Jobs That No Longer Exist—part 1 of 2

This is certainly far removed from a complete list of obsolete jobs, but it's an interesting cross-section. Some of these jobs were prominent centuries ago and have been gone for a long time, some are much more recent. One or two of them may have existed in your lifetime. But either way, they are jobs that no longer exist.

Pre-Radar Listener

And speaking of World War II (and World War I)…during times of war in the days before radar, these listeners were people assigned to detect enemy aircraft. They did this by using acoustic mirrors and listening devices to detect the sounds of engines. (above picture)

Daguerreotypists

We've all seen photographs from back in the day showing the photographer taking a picture, whether a portrait in a studio or Matthew Brady engaged in his landmark history changing photographs from the U.S. Civil War. Prior to modern cameras and selfies, daguerreotypes were one of the earliest forms of photography. These images were made by daguerreotypists, who treated a silver-coated copper plate with light-sensitive chemicals. After exposing it in a camera and developing it with mercury, a detailed image appeared.

Ice Cutter

Back when today's electric refrigerators were referred to as ice boxes, there was a reason for it.  Highly insulated 'boxes' held a large block of ice and kept food cold (until the ice melted).  The ice man delivered the large blocks of ice door to door.  These blocks were provided by people known as ice cutters who would literally cut the huge blocks from frozen lakes. And in the summer? Mostly it was 'tough luck.'

Knocker-Up

Before you become shocked or start laughing, that's not what I'm talking about here. The knocker-up was literally a human alarm clock. A knocker-up would visit your house to make sure you got to work on time. They used a long, light stick to hit their client's doors or windows to wake them.

Rat Catcher

From several centuries ago to even just a couple of centuries ago, cities (both residential neighborhoods and industrial areas) were plagued by disease-carrying rodents. Rat catchers were the people employed to remove the vermin off the streets.

Lamplighter

Back in the day when street lights were gas, before the days of electric lamps, lamplighters would use long poles to light, extinguish and refuel street lamps to illuminate the night streets.

Gas Station:  They used to be called service stations and you actually got service. You stop to buy gas and the attendant would fill the tank for you, check your oil, check your tire pressure, and wash your windshield. Now, anything you want you have to do it yourself including putting your credit in the slot at the pump to pay. There are probably still places where someone actually fills the tank for you, but today they're few and far between and about to be gone.

Milkman

Before refrigerators existed, and even in the day of the ice box, it was hard to keep milk from going bad, especially in summer. The milkman made regular neighborhood deliveries, some extending to as recently as the 1960s. With the advent of home refrigeration and the convenience of modern supermarkets, the need for the milkman disappeared.

Switchboard Operator

At one time switchboard operators were a key part of a telephone network’s operation. Initially, anyone wanting to make even a local call needed the operator to put it through. After local dial was the norm, the operator was still required for long distance. And in businesses where numerous employees were all connected to the same company phone number, the switchboard operator was needed to direct incoming calls. But now, with billions of phone calls made every day, the job of switchboard operator would be virtually impossible.

Computer

Before you wrinkle your forehead into a frown and formulate an immediate objection to the concept of computer belonging on a 'no longer exists' list, I'm not talking about the hardware/software combination that is vital to today's society. I'm talking about a person rather than a machine. Computer was an actual job title. Before computers (the machine) became commercially available, these computers (the human workers—commonly women) performed mathematical calculations, converting and crunching numbers by hand. These 'computers' were invaluable during World War II calculating firing logistics for the artillery units at the front.

Resurrectionist

Also known as 'body snatchers' as well as grave robbers. Resurrectionists were hired to dig newly buried, fresh corpses from graveyards and sell them to universities to be used as cadavers for medical research and instruction.

And as is obvious, many of today's jobs will be obsolete at some point in time. Some of them not that far away. Check back next week for part 2 of 2 which takes a look at jobs that are soon to be considered obsolete.

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES—the real story

A couple of years ago, I was watching Castle Secrets And Legends on television. One of the segments was about Cromer Hall in England, located approximately 140 miles northeast of London. The Cabell family have been owner and residents of Cromer Hall for many decades, well over a century.

A local legend told to a visiting Arthur Conan Doyle, along with the physical description of the actual Cromer Hall built in 1829, are said to have been Doyle's inspiration for The Hound Of The Baskervilles published in 1902. Being a Sherlock Holmes fan, I was pleased when the television series aired that episode again. I augmented the information the show provided with a little research of my own starting by locating Cromer on a map.

According to a legend told to Doyle—on August 5, 1577, a large black Hound of Hell materialized in a local church and brutally mauled two people to death. The hound glared at the other people in the church with red blazing eyes, then disappeared leaving only a scorched claw mark on the stone wall to confirm its presence. The mark remains to this day. The beast was called Black Shuk and blamed for all unexplained gruesome happenings that took place from that time on.

Another legend tells of Richard Cabell, a 17th century country squire. After seriously mistreating a village girl, he was chased by wild hounds until he died of a heart attack. Considered to have been an evil man and feared by the local villagers, they entombed his body in a small building by the church and placed a heavy stone slab on top of his grave so he couldn't escape.

The Cabell family has their own version of this legend. Richard Cabell believed his wife had been unfaithful. He chased her out into the night and viciously stabbed her to death. Her loyal dog retaliated by tearing him to pieces.

Doyle took the basics of the three legends along with a detailed description of Cromer Hall, and transported it all to Dartmoor. And the name he gave to the family cursed with the presence of a Hound From Hell due to an ancestor's misdeeds? The coachman who drove Arthur Conan Doyle to Cromer Hall that fateful day for his visit was a man named…Henry Baskerville.

The huge popularity of the story continues today. Devotees of The Hound Of The Baskervilles often dress in period clothes, including the infamous deerstalker cap, and search Dartmoor for the origins of the story.

They do need to keep in mind that it's a fictional story, not a documentary.

From The Book Of Useless Information—part 3 of 3

This is the final week of my three trivia blogs featuring bits and pieces from The Book Of Useless Information, an official publication of The Useless Information Society with a copyright of 2006.  I'm picking some items at random from the last few sections of the book.  And there is one fact that jumped out at me as being absolutely wrong…I have attributed it to an overlooked typo rather than misinformation.  I'll share this with you in a little while.

For now…I'll pick up here where I left off last week.

AMAZING DISCOVERIES:  Construction workers' hard hats were invented and first used in the construction of Hoover Dam in 1933.  Thomas Edison, credited with the light bulb (he didn't actually invent the light bulb, he created a filament that lasted long enough to make the light bulb viable), was afraid of the dark.  A normal raindrop falls at about seven miles an hour.  An inch of snow falling evenly on one acre of ground is equivalent to about 2,715 gallons of water.  A cubic mile of fog is made up of less than a gallon of water.  Meteorologists claim they're right 85 percent of the time.  Buzz Aldrin's mother's maiden name was Moon.  The Apollo 11 moon lander had only twenty seconds of fuel left when it landed.  A manned rocket can reach the moon in less time than it took a stagecoach to travel the length of England.  Stars come in different colors—hot stars give off blue light and the cooler ones give off red light.  Earth is traveling through space at 660,000 miles per hour.  By weight, the sun is 70 percent hydrogen, 28 percent helium, 1.5 percent carbon-nitrogen-oxygen, and 0.5 percent all other elements.  A bolt of lightning can strike the earth with the equivalent of one hundred million volts and generate temperatures five times hotter than those found on the sun's surface.  In 1949, Popular Mechanics said computers of the future would weigh no more than five tons.  The shortest commercial intercontinental flight in the world is from Gibraltar in Europe to Tangier in Africa, a distance of thirty-four miles and flight time of twenty minutes.  A large flawless emerald is worth more than a similarly large flawless diamond.  A jiffy is an actual unit of time the equivalent of one-hundredth of a second.

WILD KINGDOM:  A baby blue whale is twenty-five feet long at birth.  In 1859 twenty-four rabbits were released in Australia and within six years the population grew to two million.  Human beings and the two-toed sloth are the only land animals that typically mate face to face.  An estimated 80 percent of all creatures on Earth have six legs.  A square mile of fertile earth has thirty-two million earthworms in it.  The original name for butterfly was the flutterby.  Grasshoppers have white blood.  A single strand from the golden spider's web is as strong as a steel wire of the same size.  Contrary to common belief, reptiles are never slimy, their scales have few glands and are usually silky to the touch.  The gecko lizard can run on the ceiling without falling because its toes have flaps of skin that act like suction cups.  Alligators cannot move backward.  The only continent without reptiles or snakes is Antarctica.  A group of frogs is called an army.  A group of kangaroos is called a mob.  Male monkeys lose the hair on their heads in the same manner as men do.  It is physically impossible for pigs to look up at the sky.  Bats are the only mammals that can fly.  Time and erosion have erased 99 percent of all dinosaur footprints.  Reindeer like to eat bananas.  Moose have very poor vision, some have even tried to mate with cars.  The night vision of tigers is six times better than that of humans.  Jaguars are scared of dogs.  Walking catfish of Florida can stay out of the water for eighty days.  Shark's fossil records date back more than twice as far as those of the dinosaurs.  Sea otters have the world's densest fur—a million hairs per square inch.

STATISTICS:  It would take more than 150 years to drive a car to the sun.  More than 10 percent of all the salt produced annually in the world is used in winter to de-ice American roads.  Most fatal car accidents happen on a Saturday.  The world record for carrying a milk bottle on your head is twenty-four miles.  You're more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than a poisonous spider.  About 6 percent of murdered American men are killed by either their wife or girlfriend…or their wife who caught them with their girlfriend.  Experienced waitresses say that married men tip better than unmarried men.  You are more likely to get attacked by a cow than a shark.

And on the last page of The Book Of Useless Information, it says:  approximately 97 percent of all statistics are made up.  :)

And back on the first of these three trivia blogs, that error I said I caught?  It was in the first section of HALL OF FAME.  It said, "In 1812, after being shot in the chest, Theodore Roosevelt finished a speech he was delivering before he accepted any medical help."  The incident is true, but Teddy Roosevelt wasn't even born until 1858.  The reality is that it happened on October 14, 1912, a century later.  As I said, certainly a typo that no one caught. 

From The Book Of Useless Information—part 2 of 3

This is the second week of my three weeks of trivia blogs featuring bits and pieces from The Book Of Useless Information, an official publication of The Useless Information Society with a copyright of 2006.  I can't personally vouch for any of these facts as I have not verified them. :)

So…I'll pick up here where I left off last week with the next few categories in the book.

AROUND THE HOUSE:  A deck of cards should be shuffled seven times to properly play with them. Playing cards in India are round. On the new U.S. $100 bill, the time on the clock tower of Independence Hall is 4:10. The Australian $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100 notes are made of plastic. More people use blue toothbrushes than red ones. Alaska has more outhouses than any other state (and if any of you have ever watched the television series Buying Alaska, you'll be very much aware of this). There are more Barbie dolls in Italy than there are Canadians in Canada. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

HISTORY'S MYSTERIES:  A old Virginia law on the books requires all bathtubs to be kept in the yard, not inside the house. Persia had a pony express many years before Christ where riders delivered mail across Asia Minor. Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the death of their cats. When some mummies were unwrapped, the bandages were a total of 1.5 miles in length. In ancient Greece, women counted their age from the day they were married. The Roman goddess of sorcery, hounds, and the crossroads is named Trivia. The Chinese ideogram for trouble depicts two women living under one roof. On July 28, 1945, a B-25 bomber airplane crashed into the 79^th floor of the Empire State Building (and no, it was not a terrorist act). Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States in 1789. In 1890 New Zealand was the first country to give women the right to vote. In London in the 1700s, you could buy insurance against going to hell.

ROAM IF YOU WANT TO:  The Frankford Avenue Bridge built in 1697 in Philadelphia crosses Pennypack Creek and is the oldest U.S. bridge in continuous use. In Washington, D.C., no building can be built taller than the Washington Monument. There are more than six hundred rooms in Buckingham Palace. The full name of Los Angeles is El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula (no wonder it's often referred to simply as LA). Harvard uses Yale brand locks on their buildings and Yale uses Best brand locks. It is forbidden to fly aircraft over the Taj Mahal. Central Park opened in 1876 and is nearly twice the size of the country of Monaco. The San Diego Zoo has the largest collection of animals in the world.

HOLY MATTERS:  The color of mourning in Turkey is violet, while in most Muslim countries and China it's white. In the early eighteenth century, two-thirds of Portugal was owned by the Church. The youngest pope was eleven years old. Snow angels originated from medieval Jewish mystics who practiced rolling in the snow to purge themselves of evil urges.

BUSINESS RELATIONS:  Japan's currency is the most difficult to counterfeit. The largest employer in the world is the Indian railway system, employing more than a million people. The sale of vodka makes up ten percent of Russian government income. In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.

THE SPORTING GOODS:  A baseball has exactly 108 stitches. Bank robber John Dillinger played professional baseball. In 1936 American track star Jesse Owens beat a racehorse over a one hundred yard course…and the horse was given a head start. It takes three thousand cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs. Before 1850, golf balls were made of leather and stuffed with feathers. Boxing is considered the easiest sport for gamblers to fix. Tug-of-war was an Olympic event between 1900 and 1920. Professional hockey players skate at an average speed of 20 to 25 miles per hour. Karate originated in India.

Next week is the third and final week of my trivia blogs.  Make sure to stop by and see what other bits of useless information I have for you.

From The Book Of Useless Information—part 1 of 3

While looking for something in one of my bookcases, I came across a book I had forgotten about…a book I purchased several years ago—The Book Of Useless Information, an official publication of The Useless Information Society.  It has a 2006 copyright date which means some of this information could possibly no longer be current.

I'm a long time (as well as big time) trivia fan.  In fact, I've done several blogs over the years about trivia.  I immediately became distracted and started randomly flipping through the book.  Half an hour later I was still standing in front of the bookcase thumbing through the pages.

I decided to share some of this useless information with you.  The contents of the book are broken down into thirteen categories which I'm going to break up into three blogs, this week and continuing over the next two weeks.  I'll share a few items from each category.

I did discover one error while thumbing through the pages.  I think it could more accurately be called an oversight, a typo that was missed during the editing/proof reading process, rather than an actual error in research.  I'll share that with you at the end of the third of this series of trivia blogs.

HALL OF FAME:  Thomas Jefferson anonymously submitted design plans for the White House, they were rejected.  Andrew Jackson was the only president to believe that the world is flat.  James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other—simultaneously.  Gerald Ford was once a male model.  Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.  Adolph Hitler was Time magazine's Man Of The Year in 1938 (keep in mind that Time magazine awards that position to the person they feel has had the most impact on the news which is not the same thing as someone to be admired).  The shortest British monarch was Charles I, who was four-feet nine-inches tall.  When young and impoverished, Pablo Picasso kept warm by burning his own paintings.  Christopher Columbus had blond hair.

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT:  Tom Hanks is related to Abraham Lincoln.  Tommy Lee Jones and Vice President Al Gore were freshmen roommates at Harvard.  Elizabeth Taylor appeared on the cover of Life magazine more than anyone else.  Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.  In high school, Robin Williams was voted the least likely to succeed.  Mick Jagger attended the London School of Economics for two years.  Parker Brothers prints about $50 billion worth of Monopoly money in a year, more than the real money issued annually by the U.S. Government.  Kermit the Frog is left-handed.  Peanuts is the world's most read comic strip.  Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny, was allergic to carrots.  Alfred Hitchcock never won an Academy Award for directing.

THE LITERARY WORLD:  During his entire lifetime, Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick sold only fifty copies.  Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein at the age of nineteen.  Tom Sawyer was the first novel written on a typewriter.  Arthur Conan Doyle never had Sherlock Holmes say "Elementary, my dear Watson." The word cop came from the English term Constable On Patrol.  The most used letter in the English language is E with Q being the least used.  The oldest word in the English language is town.  The only fifteen letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.  Bookkeeper is the only word in the English language with three consecutive double letters.  In England in the 1880s, pants was considered a dirty word.  Polish is the only word in the English language that, when capitalized, is changed from a noun or a verb to a nationality.

ON THE MENU:  On average, there are 178 sesame seeds on each McDonald's Big Mac bun.  Coca-Cola was originally green.  A full seven percent of the Irish barley crop goes to the production of Guinness beer.  The first man to distill bourbon whiskey was a Baptist preacher in 1789.  Almonds are a member of the peach family.  You use more calories eating celery than there are in celery itself.  The oldest known vegetable is the pea.  Tomatoes and cucumbers are fruits.  There is no such thing as blue food, even blueberries are purple.  The only food that does not spoil is honey.

This is only a small sampling of the first four sections of the book.  Anyone have any interesting trivia bits that fall within these four categories?

Next week I'll continue with some samples from the second group of four sections.  And the week after that I'll do the final five sections and disclose the error I found.

CANADIAN CRAVINGS/Passport To Pleasure series—character interview

This week, from CANADIAN CRAVINGS/Passport To Pleasure series published by The Wild Rose Press www.thewildrosepress.com I'm welcoming Addie Burton and Knox Mallory to my blog.

Addie is a photojournalist with a major international travel magazine. Knox is the owner of Mallory Excursions, a train travel and vacation business started by his grandfather. Knox inherited the  Canadian corporation, headquartered in Vancouver, from his father about ten years ago and has continued to successfully run the organization as chairman of the board and corporate president.

Welcome to my blog, Addie and Knox. Thanks for taking the time from your busy schedules to be here with us today. I'll try not to keep you very long.

Addie:  Thank you for inviting us, Samantha.

Knox:  It's our pleasure. I've blocked out this afternoon on my schedule, so we have plenty of time. What would you like to know?

Why don't we start with how you first met? I understand it was while you were both attending the University of Washington in Seattle.

Knox:  That's right. I was starting my senior year and would be graduating the following spring.

Addie:  Knox was definitely the big man on campus, and I was the freshman just taking my first steps toward my chosen career. The moment I laid eyes on him, I wondered how I could get an introduction to someone who appeared to already have a large circle of friends.

Knox:  Our personalities immediately clicked and we became good friends right away. We would often have lunch together on campus, study together, catch the occasional movie, attend events on campus.

Addie:  That was always during the week. On weekends he returned to his home in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. We never actually dated. It was always doing things together as friends, but no real dates. Then he graduated, returned to his home, and I never heard from him again.

Knox:  Those were difficult times for me. My father was ill. He insisted that I had to stay in college and get my degree in Business Administration, but I also needed to learn as much as I could about all facets of the family business in preparation for taking over. He died two years after I graduated. So, at the tender young age of 24, I was head of a major corporation and really had my hands full. For the first few years, I had absolutely no personal life.

Addie:  I didn't really know anything about his personal situation away from college. He kept all of that to himself. I didn't know he had taken over the running of the company until the managing editor of the magazine where I worked came to me with a new assignment. But that didn't mean he hadn't been on my mind for that twelve years. Our relationship during college days had always been platonic, but that question of 'what if' had never gone away.

Knox: Yes, during that time I often thought about her, [reaches over and takes her hand] wondered where she was, what she was doing, was she happy with the way her life had turned out. And with that, there lingered the thought of 'what if.'

So we fast forward twelve years from the last time you saw each other to present day.

Addie:  I was absolutely thrilled when I was handed the assignment of a feature article about train travel and train excursion vacations in Canada with the focus being on the Mallory corporation as the leader in the field. I was scheduled to meet with their head of promotion. Would a major article in an international travel magazine be enough for the president of the company to be personally involved?

Knox:  I arranged my schedule so I could attend that meeting. I had no idea who the photojournalist would be that the magazine was sending to do the article. I don't know which was greater, my shock or my pleasure at seeing Addie again. We went to dinner that evening after the meeting. It was as if we instantly picked up where we left off, no awkward moments or uncomfortable lapses in conversation. But underlying everything was the nagging question of 'what if.'

Addie:  It was the same for me, the constant thought of 'what if.' My schedule called for me to be in Canada on this assignment for about two weeks which included taking one of the train excursion trips from Vancouver to Banff National Park and back to Vancouver with stops along the way. We spent as much time together as possible while I was in Vancouver which included a weekend getaway to a marvelous romantic inn on Vancouver Island. It didn't take long for me to realize that I had become emotionally involved with him during that time in college, I just didn't realize it at the time.

Knox:  I did everything I could, rescheduled meetings, even neglected some aspects of my job, in order to spend as much time with her as possible while constantly aware of the limited amount of time she would be in Canada before returning to her home in Seattle.

Addie:   We shared the details of our lives during those twelve years we had been apart. [she shot a quick look toward Knox] At least I thought that's what we were doing.

That's an ominous statement. What does it mean?

Knox:  It means I was a jerk but didn't realize it at the time.

[laughs] I'm going to need a better explanation than that.

Knox:  [laughs] Then you'll need to read the book.

Well, let me try this. Addie, you took one of the train excursions for the article you were doing. How long were you gone? Were you and Knox able to stay in contact while you were on the train? Do trains have the availability of allowing passengers to use cell phones while traveling through the wilderness between populated areas?

Addie:  Hmm, communication while on the train. I think how we resolved that is another reason why you'll need to read the book.

What about after the train excursion? How long before you needed to return to Seattle?

Addie:  After returning to Vancouver at the conclusion of the train excursion? Probably the worst day of my life.

Now that's a comment that truly needs an explanation.

Knox:  It was probably the worst day of my life, too. And you'll find the explanation in the book.

 Thanks, Addie and Knox, for being with me today. You leave me with only one conclusion—I'll need to read the book.

CANADIAN CRAVINGS/Passport To Pleasure series from The Wild Rose Press for their Scarlet Rose line of erotic romance.  www.thewildrosepress.com  A work assignment reunites college friends after twelve years. Will they fight the heated desire or pursue what might have been?

BLURB:

Addie Burton has a successful career as a photojournalist for an international travel magazine. When her new assignment in Canada brings her in contact with a friend from college she hasn't seen in twelve years, the attraction is instantaneous. She's ready to mix business with pleasure.

Knox Mallory is shocked to discover the photojournalist doing the magazine article on his company is a woman who had sparked his lust during his college days. Family circumstances had prevented him from acting on his desire, but he's hoping to resurrect what might have been.

Can two weeks satisfy their Canadian cravings or will it lead to more?

CANADIAN CRAVINGS/Passport To Pleasure series from The Wild Rose Press www.thewildrosepress.com  for their Scarlet Rose line of erotic romance 

ISBN 978-1-5092-4916-9 Digital

Amazon buy link:  https://www.amazon.com/Canadian-Cravings-Passport-Pleasure-Samantha-ebook/dp/B0BVRQWXFR

Barnes & Noble buy link:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/canadian-cravings-samantha-gentry/1143069026?ean=2940186757122

Also available at other online vendors

Excerpts and other information on my website:  www.samanthagentry.com

Visit my blog:  https://samanthagentry.blogspot.com 

CANADIAN CRAVINGS release day 2023-04-12

Wednesday, April 12, 2023, was release day for CANADIAN CRAVINGS, part of the Passport To Pleasure series from The Wild Rose Press for their Scarlet Rose line of sensual romance.  Check out the story of Addie Burton and Knox Mallory, college friends who reunited after twelve years apart.

BLURB:

Addie Burton has a successful career as a photojournalist for an international travel magazine. When her new assignment in Canada brings her in contact with a friend from college she hasn't seen in twelve years, the attraction is instantaneous. She's ready to mix business with pleasure.

Knox Mallory is shocked to discover the photojournalist doing the magazine article on his company is a woman who had sparked his lust during his college days. Family circumstances had prevented him from acting on his desire, but he's hoping to resurrect what might have been.

Can two weeks satisfy their Canadian cravings or will it lead to more?

G-Excerpt #4:

“When you get back from the train excursion for your article, we’ll go someplace special for dinner. Won’t you still have a couple of days before you need to return to Seattle?”

“I might be able to work out a couple of days of wiggle room before I need to be in my office at the magazine. However, I can’t think of any place more special than that beautiful inn on Vancouver Island where we spent the weekend.”

They talked for a few more minutes before terminating the call. Addie had tried to avoid thinking of the end of her assignment, of the day she needed to return home and throw herself into writing the article and making the final selection of the appropriate photographs to illustrate it. The drive between Seattle and Vancouver was less than three hours. It would be easy to spend weekends together.

Then a dark cloud of doubt and concern settled over her. The time she had been in Vancouver, the time they had spent together, had it only been the convenience of them being in the same place at the same time? Twelve years since they last saw each other, and the moment he walked through the door of Greg’s office, it was as if they knew each other but were meeting for the first time.

Would he want to maintain a long-distance relationship? Granted, it wasn’t that far, but it precluded having lunch together or a last-minute decision to have dinner or go to a movie. They would be limited to weekends and nothing spontaneous. He headed a successful corporation in Vancouver and couldn’t relocate to Seattle. Her job could allow her to settle in Vancouver and still take assignments from the magazine, but it was a moot point. He hadn’t indicated anything permanent, hadn’t mentioned anything beyond the immediate future of a couple of days after she returned from the train tour.

Her ringing phone startled her out of her thoughts. Assuming it was Knox again, she answered it without checking the caller I.D.

“Hi, Addie. I hope I’m not calling too late.”

“Corey!” A quick surge of anger darted through her. “I told you not to call me again.”

“You didn’t tell me you were in Canada…specifically in Vancouver.”

“How did you know that?”

“Your magazine told me you were there on assignment.”

“Well, I’ll have to talk to them about that when I get back. They’re not supposed to give out personal information on me to strangers.”

“I’m not a stranger. I’m your fiancé.”

“Perhaps once, long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away. But not here, not now, and very definitely never again. I don’t know how much more succinct I can be. Am I going to have to take out a restraining order on you? Do not call me. Do not try to see me. Do not try to contact me in any way. Have I made myself clear? Do you understand?”

G-Excerpt #5:

The train whistle interrupted her thoughts signaling their departure. Then the train slowly started to move. A little flutter of excitement flitted around in her stomach. She watched out the window. The train gradually gained a little speed as it pulled away from the platform. Then movement and commotion on the platform caught her attention. Someone tossed a suitcase in the open door of the car behind hers then grabbed the handrail and swung up to the stairs, boarding the train literally at the last second before it had gained enough speed to prevent the action.

She couldn’t stop the amused chuckle that escaped her throat. Is that normal procedure? Last man on the train as it’s pulling out of the station? Or has a late arriving employee almost missed showing up for work?

She continued to watch until the train cleared the platform, left the station, and headed down the tracks. The clackety-clack of the train wheels on the rails told her the excursion had officially started.

She returned to her work as she checked the daily itinerary Jimmy had given to the guests. Before she could become absorbed in making notes for her article outline, the sound of someone knocking at the door of her cabin interrupted her.

One of the guests taking me up on my offer to answer any questions or to give their opinions about the trip even though we just left the station? Or maybe wanting to comment on a previous trip they had taken?

As soon as she opened the door, she felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room, that she couldn’t breathe. Then overwhelming joy quickly replaced the shock. Tears of happiness welled in her eyes. On the other side of the door, looking more desirable than anyone had the right to, stood Knox Mallory.

“What are you doing here?” She blurted out.

A teasing grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “That’s not a very friendly greeting, especially after I risked life and limb leaping onto a moving train.” He reached out and lightly touched her cheek. “May I come in?”

CANADIAN CRAVINGS is part of the Passport To Pleasure series from The Wild Rose Press www.thewildrosepress.com for their Scarlet Rose line of erotic romance. 

Buy link for Amazon and Barnes and Noble  Also available at other online vendors

Excerpts and other information on my website:  www.samanthagentry.com

On my blog next week, Sunday April 23, 2023, I'll be doing an interview with Addie Burton and Knox Mallory—the two main characters from CANADIAN CRAVINGS.