Thank You 

to 

Royal Tea Pot

For allowing us to host our book signing party today!

And Thank You All Who Came Out and Supported Us!

BOOK RELEASE PARTY 

SUNDAY 28^THOCTOBER 2018 FROM 2-4 PM

JOIN US AT 

THE ROYAL TEA POT 

207 A MAIN ST BARNESVILLE GA

770-371-6548

FOR THE RELEASE OF PAUL SINOR’S LATEST MYSTERY NOVEL 

LONG AGO AND FAR AWAY

PURCHASE ANY BOOK AND RECEIVE A FREE COPY OF 

WRATH OF THE DIXIE MAFIA 

WHILE SUPPLIES LAST

LIGHT REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED

PLEASE RSVP IF YOU PLAN TO ATTEND

to either

paul.sinor@gmail.com

or

royalteapot@gmail.com

or call/text

770-371-6548

The biggest secret of World War Two may be about to be revealed…totally by accident.  If the truth gets out, history may have to be re-written, counties may go to war, allies may become enemies and lives will be lost.  One of them is Max Maxwell and he is not happy about it.  He stumbled on the secret when his uncle, a WWII veteran dies and Max and his brother go through his belongings.  From that day on the fuse is lit and there is enough explosives to destroy Max and everything he holds near and dear.  He finds out what the United States government will do to keep a secret and how far it will go to destroy one who can reveal it!

Profound Profanity: Beware the Fireman

 What Temperature do your books burn at?

I started writing this blog for several reasons.  I had written a newspaper column in the past and I liked having to work against a deadline, so that was a part of my decision to gear the blog to a certain day, thus the title Sure Happy It’s Thursday, or the initials.  I obviously realized there was a word in the title that some might find offensive, but certainly not my fellow writers.  I was wrong.

As a writer, naturally I want as many people as possible to know about my books and I use the blog to do it.  I also belong to a number of writer’s groups, some of which meet and some are only on line, at least for me.  I always send a link to the latest blog to all of these sites as well as other groups like my old high schools, family and others.

This week I was told not to send my blog to a particular group of writers in Georgia because my title included profanity.  If this had been a children’s book group or a religious one, I might have understood a little better, but this was not the case.  This was a group (so I thought) that was open to writers of all genres. In today’s world I find it hard to believe that any writer who is true to his or her characters can do so without having some profanity, at least by this group’s standards in the manuscript.

When my first novel came out I was very proud and sent copies to several friends and family to include my mother.  I was on active duty at the time and I always tried to call her every Sunday afternoon because I knew she would be at her sister’s house for a family dinner. After having my book for about a month, I broached the subject in the phone call.  “So, mama, how did you like my book?”  Dead silence for a looong time.  “Where did you learn to talk like that?” she asked.  I tried to explain that it was my character speaking and not me. Nice try, but it didn’t work. “You never talked that way around me,” was her final shot.

Of course, I never did, nor would I ever talk like that around my mother, but times have changed and today kids use language that would have caused a WWII veteran to blush.  If you’re writing a scene where a man hits his thumb with a hammer, I doubt your editor is going to let you get away with him saying, “Oh, gosh, golly gee whiz that hurts!”  I know the last time I slammed my finger in a door, I embarrassed everyone within hearing range.

I’m going to get off my soap box in a minute, but I do want to make a point since I plan to send this to several writer’s groups.  Be true, not only to your characters but to yourself as well.  If your character needs to say something that may offend a reader, if it is appropriate to the person and the situation, go for it. I’ll bet the reader’s eyes can skip over a word or two if they don’t like it. And if you get thrown out of a writer’s group, let me know and we’ll form our own.

Bottom line, if we can have TGIF, we can have SHIT.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The SKY is FALLING....FFFFAAAALLLLLIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!!

Go Navy..no, really…Goooo Navy

It’s autumn and that means all kinds of good things depending on where you live. Some things are universal like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and the most famous of all FOOTBALL SATURDAYS.  No matter what city or state you live in, crowds gather at the stadium, a favorite sports bar or a living room to watch The Game.

Watching the game is a ritual just as surely as preparing for any of the aforementioned holidays. Going to the game at the stadium? You have to put on a silly hat or other garment, paint your entire body the team’s colors and make a fool of yourself if the camera happens to catch you during the game.  But wait.  There’s more. What about the hours before the gates open for you to go to your seat?  Did you drive your multi-gazillion dollar motor home to the parking lot, pull out your custom made gas grill that resembles a football, locomotive, team mascot or some other custom item that cost multi-dollars?  Doesn’t matter if you went to the school or not.  You are a rabid fan.  The school, the vendors, the hat, tee-shirt, jersey, cap and banner salesmen love you.

But what about those who can’t attend the game or can’t even watch it live on television?  I’m talking about the men and women in uniform. With apologies to those in boots now, I’m mostly talking about those of us who were in Viet Nam.  We could occasionally hear a game on AFVN, the Armed Forces Viet Nam radio network, but they were mostly professional games.  If you wanted to know a score or anything about your college it came the next day on a news broadcast.  There was one exception and that was the annual Army/Navy football game.

In some of the more civilized places where the military was stationed, not only in Viet Nam but world-wide, it was broadcast live on the radio.  Officer’s clubs throughout the world filled, depending on the local time zone. A note here.  Nobody in uniform wanted to start drinking before the day began and always stopped at midnight so they would be ready for the next day, but I digress as I sometimes do.

When I think of autumn, I remember a particular Saturday when I was in Viet Nam. I was an Advisor to a local Vietnamese unit and lived on an outpost with my five man team.  We were on an operation and heard the sound of a plane approaching.  We looked up and saw what was known as a Black Pony.  This was a type of aircraft that was used for bombing missions in our area. We usually knew when a mission was scheduled so I did not pay much attention to the plane until it began to fly lower over us.  My fear was that the pilot thought we were the bad guys and would drop a bomb on us. If it was a planned mission they usually made a pass, dropped leaflets telling the locals to hunker down and giving the bad guy time to unass the area.  They would then follow up in short order with bombs, not giving either group time to comply.

As he passed over us, it looked like a snowstorm as leaflets floated to the ground.  We knew what was coming, so I told my sergeant to get on the radio and let them know we were friendlies…at least until he made the bombing run then we would take it personal.

While he was trying to reach the Navy who flew the Black Pony’s, I managed to grab one of the leaflets. Normally they were only printed in Vietnamese, but occasionally they also included an English translation. The one I held needed no translation.  As I read it, the plane did a wing-waggle and flew away.

I was holding a leaflet that said GO NAVY! BEAT ARMY.  The plane left before we could shoot it down.

Cats or Dogs?

I think when a person is born, there are certain things that come with the turf.   You can’t pick your parents or where you were born for instance. I also think there should be some things written on the bottom of your birth certificate that will follow you all through your life.  When my daughters were little and one, or both of them complained about something not being “fair” I always told them to go get a copy of their birth certificates and show me the word “fair” on it.  It if was there, I’d make the problem go away.  If not, suck it up.  Take a knee and rub some dirt on it.  No, I didn’t say that to them, but they got the idea.

I also think there should be some blank lines on the bottom to put things that we learn as we go through life.  Like: Johnny is a dog person.  Mary is a cat person.  Bill supports the University of Tennessee.  Charlie is a Georgia Bulldog fan.  These are things we can’t escape and probably can never change. There are some unwritten rules that say you can’t like cats if you like dogs.  Ever hear of a Georgia fan who also liked Georgia Tech?  How about Alabama and Auburn?  Ever go to a restaurant and have to decide between quiche and turnip greens?  Ain’t gonna happen.

Just so you don’t have to ask, I’m a dog person.  I never owned a cat and I don’t think I ever will.  My wife and daughters love cats and I have been forced to share my home with a variety of cats over the years.  Some I tolerated better than others, but I never really like a single one. My first pet was a black, non-offensive, middle of the road kind of mutt named Teddy.  As an only child, (me...not Teddy) he was my best friend.  We lived in the country on a dirt road and Teddy and I had more woods and creeks to play in than you can imagine, and we made the most of all of them.

One day my Dad said we were moving to Florida from Georgia and I couldn’t take Teddy.  This was not acceptable, and we made plans to run away. I decided we could join the Foreign Legion because there was a building just down the road from us where they met. They had dances every weekend and a fish fry twice a year.  I felt certain they could use a smart ten-year-old and his faithful dog. Before we could pack a bag and hit the road, my Uncle said he’d “keep Teddy for me until I came back to get him.” I knew that was the best deal I could get, so I watched as they drove off with Teddy hanging his head out of the car window looking back to our house…and his.

Two years later we moved back to Georgia and I went to get Teddy, but there was a complication.  He had found a new home, but he had not forgotten me.  He jumped all over me the first time he saw me, but it was not the same.  I think there was something written on the bottom of his birth certificate that said, “you can never go back,” and he shared that with me.  Teddy lived several more years in his new home and my Uncle and his family cried when he left them.  He would have liked that.

As for cats, now as I tell my good friends, Pat and Ken (who is recuperating from a heart attack) I love cats.  I just can’t eat a whole one by myself.

FYI!

Paul will be signing books at Wall of Books in Columbus, Ga. on Saturday October 6th from 1pm to 4pm!

Located at 4508 Armour Rd. Columbus, Ga. 31904

http://www.wallsofbooks.net