a favorite who was nominated for three Emmys over three years. I really liked that guy. 

“Did you know they’re planning to replace him?” 

“Really? That’d be hard to do. I don’t know if the audience would accept a different Coach.”

“They’re not gonna have another Coach,” Regular Customer told me. “They’re going to replace him with one of his ball players who is exactly like him, only younger.” 

“That’s a great idea!” 

“The character’s name is Woody. And he’s your age.” 

That’s the thing about working in LA, in a place called Studio City, the information orchard was always ripe for the picking, and this was within arm’s reach. RC was eying me now, waiting for my next thought. 

“Have they cast him yet?” 

“Not yet. You should call your agent as soon as you can and get that audition. You’re perfect for it.” 

Not to say that I was dim-witted like Coach, but that I could play Woody easily.

When my agent took my call she admitted she was looking at me and one other client to submit. They would only let her choose one. I assured her that I was the one for the job and that I knew the series well, and please, please, please give me a shot. 

Okay, maybe I only said please once, but I got the chance to audition! 

I went to the casting agent’s office off Sunset Boulevard near the Hollywood Freeway and got to read the sides. Those are the script pages they give you for the audition. It featured Woody in a one-sided phone conversation where he clearly didn’t understand what the other person was saying. 

Did I ace it? I don’t know, I was pretty nervous and bubbling with adrenaline. They told my agent I did a good job, so that was nice to hear. 

And then they hired some guy named Woody to play the role of Woody. C’mon, people, you don’t have to take the script literally!

I continued watching the series after that and Woody Harrelson hit the mark on every show. Even though I wanted to, I couldn’t fault his performances. 

I kept watching “Cheers” all the way to the last episode and often thought about how my life would have been different. The closest I got was doing a play with one of the semi-regulars who hung out at the bar with Norm and Cliff.

I could’ve been friends with those guys. And they would’ve known my name.

TTFN

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If you received this email because it was forwarded to you by a subscriber, welcome. You can subscribe as well by following the link on my website: ericmargerum.com. A free story awaits you there.

Margerumalia – International Museum Day

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – May 23, 2025

PHOTO CREDIT: icom.museum

This past Sunday, I heard on the radio that it was International Museum Day. Well, why did you wait and tell me on the day of? C’mon people, give me some room to run with this little gem!

Having set my novel in The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles, and building on that theme in the much-anticipated sequel The Most Amazing Museum of Chicago (I, for one, am dying to know how it turns out), I should be informed about this International Day for Museums. Heck, I even blogged a recommendation for Mike Gayle’s book The Museum of Ordinary People (Margerumalia, January 17, 2025). All museums honored here!

Clearly it’s up to me to seek out the information and share what I learned. You’re welcome.

Oh, dear. I went to the icom.museum website and I’m afraid it’s rather stodgy and very academic sounding. Their photographers, on the other hand, really know what they’re doing. There are lots of really interesting photos that make you say, “That’s interesting. I wonder what’s going on here?” Especially in the Sharing Is Caring section.

That’s what we want to know, isn’t it? What are these people doing here and why? …And then what happened? …And then what? Stories are our common bond. 

Somewhere in the Black Forest of Germany, my mother sensed that my brothers and I were bored by the tapestries, the thrones, and suits of armor gathering dust in the umpteenth castle of the day. So she took us outside. 

A small square pond about the size of a Little League infield sat low in a clearing surrounded by  tall shaggy oaks. Mossy bricks edged the still water and no breeze blew through this fine and private place. 

“Hello?” my mother shouted, only to be answered by her own voice. 

“Hello?” it said back. 

We looked at her blankly. 

“That was the Echo,” she told us. “Let’s see if we can find her.” 

And even though we knew it was a game, we dashed up and down the little hillsides, looking behind tree trunks and vine-covered stones to see if we could find the mysterious Echo. I think we even shouted a few times to hear her shout back in our own voices. 

After about twenty minutes of this game, my brothers and I were nearly spent and remarkably capable of touring another bedroom in the nearby castle.

Echo went with us. I know because I heard her mocking the tour guide with his own voice even though he didn’t shout.  

Fifty-plus years later, I still remember that exciting moment when Mom made the echo into a sprite called Echo. 

And this morning, two little boys walking with their mother and calling me “a grandpa” rushed ahead when I told them that the yellow post at the top of the hill was good luck if they touched it. We all earned our good luck this morning.

That’s the kind of museum I want to remember. And a lot of the curators have figured that out. Especially the children’s museums who say, “Go ahead. You can touch it,” because they know we learn through all of our senses, not just our eyes.

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles, is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – The Great Chicago Fire

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – May 16, 2025

PHOTO CREDIT: NewYorker.com

Did the Great Chicago Fire really begin in the O’Leary’s barn or was that just a story?

Were the sidewalks of Chicago in 1871 made of wood like you see in the old westerns or were they made of paving stones? Because wood burns, stones, not so much. 

Why do the photos of Chicago from that time period show telephone poles along the streets when telephones weren’t invented yet? The patent for the Bell Telephone wasn’t granted until 1876.

It’s interesting the questions that pop up when you’re writing about historical events. I hadn’t thought about the number of things I’d want to know to create a realistic picture of the past.

In The Most Amazing Museum of Chicago two of my characters travel back in time to the Great Chicago Fire and I want the readers to feel like they were really there. 

Yes, the fire did start in the O’Leary’s cow shed but there are multiple theories about how it began and who was responsible, so I get to make that part up. The kids in the story will witness it and may be partly responsible. The O’Leary’s house was spared because the fire spread north away from their home and you can find maps on line showing the devastation that followed. 

The sidewalks of Chicago in 1871 were wooden slats in some places and paving stones in others, depending on wealth and location. Modern poured concrete wouldn’t come into use for another twenty years. It was probably used in the later rebuilding of The Windy City.

And the telephone poles are actually telegraph poles. I had no idea that the telegraph lines would be all over the place like that. I don’t know how I’ll use that information, but it’s interesting to know.

I’m reminded of when I directed a production of The Outsiders a couple of years ago—not the musical version that’s currently just on Broadway—and I had to tell the kids not to give each other high fives after they successfully fought off the other gang of teens. When I told them the move hadn’t been invented yet, they looked at me like I was telling them shoes hadn’t been invented yet. The high five developed out of the “gimme five” hand slap of the 1960’s and wouldn’t be commonplace until the early 1970’s. The Outsiders takes place is the mid-1950’s, so a high five would be completely out of place. The actors found other ways to celebrate their victory.

As a writer friend pointed out, you don’t want to cause your reader, or audience member, to get distracted by things that are out of place. You just want them to be in the story.  

TTFN

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If you received this email because it was forwarded to you by a subscriber, welcome. You can subscribe as well by following the link on my website: ericmargerum.com. A free story awaits you there.

Margerumalia – Wander Indiana

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – May 9, 2025

PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Healy/Indianapolis Star

Fresh out of college and soon relocating to Los Angeles for grad school I got my first credit card. A Shell Oil Credit Card, my first dive into high finance. Debt.

“You’ll need to establish a credit record,” my college roommate had assured me. “I have three gas cards already. And a card for Sears & Roebuck!”

If I ever wanted to get a swing at the big leagues—Bank Americard and Master Charge*—I’d have to spend some time in the minor leagues.

Okay: grown-up life. I’m in it to win it.

I pulled into a Shell station on the outskirts of Los Angeles and filled the tank of my VW Rabbit with unleaded gasoline, careful not to ruin my transmission with the regular leaded kind. 

The attendant came out to my car after I finished pumping and I handed him my Shell Oil Credit Card, just like I’d seen Dad do over the years. Within a few minutes the attendant was back with a little plastic tray that held my card upright in a slot behind the receipt baring the imprint of my name and card number.

Before handing me the little plastic tray, though, he went to the back of the car to write down the license plate number. He was several years younger than me and sounded like he spoke more Spanish than English, so I figured he was being careful to do everything correctly, and by the book. 

I watched him in my rearview mirror look carefully at my Indiana license plate and write something down, only to look at the plate again and write something more, and then look at the plate again and write something more, repeating that process several times over. He seemed to be writing one number, or one letter, at a time. And he didn’t look confident that he was getting it right. 

When he finally brought the little plastic tray to my driver’s window, I saw what had happened. He got the license number written accurately but in the little box for the two letters of the state, he had written in careful bold capitals WANDER, with the letters spilling over into the box beside it. 

Indiana had launched a bid for more tourism called “Wander Indiana,” and the new license plates had the word WANDER in brighter, bolder letters than the name of the state. I figured this guy’s hesitation was because he had never heard of a state called Wander. 

Hey, I’d lived in a couple of foreign countries where I didn’t know what to say or how to say it. Even on my first day of Primary School in England, I was mocked by my schoolmates when I asked where to find the bathroom. 

“You want ta take a bath?” 

“No…” I fumbled figuring I had used a gross Americanism. “The…the restroom.” Yes, that’s what they would call it! 

“You want ta rest?” 

Now I was blushing furiously, trying not to say that I had to pee. They took pity on me. 

“You want ta use the loo?”

I had forgotten that word. “Yes. Yes, please!”

I looked at the word WANDER on the onion skin receipt and decided not to say anything. I signed the box at the bottom, took my Shell Oil Credit Card and handed over the tray, thanking him with a smile and a nod. 

I wondered if he would wonder about that state called Wander.

TTFN

(*They’re now called Visa and Master Card.)

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles, is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles