IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO CREATE! by Yvonne Saxon

"Out For Christmas Trees"
by Grandma Moses

If you've always wanted to "try your hand" at creative expression, such as art, dance, writing, cooking, music, you name it, but you feel as if you're too old, or it's too late, keep reading! Here are just a few examples of women who seemed to be "late bloomers," but became successful in their creative field.

Julia Child didn't start learning how to cook until she was 36. Until the end of World War II, the American cooking icon was working for the Office of Strategic Services (a spy agency) where she met her husband Paul. In preparation for their marriage, Julia enrolled in a "brides to be" cooking class, but her first meal she described as a disaster! It only made her more determined to learn how to cook well. When the couple moved to France in 1948 she fell in love with "that glorious food and those marvelous chefs." Although she was determined to become a chef it wasn't easy: her first exam at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school she failed. Her first cookbook she co-wrote with Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck was initially rejected. Alfred A. Knopf eventually published the book in 1961 to immediate success. Then, at the age of 51 Child would become the host of PBS's very first cooking show, "The French Chef."

Toni Morrison, a Nobel laureate in literature, was almost 40 when her first novel was published. She began writing fiction at a Howard University informal poet's and writer's group. At one meeting she brought a short story about a Black girl who wanted blue eyes. Later, as a single working mother, she developed that story into her first novel, The Bluest Eye, getting up every morning at 4 a.m. to write while her two children slept. Another novel followed three years later and then her third novel, Song of Solomon won the National Book Critics Circle award. In 1988, her novel Beloved  won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Before her death in 2019, Morrison penned 11 novels, many short stories, plays, and numerous other works of literature.

Laura Ingalls Wilder also started later--she was in her 40's when she began writing in farm and other small publications. Her first novel Pioneer Girl followed 20 years later and was immediately rejected. Her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, already a successful writer, urged her mother to turn her stories into a collection for children. At age 65, Little House In The Big Woods was published, the first of 8 books in the series inspired by Wilder's youth. 

Anna Mary Robertson Moses or "Grandma Moses" began painting in earnest at the age of 78. Born in 1860 on a farm, she would draw pictures on the white paper her father would bring home. She was also inspired to paint by taking art lessons at school. Starting at age 12 and for the next 15 years, she worked as a housekeeper for wealthier neighbors until she met and married her husband, Thomas Moses. With her own house, farm, and children to care for there wasn't time to paint, but she was creative at home. She created quilted objects, used house paint to draw a scene on a fireboard, and made embroidered pictures of yarn for her friends and family. By 76, she'd developed arthritis, and it was suggested that painting would be easier than embroidery. So in order to create a postman's Christmas gift, she turned to painting. If one of her hands started hurting she'd switch to the other one. At 78, her paintings were seen in the window of a drug store by an art collector.  He bought them all and commissioned more, launching her public career. Grandma Moses painted more than 1500 canvasses in three decades, her last painting done when she was 100. She lived to be 101.

Why not start your new year creating a work of beauty? Write that story! Paint that landscape! Cook that gourmet meal! Dance that tango! Weld that sculpture! It's not too late and you're not too old. What are you waiting for?

‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE MURDER by Penny Hutson

 ‘Twas the night before murder when all through the book,

Not a character was plotting, not even the crook.

Reading page after page and absorbed with delight,

Every chapter expecting a murderous sight.

There I sat nestled all snug in my chair,

Reading my mystery book without care

My husband lay snoring aloud on the couch,

As I continued to read in a deepening slouch.

 

A DAY AT DAME AGATHA’S SUMMER HOME by Maria Hudgins

 

A few years ago, I left my guided tour of Southwest England, Devon and Cornwall, and made my way down the River Dart to visit Greenway, the home of my hero, Agatha Christie. This is the beautiful Georgian house where Dame Agatha and her family spent many summers. In the photo, you can see the house nestled in woods with the Dart nearby. Grand as it is, it was not her only house. That's what good writing can get you.

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GRANDMA COBOL! By Sand in Our Shorts Administrators

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper

“Mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow.” This proverb is often attributed to 14^th Century England. But I suspect the sentiment is of a much more ancient origin. And its message to never give up, regardless of how “small” you are, is universal.

Perhaps there’s no better example of this than Grace Hopper. Grace Brewster Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906 to January 1, 1992) was a computer pioneer and naval officer. She earned a master’s degree (1930) and a Ph.D. (1934) in mathematics from Yale. Hopper is best known for her trailblazing contributions to computer programming, software development, and the design and implementation of programming languages. A maverick and an innovator, she enjoyed long and influential careers in the U.S. Navy and the computer industry.

And she was stubborn as a mule, some might say, and determined to leave her mark on the United States Navy, whether that often-hidebound organization cared to acknowledge it or not.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the United States’ entry into World War II, Hopper decided to join the war effort. She was initially rejected because of her age and diminutive size, but she persisted and eventually received a waiver to join the U.S. Naval Reserve (Women’s Reserve). In December 1943, she took a leave of absence from Vassar, where she was an associate professor, and completed sixty days of intensive training at the Midshipmen’s School for Women at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

After receiving her commission (lieutenant junior grade), Hopper was assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University. There, she joined a team working on the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, better known as the MARK I. Hopper's work on the Harvard Mark I computer, an early electromechanical computer, led her to realize the need for a more user-friendly programming language. This insight drove her to develop the first compiler, known as A-0, which enabled programmers to write code using more human-readable language instead of machine code or assembly language.

The origin of the term "debugging" in computer programming is often attributed to Grace Hopper during her work on the Harvard Mark II computer in 1947. While troubleshooting a malfunction, Hopper and her team discovered a moth trapped in one of the computer's relays, causing the issue. After removing the moth, Hopper logged the incident in the computer's logbook, noting that they had "first actual case of a bug being found" and that they had "debugged" the computer.

In the late 1950s, Grace Hopper played a key role in the development of COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language), one of the first high-level programming languages designed for business applications. COBOL became widely adopted and is still in use today. Hopper's work in computer programming and her contributions to the development of compilers and COBOL have left a lasting impact on the field, earning her the nicknames "Amazing Grace" and "Grandma COBOL."

Throughout her career in the computer industry, Hopper remained a Navy reservist. In 1966, age restrictions forced her to retire from the Navy as a commander. She later called it “the saddest day of my life.” Just months later, however, she was recalled to active service to help standardize the Navy’s multiple computer languages and programs. She retired from UNIVAC, a division of Sperry Rand, in 1971.

An optimist as well as a visionary, Hopper celebrated the potential of computers. “I think we consistently…underestimate what we can do with computers if we really try,” she once said. In a 1983 interview on “60 Minutes,” host Morely Safer asked if the computer revolution was over. Hopper replied, “No, we’re only at the beginning…We’ve got the Model-T.” Until the end of her life, Rear Admiral Grace Hopper looked forward with confidence to new technologies and their problem-solving capabilities.

Hopper remained on active duty for nineteen years. She retired from the Navy as a rear admiral at the age of 79—the oldest serving officer in the U.S. armed forces. That same year she went to work as a senior consultant in public relations at the Digital Equipment Corporation, where she worked until her death in 1992. Hopper was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

So, as writers, just think where we'd be without Amazing Grace's contributions to computer science and, ultimately, the word processing programs we depend on today. 

(Sources: Biography of Grace Murray Hopper | Office of the President (yale.edu) and Grace Hopper (Computer Scientist and Admiral) - On This Day.)

 

LOCARD’S EXCHANGE PRINCIPLE by Michael Rigg

Edmond Locard (1877-1966)

No doubt, you’ve seen or heard the saying, “Take only memories, leave only footprints.” It’s a shorthand way of telling humans to minimize their impact on nature. If you see something, leave it for someone else to see and enjoy. If you eat a Milky Way, don’t throw away the wrapper. Take it with you.

What a wonderful sentiment. What an exceptional goal. But to those of us who write mysteries, especially those involving crimes, it’s sheer, absolute, and utter nonsense. Pure baloney. Leave only footprints? Give me a break.

Those of us “in the know,” accept the “Gospel According to Dr. Locard.” Developed by Dr. Edmond Locard (1877 – 1966), Locard’s Exchange Principle, which forms the foundation of forensic science, holds that the perpetrator of a crime will bring something to the crime scene and will leave with something from it. At its core, the concept is that every contact leaves a trace and that with contact between two items, there will always be an exchange. To quote Dr. Locard, “It is impossible for a criminal to act, especially considering the intensity of a crime without leaving traces of this presence.”    

Think about it. It makes sense.

Wherever a criminal (or even a totally innocent, law-abiding citizen) goes, he will leave something behind. At the same time, he will also take something back with him. Our criminal (or law-abiding citizen) can leave all sorts of evidence, like fingerprints, footprints, hair, skin, blood, bodily fluids, pieces of clothing—and more. By coming into contact with others, or things, at the location in question, our criminal (or law-abiding citizen) takes part of that location with him when he leaves, whether it’s dirt, hair, or other types of trace evidence.

During an investigation in 1912, a Frenchwoman named Marie Latelle was found dead in her parents’ home. Her boyfriend, Emile Gourbin, claimed he had been playing cards with friends on the night of the murder. Absent evidence to the contrary, police concluded Gourbin was telling the truth.

Not deterred, Dr. Locard looked at Marie’s corpse and questioned Gourbin’s alibi. Locard found clear evidence that Marie had been strangled. He then scraped underneath Gourbin’s fingernails and examined the results under a microscope. Locard noticed a pink dust among the samples, which he calculated must be ladies’ makeup. In that era, makeup was not mass produced. Locard located a chemist who developed a custom powder for Marie. It matched the fingernail scrapings. Ultimately, Gourbin confessed to the murder. He had tricked his friends into believing his alibi by setting the clock in the game room ahead. But he couldn’t trick Locard. When he strangled his girlfriend, he took some of her—skin cells with traces of makeup—with him.

Pretty convincing, right? Most likely, we can all think of “modern day” cases that were solved as a result of Locard’s Exchange Principle. What’s your favorite example?

So, trust me. No matter how hard you try or how well-intentioned you may be, wherever you go you’ll never just leave footprints and you’ll always take away more than just memories. Mystery writers depend on it.