December 1, 2024 • 49 mins
Lynn Hesse is a law enforcement officer turned author. Lynn joins me to talk about her body of work in addition to her latest novel, “The Underground Chameleon: an android against authoritarianism.”
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, thanks for joining me today. I'm so glad that
you could join me. This is early December twenty twenty four.
It's a little bit nippy here in the southeaster in
the US. But up there in the north, wow, it
is just bitter cold. About two feet of snow up
there in northeast Ohio going all the way up to
Buffalo at this point. So I'm glad we got some sun.
(00:22):
It's dry hair and cold, but I'm not going to
really complain too much about that because most of the year,
and I always remember it is hot and human I
say it here all the time. So I'm really grateful
that we're doing fine here At the moments.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I kind of wonder if we're going.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
To have another snowmageddon here in the atl or here
even throughout the southeast.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Who knows.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Just this Alberta clipper coming all the way down out
of Canada. It doesn't reach us very much, so this
is really unusual, and.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It could always hit us with some snow one day.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
We shall see, so we might be looking back and saying, wow,
you know what you called it, there's some snow in
the atl But who knows. It's been a long time
since we had any snow here, but I'm glad you
joined me today. It's a little bit different. I am
recording this a little.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Bit differently, as you have noticed.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Just this is off the cuff, and I just wanted
to get this episode up because this is really important
that I get you to know Lynn. She's an amazing author.
I met her online through the site called Alignable, and
I've met some really interesting people.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
There are a lot of writers there, and she's a
great writer.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
She was once a detective here in a county called Decab.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
It has an ell in it, yes, and up in
Illinois they call it Decalb.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Down here at Decab County, USA in Georgia, and she
worked there for quite some time and really wanted to
change in the life and started to write short stories
and then eventually into books and she still does both
and it's just really amazing and incredibly creative. And I
just wanted to get this out and get everybody to
see what's going on with a wonderful writing scene, not
(02:08):
just here in the southeastern US but everywhere.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
And it's just very encouraging to see.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
People who are just striking it out on their own
and maybe even summer self publishing. Lynn has a great
editor who goes over everything and we ask about that.
I asked her about that progress, about how she does that, and.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Just really cool.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
I really you know again another you know, you're an
artist when you're a writer, and to me, you're kind
of a magician. So I'm always curious to what the
processes and what goes into it and life experiences happens,
so you can end up becoming just an amazing writer
like Lyn's.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So I hope you enjoy this and I'll see on
the other side of this.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
We have a really great talk and I really enjoyed
speaking with her. It's great to see you. What a wonderful,
beautiful morning this is.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
It is a wonderful morning.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, finally here Now you're in the Atlanta metro area.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yes, I live in Stone Mountain, which is you know,
the Ree Dan area.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, yeah, that's nice. You're not too far from me.
I'm in Peachtree Corners have been for many decades now
and I love it. Yeah, and I love this time
of the year here in late November. It's just a
beautiful Finally.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah. We we had a little mishap or somebody crashed
their cart in the side of one of our side walls.
So it's a little drafty.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Because it's oh my god.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
But we've got people coming out today, so hopefully you'll
get fixed.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Sou Okay, so it's not too bad. I mean, you
don't have any lights.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
I mean, you know, I pretty much came in that
side of it. But you know, my husband wasn't hurt.
His office was on the other side befhere they hit.
So you know, we have to count our blessings.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Oh my gosh, how does that happen? Are you too?
Are you close to a road? How does that diffen?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Apparently she was cull to sect sort of goes up
and she was two or three houses up on the
other side, and she was there. She was a nurse
and she was there talking to somebody and apparently she
must have left a car neutral and stepped out to
talk to the client and rolling and she tumbles to
get out of the way because the door's opened, and
(04:24):
it does this kind of number, you know, down the
hill and it doesn't hit the tree, and it doesn't
hit the air conditioning unit, but it just hits that
well real good son. You know, she had minor cuts
and stuff and my husband wasn't hurt, so I was okay,
that's good.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Oh my gosh, well thank god, I have no I mean,
it's wild, that's really wild. So, like, who puts their
car in neutral unless you're having it pushed or something
like that.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
You know, I have a law enforcement background, and so
I have worked a few of those calls. Actually, yeah,
it's totally when it happens to you, right.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, yeah, that's strange. So law enforcement. What did you
do in law enforcement all those years?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Well, I did a lot of I was on the
street a lot. I was a detective for three years
and I left with the rankler titted. I was one
of the first women who actually rode in patrol car
and answered calls into Cab County.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
So Cab County, so Big County.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Nineteen eighty, Yeah, nineteen eighty a.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Huge but not as many people back then. Obviously, his
place has just exploded over the years.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
It has, it has, but you know it was actually
going on during my time that I was there. By
the time we reached the nineties, you know, it was
just crazy amount of people that came here, and of
course they have the set pretty much the same amount
of police officers then as they do now. I mean
it's unbelievable. I don't know how they handle anything.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Yeah. Yeah, if you're not going to increase those numbers,
you have more of the citizens and fewer law enforcements.
So that's yeah. You got to entice them with bigger
paychecks and that's yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I don't know, I don't know what the answer is.
You know, we used to have a really good retirement system, etc.
But it's I'm more concerned about their training now. I
feel like they need to get better training.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah, and very important. And in Atlanta, Fulton County, Atlanta,
they are talking about that huge training facility which seems
like completely state of the art. Yeah, there's been just
like all this protest over there for the It's been
kind of national too. People have been following that, so
those who are not from the metro area.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Yeah, my husband is a photo journalist and he does
all the work for the caterers, so he covered a
lot of that story for cup City. So yeah, I'm
quite aware of all the controversy over that.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah. Yeah. Is he an independent of freelancer or is
he actually contrast he is.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
He is, but he does most of his work for them,
but he does a whole bunch of other stuff too,
and he's won a bunch of awards. I'm repeat, I
mean excellent.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah. I've been video production too, I've been for thirty
some years now. Yeah, I enjoyed that. That's my dad gig.
So I do mainly video editing producing, and I could
do some shooting too, and I love it. I love
television production and film production.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah, he started doing some drown shots in the last
few years, and yes, that's been an interesting You know.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Sideline drones are funny because I'm just like, I don't know.
I mean, I'd love to learn how to pilot those things,
but I'm so friend I'm gonna crash it and take
somebody's hat off with that thing.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Well, you have to take a course, and it's quat
It's quite difficult. I mean, he's imagine wedding for about
six months before it took it, and you have to
get a license. You have to know the weather and
the wind and the clouds. But anyway, he's had fun
with it. I think he's got a few things that
you just can't get out of. He used it for
(07:57):
comp City actually.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, technology is just amazing. I love working with those
kind of shots. It's just it gets into nooks and
crannies that you never could even think possible. I love that.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, So I mean you did law enforcement and then
after all that time getting into writing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Well, I had always danced. I was the Sacred Dance
teacher for over twenty years, and so I was always
dancing and doing things like that along with you know,
along with the going to school and getting a degree
and raising two children and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So that had to be really busy, I'm sure, and
then your kids are probably busy as well.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
He was a fireperson for at the same time that
I was a police officer, so he was working twenty
four hour shifts. I was working like rotating shifts with
days off that changed every ninety days. So we had
a wild life trying to raise those children. But we
I don't think they're you know too.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Jade, Yeah, I know, kids are like, well, why didn't
we have dinner every night together? You know, you neglected me.
It's like nothing we could do about the past. You
just got to move on.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
That's the way they were. More like, you know, their
friends would say things. I'm sure. My daughter was so
embarrassed because I was behind her. I was still in uniform.
I was coming home from work, and I was behind
their school bus. She was in high school. And there
was some kind of commotion on the bus and the
(09:36):
bus driver pulled over, and so I got out to
check on the bus driver, you know, and she was
mortified that I had come up there. You know.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Of course, oh my god, you're embarrassing me.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
She wasn't concerned about the fight on the bus. She
just wanted me not to be there. You know.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah, that failing, I can feel that. So this must
have given you tons of ideas in getting into novel writing.
I mean the material I had.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Always journaled, and towards the end of my career, I
knew I was getting burnt out, and uh, I very
rarely took a vacation, but I took a vacation with
a mobile Alabama for a mincro and my husband and
life and we were walking down Dophin Street and there's
(10:31):
a bunch of billiard parers, or at least there was then,
and they were all really busy except this one. So
I was really curious and I peeked in the window,
you know, and there was these older white guys that
were sitting around your sheet bar with the older billiard parlors,
you know, to type tables and stuff. And boy did
(10:53):
they give me a look. They did not want to
come in there. And I was like, hmmm, So I
knew I had, you know, done some training on the
militia groups, because you know, when you stop somebody that's
from a militia group, they don't they don't have they
don't recognize the government, yes agency, so they don't give
you any any idea or anything like that. So I
(11:15):
was familiar with the militia group and to some extent,
so I anyway, my imagination started working and I said,
you know, that could be the the KKK, you know,
guys that are left over from the KKK. So anyway,
the first chapter came out before I ever left Mobile
on well Abrage my first novel, So that's kind of
(11:38):
how that came to be. And then by the time
I got back, uh, I had there was some you
hear everything as a police officer and female police officer,
here's a lot of crude things about women.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Oh yes, okay, you know I thought i'd heard it
all right.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
But I found out that there was a woman who
had been married for about ten years. She'd been divorced
ten years from this guy, and she done everything right.
She had never gone back to him. She had taken
out a TP, a temporary protective order, she dropped it.
She did the you know, followed the rules, and he
(12:19):
had kidnapped her and was raping her.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
And this did not happen on my watch. But the
one of the young guys that was on SWAT was
talking to me at the pumps about how it bothered
him that they had told SWAP to stand down when
they found out she had been married to this guy.
And the report was that nothing was happening in to
(12:43):
her that hadn't happened to her a thousand times she
was married.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Mmmmh okay God.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
So why that was the thing that did it for me,
I don't know, because I, like I said, had heard
at all. But I went in to be brief by
my captain after I had talked to this guy at
the punts, and he said the same thing.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, gosh.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
And I remember thinking, if I don't leave, I'm going
to totally lose it and tell everybody. But I really think, yeah,
it's wid Yeah. So then I went on vacation and
I just decided, hey, it's it's time. I want to
dance more, I want to write more. And life is short.
And I was, you know, fifty two ish, so it
(13:27):
was time.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
It is. You know, it does kind of hit you
around that age. You know, it's like you put your
time in, you paid your dues. It's like, yeah, you
get over that certain point. It's like I not even
so much that you're not old. It's like it sounds
like I'm too old for this. It's just that you
just come to that point where it's like you did
you you you served your time, and you come to
(13:48):
that realization. So yeah, that's so well. Of rage was
very much inspired and you got into doing that.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah, And of course you have to you have to
learn to write. It is a skill. And so I
I started going to you know, critique groups and joined
the writer Atlanta Writers and so forth. You know. But
and I think I must have written I don't know
how many drafts. But I one of the things that
(14:19):
was happening that I wasn't quite aware of until later
on was that I was dealing with PTSD. Sure, and
and so to be able to have a perspective to
actually write an entertaining book that wasn't uh you know,
my you know, garbage out about how I felt about
(14:40):
all the sexism, racism, et cetera. I had to get
gain a perspective to write a you know, a novel
that had some of those sub things in it. But
that wasn't what you know, that was the novel. So
because we're writing fiction, we're writing you know, people want
to be entertained as well as you know, learn a
(15:03):
little bit along along the way. So the first book,
my character is female, Ricky Cobb and Carly and so
you know, and then I have a second book in
the series that where she's a little bit older and
she's trying to make sergeant. Then. So yeah, it's it's
(15:25):
a fun you know, and I get to do whatever
I want. I'm a multi genre author, So I have
those two crime novels, and then I have a suspense
and I have a mystery that a traditional mystery that
I wrote after the crime novels. It's a little bit lighter.
It's got a lot of humor in it. And I
did that deliberately because I needed that, you know.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Yeah, and just breakaway.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Yeah, and I sat it in small town and prosides
where my people have lived. I've never lived there, but
they've lived there a long time. And I'm from a
small town originally in Missouri, so I know all that's
small town secrets, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, it's true, it's true. Yeah. You feel like, oh,
this is just the thing in movies, TV. But like
you've seen that experience.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Oh no, there's a whole you know thing in small
towns and so uh. And of course I knew for
scythe intimately, I'm talking about the city, not the county.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
It's south of here, Forestyth, Georgia.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Yes, yes, near Barnesville, about thirty minutes for making, and
so I was really familiar with all the locations. And
I got to use the tattoo parlor and the barbecue
joint and then you know in my books. So and
one of the funny things that happened about that was
(16:41):
I guess there had been a pick and pay convenience.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Store at a pick and pay.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
On the other side of town. Yeah, my parents, And
if I ever saw it, it wasn't conscious. Well anyway,
there's a pick and pay in the book. And so
after the novel came out. My sister said, well, you
know there was a pick and payer, but I said, no,
I don't remember that at all. But and I was
(17:09):
had started the book. I started that novel. It's called
it Another Kind of Hero, and I started it. I
got about third way through a good rough draft, and
I woke up with this character almost fully formed in
my head of a ghost. And I had no intention
of putting a ghost in there at all, making the
(17:31):
normal kind of mystery. But anyway, I write every day.
I had by then I developed to write in the morning,
you know, all the kind of thing. And then I
keep it writing outline because I'm what they call a panther,
not a plotter.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah. Yeah, And so.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
For about two weeks, I just wasn't getting anywhere. You know.
I was like, okay, all right, Wanda, her name's Wanda.
I said, okay, Wanda, You're in the book, so cool.
So I went back and she's kind of a narrator,
helps the two sisters loose, you know, solve the big
crime that's happening in for Sight. Then there's an undercover
(18:13):
agent in the book. That's a lot of fun. Because
my mother, very religious woman, went to a small Methodist
church down off Floyd Road, and she was at book.
She was probably a Bible study, I don't know. It
was a Wednesday night, you know, kind of thing in
the summer. So the door was opened to the church.
(18:35):
We're talking very small, fifty probably fifty minutes and a
guy Parks's motorcycle comes in in full leather gear with
a ponytail and says, I just wanted to know if
you know we would be welcomed. I have a black
girlfriend or truck driver, and we're thinking about minds and property,
and I just felt the presence of.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
The Lord about this church character.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
So he comes in, he starts talking to the minister,
and my mother's got Parkinson's. She's tired, she wants to
go home. So our friend drives her home. Well all
about and my mother's a very gutsy woman, okay. She
she says, well, you know, that man could be killing
the minister right now. We don't know this man, you know.
(19:22):
And so Julie, who was driving her home, who's in
her seventies. Then anyway, she says, well, I'm going to
go back and check on him. I'll drop you off
and i'll go back checks check her. So there's this
church and there's this old post office belt in the
like you know, eighteen hundreds, you know, on this little
kind of dirt road that comes between Florida. Two lane
(19:43):
paid for it, and she parks a car like you
know here. She thinks she's being real sneaky, so she
can see in and you know, see the motorcycle. Well
the motorcycle guy comes out, gets on it just lights
her up, lights her up. You know. Well, come to
find out he was a Rhodes scholar in religions.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Oh my gosh, very good.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
So anyway, that's the story their description of this guy.
So this is what, of course became my undercover cop.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Now when do you come up with the names like
DA Agent Dewey Blackmond? I mean, how do you come
up with character names? Is it like kind of based
on people you know in your life or you just
kind of do a little research to say, hey, that
kind of name would would be happening in a place
like Fortyth, Georgia.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
You know, I don't know where Dewey's name came from.
Of course I live in Stone, I live outside of
Stone Mountain, so I had I knew about Shermantown, and
I real that that I got to interview a woman
who had lived there forever and ever, and her people
had lived there, and I think her father had actually
(20:53):
built her their house there. But anyway, very wonderful woman.
She gave me a great interview, and I wanted to
have the girlfriend living in Shermantown so that I could
bring that in, you know. And so I have no
idea where that name come from, or you know, sometimes
(21:15):
I I do deliberately use names, like I have a
person that comes to most of my book signings and
her first name is Elizabeth, and so I have put
a character I just finished the rough draft of historical
fantasy novella, and she's just been so sweet and so supportive,
(21:38):
and so I told her, I'm going to put your
name in the book. Is that okay? You know? And so,
but I'm going to I'm going to make sure that
it'll be all okay with her, because I did that
one other time with somebody who won a raffle at
one of my book launches, but the character was killed
off and he didn't like that.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
He was very upset.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
I need to make sure it's okay whatever the character.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Tell them what's going to happen with that character?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Is that okay? Because I can change your name before
it goes in the bridge.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
It's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
So when you do your writing these days, how much
do you block out a certain amount of time or
just write whenever it hits you? Are you? How disciplined
are you with that?
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Okay? Well, I really try to get up, get my coffee.
Bless my husband. He likes to bring it to me,
and I'm like, and I have my little dcalf coffee,
which is it's a ritual, you know, calf coffee. I
write for a couple of hours. Sometimes I'll go back
and do other things, but you know, on the book
(22:49):
later on, I usually have two projects going on at
the same time. You know. I don't know why that is.
It just seems like that if I get here and
I can't write on that story, I'll write on something
else for that day. When you're in between novels or
when you're doing a lot of heavy editing, it's kind
(23:12):
of hard to keep that schedule for me, I you know,
if because it takes so much time to do proofing
and to do the marketing and the setup for the
launch and all that, and sometimes that drops by the wayside,
and I have to do things at different times of
the day. But that's usually I get up, I'll do
(23:35):
my writing, and then I'll have kind of brunch, you know. Yeah,
and like I said, I might go back and do
some more. Depends on it depends on a lot of times.
It depends on like the editor that I'm working with,
the professional editor needs the manuscript at a certain date.
Then you know, you have to you have to get
it out. You have to get it out. But but
(23:57):
I'm not a fast writer, and I like to go
over it, you know, the next morning. Like whatever I
wrote this writing scenes, go of the scene, I go
back the next day. I'll read it again, tweak it
a little bit, and then go on right the next thing.
So that's kind of how I do it. And every
(24:18):
once in a while, there'll be you know, a little
slipping the dialogue at the waffle house, or somebody will
say something over here, and I go, that needs to
be that needs to do some character needs to say that.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, yeah, so you get the ideas right there, like
waffle house. Do you do immediately put that in your
notes like either handwriting or in the phone.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah, and I do a lot of those things go
into short stories. I've tried to do a few short
stories and have gotten a few published here and there,
and a lot of that will go into short stories.
I have one that I'm trying to get published that
I think is kind of the best I've written yet
on short stories. It's called Sorrow Road. And I was going.
(24:59):
I go the back from my house to my sister's
house in for scythe most of the time, because seventy
five is a nightmare, you know, And there is a
side road which I had never noticed for some reason
that day I noticed it was called Sara Road. Clus
to McDonald, I said, okay, who would live on a
(25:21):
road called Sara Road? You know? And they should just
started going. And my father, I come from blue collar people,
and my father had, you know, was like taking care
of himselfself at twelve years old, that kind of thing.
And he had a milk rout when you know, he
was too young to be drive. He really shouldn't, but anyway,
(25:43):
I guess I didn't care a back then. And so
his story and then my story growing up in the fifties,
it sort of came together in this story, and so
it's kind of set in the early sixties, and I
(26:05):
just started imagining what it would be like if I
was the middle child. But if I had been the
oldest female child of the family and the father was
not there in a blue collar family, how would we
have survived? And so this story started developing based on
you know kind of you know, I consider myself pretty
(26:28):
pretty what do they call it, spunky? That's what they
called me in the police force. They called me spunky.
And so I said, well, you know, I would probably
got get a job someplace and support my family. You know,
I would make sure that they had bread on the table.
And so this character started forming where she realized she
(26:54):
couldn't get a job to do that, and she was
a guy and else she presented herself as a male.
So that was very interesting to write that story about
how she managed to do what she did and then
you know, the eventuality of being caught right, so.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Good. Yeah, you have another short story, Bitter Love, that
kind of caught my eye. It takes place in Dunwoody.
What was the inspiration on that?
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Oh gosh, why you've done your research.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
I try to do my own work.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Yeah, yeah, well, I think. Yeah. I'm a member of
the Monroe Writers Group or was for a really long time,
and the lady wanted to do a cozy anthology, and
I said, well, i'll try, you know, I'll try. I
don't really write cozy's, but i'll try. Well, if you
(27:54):
recall reading that story, the first one of the first
things that she's at a triple homicide, right.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
An unusual.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
So the lady who was doing the mythology said, Lynn,
I can't put this in a cozy This is not
you know. I said, well, okay, fine, but you know
this is I really really tried to not put anything
super graphic in there, but if you can't handle it,
that's okay. I'll send it someplace else, you know. But anyway,
(28:30):
it came about because she asked me to write this story,
and I really was trying to make it well. And
my mother in law was a very difficult woman, but
I mean she was and so and she never changed
(28:52):
her mind about me, Okay, she never did, Okay, no
matter how many years being and I were together. So
I think there was just a little snippet while she
at one point she and her husband lived with us
because he had had a stroke, and they lived with
us for a very long year, and.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
I remember coming home from work, you know, from being
a police officer, and kind of writing in my journalists
and thinking, you know, well I can't you know, don't
judge me. That's something about don't judge me. But I
think I've just killed my mother in law something like
that my journal and it made me laugh, you know,
(29:39):
it made me. It made me feel better, so I thought,
so that was part of that's part.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
So it sound a pretty exhausting coming home dealing with that.
Oh cook me supper.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Yeah. In fact, that was one of the reasons I
think they finally laughed. I had a female dancer that
was just a wonderful dancer, and she would come over
and I would push back the furniture and we would
dance in my choreograph in my living room. And so
she had she was an exact big exec for some company.
(30:20):
And she came from work and she had her noise
clothes and everything, and she went and changed and we
anyway it took. I knew it was going to be
seven thirty eight o'clock before she left, and I told
them that, you know, and I said you can either
go in and fix yourself something, which of course they
never did, or you know, you can go out and
eat because it's going to be late. It's not going
to be six o'clock on the table, you know. Well
(30:41):
about seven they came in and sat the dining room
table and just sat there and watched us, you know,
like we're waiting, there's our plates. And so when she
finally left, Bob said, well, you're going to treat you
like this, We'll just go home, and I was like,
(31:03):
you know, I did tell you that it was going
to be late. So but anyway, Yeah, you know, the
family are always fun, and there's always those those things
that you know, who knows who's holding the grudge from
what happened at nineteen ninety seven, you know, at the
(31:28):
at the time that you got together and you said
something you didn't even know you said that was wrong,
so or they hurt their feelings. So family, family's a trip.
But yeah, we love them.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, we just got through Thanksgiving, so I mean, not
that I have anybody over, but it's like it's yeah,
I know I've heard those stories where it's complicated, especially
in this Dan edge.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Yeah, and you know with the political scene. I kind
of you know, I would consider myself moderate Democrat, but
a lot of my people are not, and so, you know,
interesting negotiating all of that. Yeah, I think that I've
(32:13):
learned to listen, uh and not come back with these
rebuttals immediately. Yeah. My I did some work with better
braver angels. I don't know if that you saw that.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, yeah, I've seen that.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
That was a very when I did, uh, performed with mine.
The gap that was you know, that was training me
to listen because I actually wrote scripts with people who
were all right, yes, So you really have to strut yourself.
You have to really listen, and you know, put that
judgment thing in the corner. I'm not saying it goes
(32:51):
away completely, but you know, you try not to have
that in the forefront. When you are really trying to listen.
You can't do that. So and you do find common ground.
But when you're with family, it's I think it's even
more difficult.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Oh it is.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
It is.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
I hear horrible stories, even with my own extended families
and stuff like that. I hear some people aren't even
talking because of oh you voted for X. You miss
be a hateful, selfish person, and I've never seen anything
that bad. And it's become more and more of a
circus as over the years as I've been in news
and covering all this. Wow, it just gets more and
(33:32):
more wild. And this year, especially with the way that
people have been talking and a lot of segments have
been done on how do you get along with your family,
how to deal with it at Thanksgiving? It's seen that before.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Yeah, yeah, well yeah, and it's yeah, it can be interesting.
I was in a car driving to a birthday party.
My daughter was driving, and so I thought she was
Democrat and she's not, or she didn't vove for Democrat
(34:07):
this time, I guess based on her comments. So it
was a very long It was a very long ride
because I was trying to not say no, and of
course I was emotionally kind of like oh god, you know,
so I was trying to regroup. But yeah, you just
have to She's a grown adult, way past grown, and
(34:28):
she can make a decisions. And she knows. She knows
that I worked for the dams in the cab, and
she knows I have signs in my yard and you know,
it's not a secret where I stand. So there wasn't
any reason for me to start preaching, right.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
So yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of interesting as you
have an adult child, they they formed their own ideas
and opinions, and I'm always blown away by that. I'm
a twenty six year old and you know, it's like, wow,
this is my little baby I delivered you. You know,
it's like in your you got these ideas and thoughts
about current events. It's just really fascinating.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Yeah, and you know, I feel like I've showed her
a strong woman growing up, and she knows that I'm
very pro women empowerment. Yeah, so when something happens, I
mean I think she's more and more as she matures,
I think more she gets it, more and more.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
But when she was in her early twenties, she was
just like, I don't understand why you think you've got
to stand up for women. You know, everything's fine, you know,
everything's good. And I'm like, okay, well we'll talk in
a few years. You know, when you put your butt
off and you can't get promoted, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, you've been there. You've been there in male dominated areas,
and you remember the fifties and sixties and you know,
it's like you don't even get that. You know, it's
like you don't understand what that fight was to get
to this point. And yeah, very misogynistic, especially in those
areas and law enforcement back way back when even.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Oh yeah in the eighties. Uh, there was a I'm
doing I'm doing a little bit of uh mentoring and collecting,
helping the retirees the females from Dakib County in public safety,
and so I've just kind of started that process the
next couple of months, and so, uh, you know, the
(36:25):
it's just it's just interesting how even if you were
in you know, say you were a nine one one operator,
or you worked in you know, you're the first black
female supervisor in radio or or you know, and we
were so separated. We were so like isolated from each other,
and there was very few female officers and so you
(36:48):
were you work by yourself. You know, you didn't have
a fe There was no female sergeants or anything like that,
so you were working by yourself. They made sure you
were in different precincts and you just never saw another female.
So if the guys decided that they weren't going to
VACUU on a call or calls, that's just where you were,
(37:12):
you know. And my first to UY was like that
where I knew hadn't been out there too long, maybe
six months, and I had it for and I pulled
my first why. And then I was working morning watch,
which is the eleven to seven in the morning shift,
and it was about three o'clock in the morning, and
I pulled this guy over and I know nobody's coming.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Oh gosh, scary.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
And I I mean, he's all over the road, you know,
it's real dark and anything. And I get him to
the back and I'm padding him down and I get
one handcuff on him and he bucks up on me
and starts fighting. I get him in the back seat,
but I cannot get that other handcuff on.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
You know, I just keep and I'm just you know,
I'm praying, praying. Now. Yeah, I won't get that, you know,
So it's all.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Can get that in. Yeah, you're okay.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
And so. And there's no lights. I'm in a convenienced
store parking lot and uh, there's no lights. It's just
a dark street. And I don't hear a car, I
don't see any lights. But I hear this force, go,
may I help you, officer, And this hand comes over
and just holds down hand. I go click click, and
(38:24):
I turn around and there's nobody there.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Oh my gosh, huh nobody.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
That's one of my angel stories. As far as I'm concerned,
that was an angel.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
There was an angel.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, where I just I was like, okay, okay,
well that's where my help came from.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Today.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Yeah, that would have been salt. If you had the
body cameras back then, you can who came out well,
you know, I mean yeah, I mean that's wild. Yeah,
Oh my god. It's scary, it really is. I mean,
you know, nobody really understands the other side of this.
It's like, you know, you, of course you have to
be confident, bold as a law officer, and you know,
(39:10):
nobody really understands what's going through that person's mind. How
tough and scary that could be.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Yeah, I mean, you just you know, you have to
do it. And I had very few fights during my
twenty five years. I mean probably six what you'd call
real fights, and they were mostly because the other officer
that showed up to back me said the wrong thing.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Uh yeah, they're taking out their frustrations and it's getting
the best of them.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
That a lot.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
That could get you no more trouble. Yeah yeah, so
but yeah, yeah that, but they really need to be
trained in rastling and not boxing. We had we did
we did some like flight Day at the end of
the you know, academy, and they used that to scare
you the whole time that you're going to get knocked
(40:00):
out and all that stuff. And of course I had
never boxed right, and wrestling would have been much better
because I did take you know, there was hand to
hand and stuff like that too. But yeah, I definitely
think that would be good training. But they also need
to train based on you know, and I know I'm biased,
(40:23):
but based on the female strengths of negotiation interpersonal skills.
Like I said, if I can, I mean, I worked
the high crime area in the Cape Kenny most of
my career and I did not because I treated people
respect Yeah, you gotta be ready if they got a gun. Yeah.
(40:46):
I'm not saying you don't have to be trained to
fight and do what you've got to do. What I'm
saying is you don't have to get there sometimes if
you just keep your mouth.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Yeah, Yeah, it's that communication at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
And you know, for instance, I got a war and
I'm going in and the guy's got three kids on
the couch, Well, would you like your wife to take
your kids in the back room?
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Yeah? Yeah, things like that. It's a ranky situation.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
And you know, big guys. I've taken big guys in
who you know willingly went because I treated them with respect.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Yeah, that's God.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
And there's always people that no matter what you say,
they're gonna fight you.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Yeah, because they're already riled.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
Up by going to listen and they are gonna you know,
but that just happens really rare, so you know job.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Yeah. So one of your latest works, it's this is
an interesting one and Android against authoritarianism, and you're thinking
about the future on this one.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
I know. Well, my I have a grandson that's twitter
and at North Chorchia College and he was in junior
high school, I believe, and he gave me the idea, Uh, grandma,
why don't you write a detective, you know, story about
a grandmother in the future with a with a rote.
(42:18):
Well he's robot, a robot grandson of something. Well, that's interesting.
You know, and I'm writing I'm probably writing my third
I'm probably writing the suspense novel about that time. So
I make a few notes, you know, and I foolishly
thought that we could maybe started together, maybe he would
(42:39):
want to do this, because this was COVID, you know,
time of COVID. He was out of school. I thought,
maybe he'll want to help write, you know, maybe that'll
keep him engaged and we can do a project together
and I.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Can get closer to him.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
You know. It's all self bar really well, and he's like,
uh no, I'm good. You know, I gave you the idea.
I'm good. So he never helped me with anything, but
he did give me the idea for it. So that's
where that came from.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Yeah, what a neat story about mother.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Yeah, so much fun making up this whole world. You know,
did a little research. But if I wanted to make
something a certain way, it's in the future.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Hey, you know, yeah, and that's not too far off.
I think by twenty forty nine we could maybe see
those flying cars.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Yeah, of course, of course, and you know some of
my little you know, of course, there's always something of
yourself put in there, and you know, the fear of
aging and having to deal with doctors and medications and
so forth. Fortunately, I'm really healthy and I'm not dealing
(43:54):
with that yet. But you know, I think that's where
the the government mental control medication thing came from. And
the story was, you know, if the government was supervising
everything like that, and if you didn't do what you
were told, then you end up in the home. You know, Yeah,
(44:15):
that would be very scary for me. So I think that,
you know, some of that comes out in the story too.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Yeah, I could see that happening and getting that idea
from COVID, the way that we were dealing with mandates
and all the bruhaha and the politics behind that. I've
never seen that before. I never even thought i'd see
something like that happening. That was very overwellian in a
lot of ways. It wasn't amazing. Yeah, yeah, I mean,
I love the fact though that I was able to
(44:44):
start working from home, but I still went to the
office two weeks at a time, and I would work
from home two weeks at a time, but I traveled.
My daughter was just living in Boston at that time,
and it was great to fly. Almost had the whole
plane to myself. I was like, this isn't so bad,
but yeah, what a weird time.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
I remember going up to Massachusetts and I was so scared,
like I think it'll let me off the plane. I
felt like I kind of had little anxiety, like I
have all my papers in order case they need to
check if i've you know, been I don't think we
had the vaccines yet, but like I had to prove
that I didn't have COVID or something. I thought I
had all this proof I needed to have. I go
into Logan, I pretty much have that airport to myself,
(45:26):
and I was like ready to show the guard all
my stuff and just like I'll move along. I was like, wow,
what a time though. I mean really, when you had
the whole plan to yourself, I mean nobody was in
the way. It was great. Actually when it came to that.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Yeah, well you were right to do that.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
I think.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
I think there was a couple of things that I
had planned to do during that time. Man, I didn't
I didn't go. I remember canceling whatever it was because
I just didn't. I'm not crazy about flying. I'm not
afraid to fly. I just don't think it's more the
closed off environment that I don't like.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Yeah, it's just going through all the security, especially Atlanta,
which is one of the busiest airports in the world.
That's not really fun to have to deal with that.
Take your shoes off, now you can take this all
you have to take belts off. You got to put
this on the conveyor and move along. And it's like
there are people who were slow in front of you,
and there's all that hassle to go along with it.
So yeah, I'm doing Marta Marta trained. Fine, I know
(46:27):
it's going to get me there.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
Yeah, Atlanta is bless as the Southern people say, bless
your bless their hearts. Uh, it seems to be the
worst airport I've ever been in. We went to New
York and local Worrio was a braze compared to I
expected it to be crazy. It was nothing.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I know. It's because we're a hub and they're not
like big big markets. The next one is like Dallas,
and that's so far from here. I guess yeah, because
you know, you think New York. I'm like, but they
have two airports. You know, we could use another airport here,
but that's never gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
Well, you know, yeah, we could grow it. I mean
we're just.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Yeah, it keeps going out and out and out, and
there's no barrier to stop Atlanta from growing like you
do in Los Angeles. You got mountains, you got the ocean. Here,
it's like we could go all the way to the
ocean if we wanted, we could go back. We could
expand all the way to the North Georgia Mountains if
we wanted to. And nothing's really stopping all this growth.
It's just phenomenal. I just remember the for those here
(47:34):
in Atlanta, there was the population clock in front of
the old Darlington Hotel there in the hotel apartments there
on Peach. Yeah, it's like I remember that. It was
just climbing, climbing, climbing. Then now that sign ended up
burning out. Anyway, he probably has.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Pictures of that. He was a paramedic at Grady before
he came to the cab and yeah, he has so
many cool pictures of the old Atlanta, you know, around
that time.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
Yeah, incredible. Well thanks for stopping by. I really enjoy
speaking with authors like you. It's just always fun and
it's just different. I talk to a lot of musical artists,
most of the time, but I'm not just limited to that.
I really enjoy hearing about the process of how people
get inspired to write books. And your story is fantastic
the way you were able to reinvent yourself.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
Well, thank you and thank you for inviting me. I
didn't have a book signing at the Vintage Pizzerihea December
the third, so I'll invite you to that. Maybe somebody
listening can come. And it's a Chammi don Mode Road
five to five O two Shami, Damo Road and Dudley
So seven to about eight thirty coming have some pizza.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
I've heard it. Yeah, okay, sounds good. Well, take care,
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
Thank you so much for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
Absolutely, take have a good one.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
Yeah, have a good day.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Wasn't that amazing?
Speaker 1 (49:01):
I really enjoyed that. And I'm so glad that you've
clicked me on going too that Apple podcast.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
I never asked anybody to do that. I don't even
know where you would go.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
And I'm not trying to be completely ignorant on that,
but on Apple podcasts, I think you could give how
many stars or what not to this podcast and many others.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
So give it all the stars. You can, or maybe
you might not want it, who knows.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
We're also available on all kinds of other platforms, so
I always go out there and.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Try to promote that as well.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
So really, have a good one, and I will have
another one out in a week as I speak from now.
Once this gets into the time capsule, this won't make
a big deal, but anyway, enjoy, have a great arrest
of December twenty twenty four and as.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
If this moment, we'll have another episode out next week.
Thank you.
Hey, thanks for joining me today. I'm so glad that
you could join me. This is early December twenty twenty four.
It's a little bit nippy here in the southeaster in
the US. But up there in the north, wow, it
is just bitter cold. About two feet of snow up
there in northeast Ohio going all the way up to
Buffalo at this point. So I'm glad we got some sun.
(00:22):
It's dry hair and cold, but I'm not going to
really complain too much about that because most of the year,
and I always remember it is hot and human I
say it here all the time. So I'm really grateful
that we're doing fine here At the moments.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I kind of wonder if we're going.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
To have another snowmageddon here in the atl or here
even throughout the southeast.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Who knows.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Just this Alberta clipper coming all the way down out
of Canada. It doesn't reach us very much, so this
is really unusual, and.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It could always hit us with some snow one day.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
We shall see, so we might be looking back and saying, wow,
you know what you called it, there's some snow in
the atl But who knows. It's been a long time
since we had any snow here, but I'm glad you
joined me today. It's a little bit different. I am
recording this a little.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Bit differently, as you have noticed.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Just this is off the cuff, and I just wanted
to get this episode up because this is really important
that I get you to know Lynn. She's an amazing author.
I met her online through the site called Alignable, and
I've met some really interesting people.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
There are a lot of writers there, and she's a
great writer.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
She was once a detective here in a county called Decab.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
It has an ell in it, yes, and up in
Illinois they call it Decalb.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Down here at Decab County, USA in Georgia, and she
worked there for quite some time and really wanted to
change in the life and started to write short stories
and then eventually into books and she still does both
and it's just really amazing and incredibly creative. And I
just wanted to get this out and get everybody to
see what's going on with a wonderful writing scene, not
(02:08):
just here in the southeastern US but everywhere.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
And it's just very encouraging to see.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
People who are just striking it out on their own
and maybe even summer self publishing. Lynn has a great
editor who goes over everything and we ask about that.
I asked her about that progress, about how she does that, and.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Just really cool.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
I really you know again another you know, you're an
artist when you're a writer, and to me, you're kind
of a magician. So I'm always curious to what the
processes and what goes into it and life experiences happens,
so you can end up becoming just an amazing writer
like Lyn's.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So I hope you enjoy this and I'll see on
the other side of this.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
We have a really great talk and I really enjoyed
speaking with her. It's great to see you. What a wonderful,
beautiful morning this is.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
It is a wonderful morning.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, finally here Now you're in the Atlanta metro area.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yes, I live in Stone Mountain, which is you know,
the Ree Dan area.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, yeah, that's nice. You're not too far from me.
I'm in Peachtree Corners have been for many decades now
and I love it. Yeah, and I love this time
of the year here in late November. It's just a
beautiful Finally.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah. We we had a little mishap or somebody crashed
their cart in the side of one of our side walls.
So it's a little drafty.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Because it's oh my god.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
But we've got people coming out today, so hopefully you'll
get fixed.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Sou Okay, so it's not too bad. I mean, you
don't have any lights.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
I mean, you know, I pretty much came in that
side of it. But you know, my husband wasn't hurt.
His office was on the other side befhere they hit.
So you know, we have to count our blessings.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Oh my gosh, how does that happen? Are you too?
Are you close to a road? How does that diffen?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Apparently she was cull to sect sort of goes up
and she was two or three houses up on the
other side, and she was there. She was a nurse
and she was there talking to somebody and apparently she
must have left a car neutral and stepped out to
talk to the client and rolling and she tumbles to
get out of the way because the door's opened, and
(04:24):
it does this kind of number, you know, down the
hill and it doesn't hit the tree, and it doesn't
hit the air conditioning unit, but it just hits that
well real good son. You know, she had minor cuts
and stuff and my husband wasn't hurt, so I was okay,
that's good.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Oh my gosh, well thank god, I have no I mean,
it's wild, that's really wild. So, like, who puts their
car in neutral unless you're having it pushed or something
like that.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
You know, I have a law enforcement background, and so
I have worked a few of those calls. Actually, yeah,
it's totally when it happens to you, right.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, yeah, that's strange. So law enforcement. What did you
do in law enforcement all those years?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Well, I did a lot of I was on the
street a lot. I was a detective for three years
and I left with the rankler titted. I was one
of the first women who actually rode in patrol car
and answered calls into Cab County.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
So Cab County, so Big County.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Nineteen eighty, Yeah, nineteen eighty a.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Huge but not as many people back then. Obviously, his
place has just exploded over the years.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
It has, it has, but you know it was actually
going on during my time that I was there. By
the time we reached the nineties, you know, it was
just crazy amount of people that came here, and of
course they have the set pretty much the same amount
of police officers then as they do now. I mean
it's unbelievable. I don't know how they handle anything.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Yeah. Yeah, if you're not going to increase those numbers,
you have more of the citizens and fewer law enforcements.
So that's yeah. You got to entice them with bigger
paychecks and that's yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I don't know, I don't know what the answer is.
You know, we used to have a really good retirement system, etc.
But it's I'm more concerned about their training now. I
feel like they need to get better training.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah, and very important. And in Atlanta, Fulton County, Atlanta,
they are talking about that huge training facility which seems
like completely state of the art. Yeah, there's been just
like all this protest over there for the It's been
kind of national too. People have been following that, so
those who are not from the metro area.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Yeah, my husband is a photo journalist and he does
all the work for the caterers, so he covered a
lot of that story for cup City. So yeah, I'm
quite aware of all the controversy over that.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah. Yeah. Is he an independent of freelancer or is
he actually contrast he is.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
He is, but he does most of his work for them,
but he does a whole bunch of other stuff too,
and he's won a bunch of awards. I'm repeat, I
mean excellent.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah. I've been video production too, I've been for thirty
some years now. Yeah, I enjoyed that. That's my dad gig.
So I do mainly video editing producing, and I could
do some shooting too, and I love it. I love
television production and film production.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah, he started doing some drown shots in the last
few years, and yes, that's been an interesting You know.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Sideline drones are funny because I'm just like, I don't know.
I mean, I'd love to learn how to pilot those things,
but I'm so friend I'm gonna crash it and take
somebody's hat off with that thing.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Well, you have to take a course, and it's quat
It's quite difficult. I mean, he's imagine wedding for about
six months before it took it, and you have to
get a license. You have to know the weather and
the wind and the clouds. But anyway, he's had fun
with it. I think he's got a few things that
you just can't get out of. He used it for
(07:57):
comp City actually.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, technology is just amazing. I love working with those
kind of shots. It's just it gets into nooks and
crannies that you never could even think possible. I love that.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, So I mean you did law enforcement and then
after all that time getting into writing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Well, I had always danced. I was the Sacred Dance
teacher for over twenty years, and so I was always
dancing and doing things like that along with you know,
along with the going to school and getting a degree
and raising two children and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So that had to be really busy, I'm sure, and
then your kids are probably busy as well.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
He was a fireperson for at the same time that
I was a police officer, so he was working twenty
four hour shifts. I was working like rotating shifts with
days off that changed every ninety days. So we had
a wild life trying to raise those children. But we
I don't think they're you know too.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Jade, Yeah, I know, kids are like, well, why didn't
we have dinner every night together? You know, you neglected me.
It's like nothing we could do about the past. You
just got to move on.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
That's the way they were. More like, you know, their
friends would say things. I'm sure. My daughter was so
embarrassed because I was behind her. I was still in uniform.
I was coming home from work, and I was behind
their school bus. She was in high school. And there
was some kind of commotion on the bus and the
(09:36):
bus driver pulled over, and so I got out to
check on the bus driver, you know, and she was
mortified that I had come up there. You know.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Of course, oh my god, you're embarrassing me.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
She wasn't concerned about the fight on the bus. She
just wanted me not to be there. You know.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah, that failing, I can feel that. So this must
have given you tons of ideas in getting into novel writing.
I mean the material I had.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Always journaled, and towards the end of my career, I
knew I was getting burnt out, and uh, I very
rarely took a vacation, but I took a vacation with
a mobile Alabama for a mincro and my husband and
life and we were walking down Dophin Street and there's
(10:31):
a bunch of billiard parers, or at least there was then,
and they were all really busy except this one. So
I was really curious and I peeked in the window,
you know, and there was these older white guys that
were sitting around your sheet bar with the older billiard parlors,
you know, to type tables and stuff. And boy did
(10:53):
they give me a look. They did not want to
come in there. And I was like, hmmm, So I
knew I had, you know, done some training on the
militia groups, because you know, when you stop somebody that's
from a militia group, they don't they don't have they
don't recognize the government, yes agency, so they don't give
you any any idea or anything like that. So I
(11:15):
was familiar with the militia group and to some extent,
so I anyway, my imagination started working and I said,
you know, that could be the the KKK, you know,
guys that are left over from the KKK. So anyway,
the first chapter came out before I ever left Mobile
on well Abrage my first novel, So that's kind of
(11:38):
how that came to be. And then by the time
I got back, uh, I had there was some you
hear everything as a police officer and female police officer,
here's a lot of crude things about women.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Oh yes, okay, you know I thought i'd heard it
all right.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
But I found out that there was a woman who
had been married for about ten years. She'd been divorced
ten years from this guy, and she done everything right.
She had never gone back to him. She had taken
out a TP, a temporary protective order, she dropped it.
She did the you know, followed the rules, and he
(12:19):
had kidnapped her and was raping her.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
And this did not happen on my watch. But the
one of the young guys that was on SWAT was
talking to me at the pumps about how it bothered
him that they had told SWAP to stand down when
they found out she had been married to this guy.
And the report was that nothing was happening in to
(12:43):
her that hadn't happened to her a thousand times she
was married.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Mmmmh okay God.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
So why that was the thing that did it for me,
I don't know, because I, like I said, had heard
at all. But I went in to be brief by
my captain after I had talked to this guy at
the punts, and he said the same thing.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, gosh.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
And I remember thinking, if I don't leave, I'm going
to totally lose it and tell everybody. But I really think, yeah,
it's wid Yeah. So then I went on vacation and
I just decided, hey, it's it's time. I want to
dance more, I want to write more. And life is short.
And I was, you know, fifty two ish, so it
(13:27):
was time.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
It is. You know, it does kind of hit you
around that age. You know, it's like you put your
time in, you paid your dues. It's like, yeah, you
get over that certain point. It's like I not even
so much that you're not old. It's like it sounds
like I'm too old for this. It's just that you
just come to that point where it's like you did
you you you served your time, and you come to
(13:48):
that realization. So yeah, that's so well. Of rage was
very much inspired and you got into doing that.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah, And of course you have to you have to
learn to write. It is a skill. And so I
I started going to you know, critique groups and joined
the writer Atlanta Writers and so forth. You know. But
and I think I must have written I don't know
how many drafts. But I one of the things that
(14:19):
was happening that I wasn't quite aware of until later
on was that I was dealing with PTSD. Sure, and
and so to be able to have a perspective to
actually write an entertaining book that wasn't uh you know,
my you know, garbage out about how I felt about
(14:40):
all the sexism, racism, et cetera. I had to get
gain a perspective to write a you know, a novel
that had some of those sub things in it. But
that wasn't what you know, that was the novel. So
because we're writing fiction, we're writing you know, people want
to be entertained as well as you know, learn a
(15:03):
little bit along along the way. So the first book,
my character is female, Ricky Cobb and Carly and so
you know, and then I have a second book in
the series that where she's a little bit older and
she's trying to make sergeant. Then. So yeah, it's it's
(15:25):
a fun you know, and I get to do whatever
I want. I'm a multi genre author, So I have
those two crime novels, and then I have a suspense
and I have a mystery that a traditional mystery that
I wrote after the crime novels. It's a little bit lighter.
It's got a lot of humor in it. And I
did that deliberately because I needed that, you know.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Yeah, and just breakaway.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Yeah, and I sat it in small town and prosides
where my people have lived. I've never lived there, but
they've lived there a long time. And I'm from a
small town originally in Missouri, so I know all that's
small town secrets, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, it's true, it's true. Yeah. You feel like, oh,
this is just the thing in movies, TV. But like
you've seen that experience.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Oh no, there's a whole you know thing in small
towns and so uh. And of course I knew for
scythe intimately, I'm talking about the city, not the county.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
It's south of here, Forestyth, Georgia.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Yes, yes, near Barnesville, about thirty minutes for making, and
so I was really familiar with all the locations. And
I got to use the tattoo parlor and the barbecue
joint and then you know in my books. So and
one of the funny things that happened about that was
(16:41):
I guess there had been a pick and pay convenience.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Store at a pick and pay.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
On the other side of town. Yeah, my parents, And
if I ever saw it, it wasn't conscious. Well anyway,
there's a pick and pay in the book. And so
after the novel came out. My sister said, well, you
know there was a pick and payer, but I said, no,
I don't remember that at all. But and I was
(17:09):
had started the book. I started that novel. It's called
it Another Kind of Hero, and I started it. I
got about third way through a good rough draft, and
I woke up with this character almost fully formed in
my head of a ghost. And I had no intention
of putting a ghost in there at all, making the
(17:31):
normal kind of mystery. But anyway, I write every day.
I had by then I developed to write in the morning,
you know, all the kind of thing. And then I
keep it writing outline because I'm what they call a panther,
not a plotter.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah. Yeah, And so.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
For about two weeks, I just wasn't getting anywhere. You know.
I was like, okay, all right, Wanda, her name's Wanda.
I said, okay, Wanda, You're in the book, so cool.
So I went back and she's kind of a narrator,
helps the two sisters loose, you know, solve the big
crime that's happening in for Sight. Then there's an undercover
(18:13):
agent in the book. That's a lot of fun. Because
my mother, very religious woman, went to a small Methodist
church down off Floyd Road, and she was at book.
She was probably a Bible study, I don't know. It
was a Wednesday night, you know, kind of thing in
the summer. So the door was opened to the church.
(18:35):
We're talking very small, fifty probably fifty minutes and a
guy Parks's motorcycle comes in in full leather gear with
a ponytail and says, I just wanted to know if
you know we would be welcomed. I have a black
girlfriend or truck driver, and we're thinking about minds and property,
and I just felt the presence of.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
The Lord about this church character.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
So he comes in, he starts talking to the minister,
and my mother's got Parkinson's. She's tired, she wants to
go home. So our friend drives her home. Well all
about and my mother's a very gutsy woman, okay. She
she says, well, you know, that man could be killing
the minister right now. We don't know this man, you know.
(19:22):
And so Julie, who was driving her home, who's in
her seventies. Then anyway, she says, well, I'm going to
go back and check on him. I'll drop you off
and i'll go back checks check her. So there's this
church and there's this old post office belt in the
like you know, eighteen hundreds, you know, on this little
kind of dirt road that comes between Florida. Two lane
(19:43):
paid for it, and she parks a car like you
know here. She thinks she's being real sneaky, so she
can see in and you know, see the motorcycle. Well
the motorcycle guy comes out, gets on it just lights
her up, lights her up. You know. Well, come to
find out he was a Rhodes scholar in religions.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Oh my gosh, very good.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
So anyway, that's the story their description of this guy.
So this is what, of course became my undercover cop.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Now when do you come up with the names like
DA Agent Dewey Blackmond? I mean, how do you come
up with character names? Is it like kind of based
on people you know in your life or you just
kind of do a little research to say, hey, that
kind of name would would be happening in a place
like Fortyth, Georgia.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
You know, I don't know where Dewey's name came from.
Of course I live in Stone, I live outside of
Stone Mountain, so I had I knew about Shermantown, and
I real that that I got to interview a woman
who had lived there forever and ever, and her people
had lived there, and I think her father had actually
(20:53):
built her their house there. But anyway, very wonderful woman.
She gave me a great interview, and I wanted to
have the girlfriend living in Shermantown so that I could
bring that in, you know. And so I have no
idea where that name come from, or you know, sometimes
(21:15):
I I do deliberately use names, like I have a
person that comes to most of my book signings and
her first name is Elizabeth, and so I have put
a character I just finished the rough draft of historical
fantasy novella, and she's just been so sweet and so supportive,
(21:38):
and so I told her, I'm going to put your
name in the book. Is that okay? You know? And so,
but I'm going to I'm going to make sure that
it'll be all okay with her, because I did that
one other time with somebody who won a raffle at
one of my book launches, but the character was killed
off and he didn't like that.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
He was very upset.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
I need to make sure it's okay whatever the character.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Tell them what's going to happen with that character?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Is that okay? Because I can change your name before
it goes in the bridge.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
It's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
So when you do your writing these days, how much
do you block out a certain amount of time or
just write whenever it hits you? Are you? How disciplined
are you with that?
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Okay? Well, I really try to get up, get my coffee.
Bless my husband. He likes to bring it to me,
and I'm like, and I have my little dcalf coffee,
which is it's a ritual, you know, calf coffee. I
write for a couple of hours. Sometimes I'll go back
and do other things, but you know, on the book
(22:49):
later on, I usually have two projects going on at
the same time. You know. I don't know why that is.
It just seems like that if I get here and
I can't write on that story, I'll write on something
else for that day. When you're in between novels or
when you're doing a lot of heavy editing, it's kind
(23:12):
of hard to keep that schedule for me, I you know,
if because it takes so much time to do proofing
and to do the marketing and the setup for the
launch and all that, and sometimes that drops by the wayside,
and I have to do things at different times of
the day. But that's usually I get up, I'll do
(23:35):
my writing, and then I'll have kind of brunch, you know. Yeah,
and like I said, I might go back and do
some more. Depends on it depends on a lot of times.
It depends on like the editor that I'm working with,
the professional editor needs the manuscript at a certain date.
Then you know, you have to you have to get
it out. You have to get it out. But but
(23:57):
I'm not a fast writer, and I like to go
over it, you know, the next morning. Like whatever I
wrote this writing scenes, go of the scene, I go
back the next day. I'll read it again, tweak it
a little bit, and then go on right the next thing.
So that's kind of how I do it. And every
(24:18):
once in a while, there'll be you know, a little
slipping the dialogue at the waffle house, or somebody will
say something over here, and I go, that needs to
be that needs to do some character needs to say that.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, yeah, so you get the ideas right there, like
waffle house. Do you do immediately put that in your
notes like either handwriting or in the phone.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah, and I do a lot of those things go
into short stories. I've tried to do a few short
stories and have gotten a few published here and there,
and a lot of that will go into short stories.
I have one that I'm trying to get published that
I think is kind of the best I've written yet
on short stories. It's called Sorrow Road. And I was going.
(24:59):
I go the back from my house to my sister's
house in for scythe most of the time, because seventy
five is a nightmare, you know, And there is a
side road which I had never noticed for some reason
that day I noticed it was called Sara Road. Clus
to McDonald, I said, okay, who would live on a
(25:21):
road called Sara Road? You know? And they should just
started going. And my father, I come from blue collar people,
and my father had, you know, was like taking care
of himselfself at twelve years old, that kind of thing.
And he had a milk rout when you know, he
was too young to be drive. He really shouldn't, but anyway,
(25:43):
I guess I didn't care a back then. And so
his story and then my story growing up in the fifties,
it sort of came together in this story, and so
it's kind of set in the early sixties, and I
(26:05):
just started imagining what it would be like if I
was the middle child. But if I had been the
oldest female child of the family and the father was
not there in a blue collar family, how would we
have survived? And so this story started developing based on
you know kind of you know, I consider myself pretty
(26:28):
pretty what do they call it, spunky? That's what they
called me in the police force. They called me spunky.
And so I said, well, you know, I would probably
got get a job someplace and support my family. You know,
I would make sure that they had bread on the table.
And so this character started forming where she realized she
(26:54):
couldn't get a job to do that, and she was
a guy and else she presented herself as a male.
So that was very interesting to write that story about
how she managed to do what she did and then
you know, the eventuality of being caught right, so.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Good. Yeah, you have another short story, Bitter Love, that
kind of caught my eye. It takes place in Dunwoody.
What was the inspiration on that?
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Oh gosh, why you've done your research.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
I try to do my own work.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Yeah, yeah, well, I think. Yeah. I'm a member of
the Monroe Writers Group or was for a really long time,
and the lady wanted to do a cozy anthology, and
I said, well, i'll try, you know, I'll try. I
don't really write cozy's, but i'll try. Well, if you
(27:54):
recall reading that story, the first one of the first
things that she's at a triple homicide, right.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
An unusual.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
So the lady who was doing the mythology said, Lynn,
I can't put this in a cozy This is not
you know. I said, well, okay, fine, but you know
this is I really really tried to not put anything
super graphic in there, but if you can't handle it,
that's okay. I'll send it someplace else, you know. But anyway,
(28:30):
it came about because she asked me to write this story,
and I really was trying to make it well. And
my mother in law was a very difficult woman, but
I mean she was and so and she never changed
(28:52):
her mind about me, Okay, she never did, Okay, no
matter how many years being and I were together. So
I think there was just a little snippet while she
at one point she and her husband lived with us
because he had had a stroke, and they lived with
us for a very long year, and.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
I remember coming home from work, you know, from being
a police officer, and kind of writing in my journalists
and thinking, you know, well I can't you know, don't
judge me. That's something about don't judge me. But I
think I've just killed my mother in law something like
that my journal and it made me laugh, you know,
(29:39):
it made me. It made me feel better, so I thought,
so that was part of that's part.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
So it sound a pretty exhausting coming home dealing with that.
Oh cook me supper.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Yeah. In fact, that was one of the reasons I
think they finally laughed. I had a female dancer that
was just a wonderful dancer, and she would come over
and I would push back the furniture and we would
dance in my choreograph in my living room. And so
she had she was an exact big exec for some company.
(30:20):
And she came from work and she had her noise
clothes and everything, and she went and changed and we
anyway it took. I knew it was going to be
seven thirty eight o'clock before she left, and I told
them that, you know, and I said you can either
go in and fix yourself something, which of course they
never did, or you know, you can go out and
eat because it's going to be late. It's not going
to be six o'clock on the table, you know. Well
(30:41):
about seven they came in and sat the dining room
table and just sat there and watched us, you know,
like we're waiting, there's our plates. And so when she
finally left, Bob said, well, you're going to treat you
like this, We'll just go home, and I was like,
(31:03):
you know, I did tell you that it was going
to be late. So but anyway, Yeah, you know, the
family are always fun, and there's always those those things
that you know, who knows who's holding the grudge from
what happened at nineteen ninety seven, you know, at the
(31:28):
at the time that you got together and you said
something you didn't even know you said that was wrong,
so or they hurt their feelings. So family, family's a trip.
But yeah, we love them.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, we just got through Thanksgiving, so I mean, not
that I have anybody over, but it's like it's yeah,
I know I've heard those stories where it's complicated, especially
in this Dan edge.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Yeah, and you know with the political scene. I kind
of you know, I would consider myself moderate Democrat, but
a lot of my people are not, and so, you know,
interesting negotiating all of that. Yeah, I think that I've
(32:13):
learned to listen, uh and not come back with these
rebuttals immediately. Yeah. My I did some work with better
braver angels. I don't know if that you saw that.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, yeah, I've seen that.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
That was a very when I did, uh, performed with mine.
The gap that was you know, that was training me
to listen because I actually wrote scripts with people who
were all right, yes, So you really have to strut yourself.
You have to really listen, and you know, put that
judgment thing in the corner. I'm not saying it goes
(32:51):
away completely, but you know, you try not to have
that in the forefront. When you are really trying to listen.
You can't do that. So and you do find common ground.
But when you're with family, it's I think it's even
more difficult.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Oh it is.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
It is.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
I hear horrible stories, even with my own extended families
and stuff like that. I hear some people aren't even
talking because of oh you voted for X. You miss
be a hateful, selfish person, and I've never seen anything
that bad. And it's become more and more of a
circus as over the years as I've been in news
and covering all this. Wow, it just gets more and
(33:32):
more wild. And this year, especially with the way that
people have been talking and a lot of segments have
been done on how do you get along with your family,
how to deal with it at Thanksgiving? It's seen that before.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Yeah, yeah, well yeah, and it's yeah, it can be interesting.
I was in a car driving to a birthday party.
My daughter was driving, and so I thought she was
Democrat and she's not, or she didn't vove for Democrat
(34:07):
this time, I guess based on her comments. So it
was a very long It was a very long ride
because I was trying to not say no, and of
course I was emotionally kind of like oh god, you know,
so I was trying to regroup. But yeah, you just
have to She's a grown adult, way past grown, and
(34:28):
she can make a decisions. And she knows. She knows
that I worked for the dams in the cab, and
she knows I have signs in my yard and you know,
it's not a secret where I stand. So there wasn't
any reason for me to start preaching, right.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
So yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of interesting as you
have an adult child, they they formed their own ideas
and opinions, and I'm always blown away by that. I'm
a twenty six year old and you know, it's like, wow,
this is my little baby I delivered you. You know,
it's like in your you got these ideas and thoughts
about current events. It's just really fascinating.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Yeah, and you know, I feel like I've showed her
a strong woman growing up, and she knows that I'm
very pro women empowerment. Yeah, so when something happens, I
mean I think she's more and more as she matures,
I think more she gets it, more and more.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
But when she was in her early twenties, she was
just like, I don't understand why you think you've got
to stand up for women. You know, everything's fine, you know,
everything's good. And I'm like, okay, well we'll talk in
a few years. You know, when you put your butt
off and you can't get promoted, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, you've been there. You've been there in male dominated areas,
and you remember the fifties and sixties and you know,
it's like you don't even get that. You know, it's
like you don't understand what that fight was to get
to this point. And yeah, very misogynistic, especially in those
areas and law enforcement back way back when even.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Oh yeah in the eighties. Uh, there was a I'm
doing I'm doing a little bit of uh mentoring and collecting,
helping the retirees the females from Dakib County in public safety,
and so I've just kind of started that process the
next couple of months, and so, uh, you know, the
(36:25):
it's just it's just interesting how even if you were
in you know, say you were a nine one one operator,
or you worked in you know, you're the first black
female supervisor in radio or or you know, and we
were so separated. We were so like isolated from each other,
and there was very few female officers and so you
(36:48):
were you work by yourself. You know, you didn't have
a fe There was no female sergeants or anything like that,
so you were working by yourself. They made sure you
were in different precincts and you just never saw another female.
So if the guys decided that they weren't going to
VACUU on a call or calls, that's just where you were,
(37:12):
you know. And my first to UY was like that
where I knew hadn't been out there too long, maybe
six months, and I had it for and I pulled
my first why. And then I was working morning watch,
which is the eleven to seven in the morning shift,
and it was about three o'clock in the morning, and
I pulled this guy over and I know nobody's coming.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Oh gosh, scary.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
And I I mean, he's all over the road, you know,
it's real dark and anything. And I get him to
the back and I'm padding him down and I get
one handcuff on him and he bucks up on me
and starts fighting. I get him in the back seat,
but I cannot get that other handcuff on.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
You know, I just keep and I'm just you know,
I'm praying, praying. Now. Yeah, I won't get that, you know,
So it's all.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Can get that in. Yeah, you're okay.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
And so. And there's no lights. I'm in a convenienced
store parking lot and uh, there's no lights. It's just
a dark street. And I don't hear a car, I
don't see any lights. But I hear this force, go,
may I help you, officer, And this hand comes over
and just holds down hand. I go click click, and
(38:24):
I turn around and there's nobody there.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Oh my gosh, huh nobody.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
That's one of my angel stories. As far as I'm concerned,
that was an angel.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
There was an angel.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, where I just I was like, okay, okay,
well that's where my help came from.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Today.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Yeah, that would have been salt. If you had the
body cameras back then, you can who came out well,
you know, I mean yeah, I mean that's wild. Yeah,
Oh my god. It's scary, it really is. I mean,
you know, nobody really understands the other side of this.
It's like, you know, you, of course you have to
be confident, bold as a law officer, and you know,
(39:10):
nobody really understands what's going through that person's mind. How
tough and scary that could be.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Yeah, I mean, you just you know, you have to
do it. And I had very few fights during my
twenty five years. I mean probably six what you'd call
real fights, and they were mostly because the other officer
that showed up to back me said the wrong thing.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Uh yeah, they're taking out their frustrations and it's getting
the best of them.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
That a lot.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
That could get you no more trouble. Yeah yeah, so
but yeah, yeah that, but they really need to be
trained in rastling and not boxing. We had we did
we did some like flight Day at the end of
the you know, academy, and they used that to scare
you the whole time that you're going to get knocked
(40:00):
out and all that stuff. And of course I had
never boxed right, and wrestling would have been much better
because I did take you know, there was hand to
hand and stuff like that too. But yeah, I definitely
think that would be good training. But they also need
to train based on you know, and I know I'm biased,
(40:23):
but based on the female strengths of negotiation interpersonal skills.
Like I said, if I can, I mean, I worked
the high crime area in the Cape Kenny most of
my career and I did not because I treated people
respect Yeah, you gotta be ready if they got a gun. Yeah.
(40:46):
I'm not saying you don't have to be trained to
fight and do what you've got to do. What I'm
saying is you don't have to get there sometimes if
you just keep your mouth.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Yeah, Yeah, it's that communication at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
And you know, for instance, I got a war and
I'm going in and the guy's got three kids on
the couch, Well, would you like your wife to take
your kids in the back room?
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Yeah? Yeah, things like that. It's a ranky situation.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
And you know, big guys. I've taken big guys in
who you know willingly went because I treated them with respect.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Yeah, that's God.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
And there's always people that no matter what you say,
they're gonna fight you.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Yeah, because they're already riled.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
Up by going to listen and they are gonna you know,
but that just happens really rare, so you know job.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Yeah. So one of your latest works, it's this is
an interesting one and Android against authoritarianism, and you're thinking
about the future on this one.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
I know. Well, my I have a grandson that's twitter
and at North Chorchia College and he was in junior
high school, I believe, and he gave me the idea, Uh, grandma,
why don't you write a detective, you know, story about
a grandmother in the future with a with a rote.
(42:18):
Well he's robot, a robot grandson of something. Well, that's interesting.
You know, and I'm writing I'm probably writing my third
I'm probably writing the suspense novel about that time. So
I make a few notes, you know, and I foolishly
thought that we could maybe started together, maybe he would
(42:39):
want to do this, because this was COVID, you know,
time of COVID. He was out of school. I thought,
maybe he'll want to help write, you know, maybe that'll
keep him engaged and we can do a project together
and I.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Can get closer to him.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
You know. It's all self bar really well, and he's like,
uh no, I'm good. You know, I gave you the idea.
I'm good. So he never helped me with anything, but
he did give me the idea for it. So that's
where that came from.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Yeah, what a neat story about mother.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Yeah, so much fun making up this whole world. You know,
did a little research. But if I wanted to make
something a certain way, it's in the future.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Hey, you know, yeah, and that's not too far off.
I think by twenty forty nine we could maybe see
those flying cars.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Yeah, of course, of course, and you know some of
my little you know, of course, there's always something of
yourself put in there, and you know, the fear of
aging and having to deal with doctors and medications and
so forth. Fortunately, I'm really healthy and I'm not dealing
(43:54):
with that yet. But you know, I think that's where
the the government mental control medication thing came from. And
the story was, you know, if the government was supervising
everything like that, and if you didn't do what you
were told, then you end up in the home. You know, Yeah,
(44:15):
that would be very scary for me. So I think that,
you know, some of that comes out in the story too.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Yeah, I could see that happening and getting that idea
from COVID, the way that we were dealing with mandates
and all the bruhaha and the politics behind that. I've
never seen that before. I never even thought i'd see
something like that happening. That was very overwellian in a
lot of ways. It wasn't amazing. Yeah, yeah, I mean,
I love the fact though that I was able to
(44:44):
start working from home, but I still went to the
office two weeks at a time, and I would work
from home two weeks at a time, but I traveled.
My daughter was just living in Boston at that time,
and it was great to fly. Almost had the whole
plane to myself. I was like, this isn't so bad,
but yeah, what a weird time.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
I remember going up to Massachusetts and I was so scared,
like I think it'll let me off the plane. I
felt like I kind of had little anxiety, like I
have all my papers in order case they need to
check if i've you know, been I don't think we
had the vaccines yet, but like I had to prove
that I didn't have COVID or something. I thought I
had all this proof I needed to have. I go
into Logan, I pretty much have that airport to myself,
(45:26):
and I was like ready to show the guard all
my stuff and just like I'll move along. I was like, wow,
what a time though. I mean really, when you had
the whole plan to yourself, I mean nobody was in
the way. It was great. Actually when it came to that.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Yeah, well you were right to do that.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
I think.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
I think there was a couple of things that I
had planned to do during that time. Man, I didn't
I didn't go. I remember canceling whatever it was because
I just didn't. I'm not crazy about flying. I'm not
afraid to fly. I just don't think it's more the
closed off environment that I don't like.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Yeah, it's just going through all the security, especially Atlanta,
which is one of the busiest airports in the world.
That's not really fun to have to deal with that.
Take your shoes off, now you can take this all
you have to take belts off. You got to put
this on the conveyor and move along. And it's like
there are people who were slow in front of you,
and there's all that hassle to go along with it.
So yeah, I'm doing Marta Marta trained. Fine, I know
(46:27):
it's going to get me there.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
Yeah, Atlanta is bless as the Southern people say, bless
your bless their hearts. Uh, it seems to be the
worst airport I've ever been in. We went to New
York and local Worrio was a braze compared to I
expected it to be crazy. It was nothing.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I know. It's because we're a hub and they're not
like big big markets. The next one is like Dallas,
and that's so far from here. I guess yeah, because
you know, you think New York. I'm like, but they
have two airports. You know, we could use another airport here,
but that's never gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
Well, you know, yeah, we could grow it. I mean
we're just.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Yeah, it keeps going out and out and out, and
there's no barrier to stop Atlanta from growing like you
do in Los Angeles. You got mountains, you got the ocean. Here,
it's like we could go all the way to the
ocean if we wanted, we could go back. We could
expand all the way to the North Georgia Mountains if
we wanted to. And nothing's really stopping all this growth.
It's just phenomenal. I just remember the for those here
(47:34):
in Atlanta, there was the population clock in front of
the old Darlington Hotel there in the hotel apartments there
on Peach. Yeah, it's like I remember that. It was
just climbing, climbing, climbing. Then now that sign ended up
burning out. Anyway, he probably has.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Pictures of that. He was a paramedic at Grady before
he came to the cab and yeah, he has so
many cool pictures of the old Atlanta, you know, around
that time.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
Yeah, incredible. Well thanks for stopping by. I really enjoy
speaking with authors like you. It's just always fun and
it's just different. I talk to a lot of musical artists,
most of the time, but I'm not just limited to that.
I really enjoy hearing about the process of how people
get inspired to write books. And your story is fantastic
the way you were able to reinvent yourself.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
Well, thank you and thank you for inviting me. I
didn't have a book signing at the Vintage Pizzerihea December
the third, so I'll invite you to that. Maybe somebody
listening can come. And it's a Chammi don Mode Road
five to five O two Shami, Damo Road and Dudley
So seven to about eight thirty coming have some pizza.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
I've heard it. Yeah, okay, sounds good. Well, take care,
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
Thank you so much for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
Absolutely, take have a good one.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
Yeah, have a good day.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Wasn't that amazing?
Speaker 1 (49:01):
I really enjoyed that. And I'm so glad that you've
clicked me on going too that Apple podcast.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
I never asked anybody to do that. I don't even
know where you would go.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
And I'm not trying to be completely ignorant on that,
but on Apple podcasts, I think you could give how
many stars or what not to this podcast and many others.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
So give it all the stars. You can, or maybe
you might not want it, who knows.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
We're also available on all kinds of other platforms, so
I always go out there and.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Try to promote that as well.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
So really, have a good one, and I will have
another one out in a week as I speak from now.
Once this gets into the time capsule, this won't make
a big deal, but anyway, enjoy, have a great arrest
of December twenty twenty four and as.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
If this moment, we'll have another episode out next week.
Thank you.
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