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| Stephen Bly |
Stephen Bly
Copyright
©2008
Writers are gold miners at
heart. Any story worth its gems has the sweat of pickax research behind it.
In the historical novel, Cowboy
For A Rainy Afternoon, I discovered these jewels of info that played out in
the plot ...
1.) Personal experience
Set in 1955, with the
narrator as a 10-year-old boy, same as I would have been, I was able to draw on
some past knowledge.
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| Gary Cooper in High Noon |
In the story Tex Ritter
sang, "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'" on a juke box, and I had
known all the words since my youth when I saw High Noon multiple times at the
theater. But I didn't realize that Gary Cooper, who played Will Cane, was a
Montana boy, from Helena.
2.) History of a brand
Part of the story happens
in a Woolworth's store, which was a Five & Dime, sort of like a
"Dollar Store," only it included a soda fountain/lunch bar, better
merchandise, and a friendly clerk behind every counter.
The first Woolworth's store
was founded with a loan of $300 in 1878 by Frank Winfield Woolworth. Despite
growing to be one of the largest retail chains in the world through most of the
20th Century, increased competition led to its decline, beginning in the 1980s.
