The neighbor kids had a method when asking permission from their parents to do something or go somewhere. The middle child said, “Don’t say no.” The youngest child begged, “Please, pretty please, say yes.” The oldest child said, “Maybe?” with a questioning lilt. After a few days, the reluctant parent relented.
My father was a strict, by-the-book person. The book being the family-size Holy Bible King James Version in our living room. His answer to my whimpering. “Couldn’t you just say maybe instead of no?” was Matthew 5:37. “But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” If I pursued my quest, he said, “There is no maybe.” Then he quoted James 1:8. “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” I had to wait until school the next day to see what Webster had to say about maybe.
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The unabridged tome perched on a stand guarded the center of the library like a sentry. I flipped the pages to the alphabetical M section. Was it may be or maybe? My spelling skills might have been different than Mr. Webster’s proper English. However it was spelled, I didn’t find it.
I flipped the pages to the preface. I didn’t know what that word meant, but it must have been important or it wouldn’t have been at the front of the dictionary. That’s where I learned that Noah Webster and my father agreed on one thing. They both quoted Bible verses to support their decisions.
Groundhog Day has given February 2 prominence since 1887. 
My father called the tradition hogwash. “If you want to know the weather, look in the 
Remember when you 
The memorial for Used To was a virtual event because in-person events were prohibited during the coronavirus shutdown. The memorial paid tribute to Used To when she was every writer’s friend. We spoke about how we waited in line to pay meeting fees, strained to hear the speaker over a table crowded by attendees crunching popcorn and Chex mix, and squinted at our scribbled meeting notes the next day. 
My thoughts of spending a quiet New Year’s evening restricted by the California Coronavirus guidelines brought vivid flashbacks from more than a half-century ago. Friends had invited me to ride with them to the 
The driver was quiet on the road, taking his duty of transporting us safely on the 15-hour round trip like a mission assigned by his Air Force superior. The rest of us chattered with excitement until midnight ushered out Father Time,
Hindsight
A resurgence of the virus following Thanksgiving holiday travel and social gatherings pushed the governor to issue more restrictive Stay at Home guidelines on December 7. Struggling businesses closed permanently. Weddings canceled. Vacations postponed. Places of worship limited to outside events with social distancing. No travel. No family gatherings outside immediate households. No public holiday celebrations. Long lines for food and other essentials lowered the number of shoppers to 20% of the store’s usual capacity.
George Cramer’s blog
Knop is a novelist. Alexander is an Arizona historian who writes fiction and nonfiction. Both authors write about the Southwest. In their individual interviews, both said they do extensive research to maintain historical values.
I relish the memories of Thanksgiving Day with a houseful of family or friends from planning the menu, cooking, and the gentle soapsuds when I hand washed the china and silverware. 
Covid-19 has brought a new perspective to Thanksgiving 2020 in California. Many will continue their large gatherings. Others will scale down to the bubble requirements—a familiar small group of 12 or less. I chose to isolate with a quiet day at home. No grocery shopping. No cooking. No cleanup. Tomorrow, Black Friday, a friend from my writing group will bring me a traditional Thanksgiving meal. Only one place setting of Royal Albert Old Country Roses china will be on the table. The vintage silverware I have used for holidays since the 1960s, new back then, may wait until the next holiday. 
This has been a year of ups and downs for me. I prefer a trauma-free life instead of coping with the tension. On the opposite side, I have to create tension in my crime fiction manuscripts to engage the reader. I’ve put a lot of obstacles in the path of Detective Morgan Madrid, my fictional main character in Next of Kin. And I’ve created solutions so she can follow Clare’s advice about walking the path (Morgan’s an imaginary character, so she has to rely on me for the solutions.) At the end of the book, I hope my readers will agree that Morgan followed Clare’s advice as she hopped, skipped, and jumped her way to a winning story.
In my younger years, my mother, far ahead of her time, knew that working in the sun could cause cancer. She tried to make me wear one of her sunbonnets for protection while working in our backyard garden. I refused that hot covering. Later, she urged me to wear a large brimmed hat. Not for me. In my teen years, Jacqueline Kennedy inspired a small hat to complement dresses worn in public. I fell for that minimum style. I bought a few to match my Sunday church outfits. I had a full rack of various colors and materials for many years. Then the woman’s hat craze quit. Now, I wear a brimmed hat when I walk on sunny days.
Symbolically, I juggle several hats from writer to editor. Even editing has two hats different hat styles. As the publicity editor for Tri-Valley Writers, a branch of the California Writers Club, I’m required to use Associated Press (AP) style. As a writer and freelance editor of stories and novels, I have to follow the Chicago Manual of Style 17th Edition.
