Category Archives: Culture

A Not-So-Distant Warning

Posted on by under 1950s, Advertising, Books, Cold War, Commerce, Communism, Culture, e-books, fallout, Fiction, flood, history, missile race, Novel, space, spies, Television

August 18, 1955 is a day that will live in infamy for people of the Northeast. That was the day the Flood of ’55 ravaged our small town. Back-to-back hurricanes Connie and Diane turned peaceful creeks into raging torrents, sweeping aside towns from Pennsylvania to Connecticut and killing hundreds, seemingly in the blink of an eye.

As a child, I don’t remember much of that time, but years later, as a journalist investigating the events of that terrible night, I was stunned by the hardship and heroism of those who survived. With the benefit of hindsight, I decided to explore their stories through a series of novels.

The first book in the trilogy, Distant Early Warning, introduces us to the Andersen family as they struggle to recover from the devastating flood. The novel, and the ones to follow—Cold Fire and Good People—portray the dreams and fears of a family, town, and country as they navigate the promise and perils of Cold War America. Distant Early Warning doesn’t only refer to the DEW Line, the system of Arctic radar stations designed to detect incoming Soviet bombers. The title serves as a metaphor for the internal system that warns us of impending danger, warnings we often ignore.

Russia, rockets, race, and repression—issues the Andersens tried to resolve in the ’50 that revisit us today. As does their struggle for mercy and hope.

Theirs is a journey from darkness to light. Follow it here. Or start with that terrible night of August 18 in this excerpt from Chapter 4.

AT TEN TO NINE, Georgia let Skippy out for a short walk, wiped the dog’s back with a dishtowel, and moved her box into the kitchen. This was Georgia’s time. Switching on the television, she settled on the couch and tried to watch Fear Strikes Out, a movie Marsh would have liked about center fielder Jimmy Piersall. But at 9:30 the lights vanished with a snap. Suddenly blind, she groped toward the telephone. It was out, too. Now there was no way to call Marsh, even if she knew where to find him. And he had taken the car.
       From the street, shouts competed with the swish of tires, then a shudder as something heavy struck the bridge, rattling the house as if the earth had broken in two. The room squeezed her heart. Inhaling through her mouth, she told herself she was responsible for the children and had to think of their welfare. Marsh said that, if the town declared an emergency, the fire chief would blow the siren, and someone would come to their rescue. She could wait for the siren, but not in this stifling dark.
       Groping through a drawer in the kitchen, she found a small flashlight, thumbed the button and, checking that Skippy was safe in her makeshift bed, traced a path upstairs. Awakened by a noise in the street, Wil emerged from his room, still dressed in his life vest and rocket pack, ready to battle whoever he imagined had attacked the house. Cradling Penny—the baby fussed but didn’t cry, the cereal settling for once—Georgia led him downstairs, where she rummaged through another drawer to find their good tapers and a box of matches. Placing the candles on the table, she opened the screen door and peered into the dark. She didn’t need a light to sense the rush of water across their yard. The town’s storm sewers were designed to handle a hard rain. Their home was not.
       Wil noticed it first. Lifting a hand to stay his questions, she listened to the tinny sound of water trickling into the house. Opening the door to the basement, she played the flashlight over a small lake, the surface foaming like root beer. The seasonal items they’d stored bumped against the bottom of the steps—boxes of clothing, Christmas decorations, a pair of lawn chairs Marsh had promised to fix. Within the time it took to identify each object, the water rose to the second step, then the third. In minutes, it would reach the kitchen, sweeping them and their possessions through the front door.
       The playpen sat a good nine inches above the living room floor. She set Penny inside and turned to her son.
       “You’re a big boy now. I need you to help Mommy move some things upstairs.”
       Slipping into her boots, assuring herself that Wil had buckled his, she tottered down the basement stairs, hanging onto the railing, calling for Wil to be careful. The water had risen so rapidly, she had to duck to see under the rafters. Playing the light over the walls, she watched as water gushed between the stones, flooding the furnace and coal bin and inching dangerously close to the fuse box. They’d used the last of their spares, and there was no way, once the power came back, she was going to wade through that water and use a penny to complete the circuit.
       Urging Wil up the stairs, she closed the door and leaned her head against it. Even with the curtains open, the windows appeared blank, the streetlamps dead. The flashlight cast a narrow cone in one direction only. There was no place to set it and see clearly enough to climb the stairs to the bedrooms. Georgia would have to hold the light and the furniture, and her hands were already slick with sweat. She and Wil were able to lift the lamps, books, and ottoman onto the dining room table. The rugs they lugged upstairs and piled into the bathtub. There would be a mess to clean before she could bathe Penny, but it was the best they could do.
       Wil hovered at her side, jittering as if he had to go to the bathroom. “Can we bring Phil upstairs?”
       Marsh had spoken to Wil about how, as people grew older, they said goodbye to their imaginary friends, but now was not the time for a sermon. Besides, the Philco had cost nearly five hundred dollars, more than a tenth of what Marsh earned at the paper, and Georgia wasn’t about to lose it. She and Wil tried to drag the television up the narrow stairwell but couldn’t shove it past the first few steps. They left it on the landing and made their way to the kitchen.
       Where was Marsh, and was he all right? And where were the firemen he was supposed to send? Wil’s bedtime prayer rang in her head.
       Now I lay me down to sleep.
       The radio had died. Rain thrummed against the roof, the sound clotting her ears. She considered leaving, but where could they go on foot? Besides, there was a house between them and the creek and a concrete retaining wall lining one side of the bank. The town must have thought it would hold the water or they wouldn’t have built it.
       I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
       Thunder rolled over the house, rattled the windows, shook the floor. Wil took her hand. Penny issued a startled cry. Lifting her from the playpen, Georgia moved to heat water for a bottle before she realized the appliances were as dead as the lights. Dumb, she thought and dutifully pushed a nipple through its plastic ring, mixed the formula with tepid water from the tap, and let it sit.
       If I should die before I ’wake.
       The fire sirens came on with the whoosh of a gas burner, the sound oscillating between panic and fear. It cut through her chest. The creek would ignore the warning. Georgia pictured it as a mythic creature rising on stout legs, beat its chest, thundering its demands. She, too, would not be moved. They would ride out the storm until help arrived.
       I pray the Lord my soul to take.
       The sound of rain intensified. It seemed to buckle the walls. Holding Penny and the flashlight, she instructed Wil to jam towels under the back door. That would keep some of the water at bay. The basement posed the real threat. The old stone walls could collapse. Before sealing the cellar, she ventured a last look. Clasping the light to the baby’s back, Georgia aimed at the door. With her free hand, she reached for the knob and hesitated, her fingers suspended in the beam, her body sensing the weight of something trapped below the stairs, the pressure on a dam ready to burst. As if watching herself, she grasped the handle and cracked the door.
       Even as she stumbled back, she knew she’d made a terrible mistake.

By the Time We Got to Woodstock

Posted on by under Books, Culture, e-books, Fiction, history, Music, mystery, Novel, suspense

August 15, 1969, capstone of a tumultuous decade. Life in the rural town of Pennsboro, Pa. is about to explode. A dam that would flood the valley pits family against family. Marchers riot. Buildings burn. Amid the chaos, two lovers risk everything to fight for their home—and a chance to command the stage at a rock festival in a farmer’s field in New York State, an event we now know as Woodstock.

I grew up in those times, in the shadow of an unpopular dam, the government’s eviction of squatters, surrounded by the sounds of peace, love, and revolution. To understand the contradiction, I wrote a novel about those two kids. The result was Born under a Bad Sign, a dramatic and nuanced portrait of love and loss in the Sixties.

It begins, as many of our stories do, with a crush. Elizabeth Reed loves photography, the river the government wants to dam, and a musician who refuses to commit. Hayden Quinn, the guitarist Rolling Stone calls the next Jimi Hendrix, feeds another obsession—to play the biggest concert of his life. He presents Elizabeth with a dilemma: stay to save her family’s farm, or follow him into the unknown.
With saboteurs targeting everyone she loves, Elizabeth faces the greatest risk of all—whether to trust her head or her heart.

You can read the full story of their struggles here. Or start with Chapter 1 and the night the world fell away.

1.

FROM BEYOND THE HILLS came a jagged flash of light. Elizabeth Reed counted five seconds before the sound rumbled across the infield of the raceway, this makeshift venue for the largest outdoor rock concert on the East Coast. Another flash, and another ripple of thunder. In an improvised call and response, the crowd echoed its approval. The tower that held the lights and PA system trembled. So did Elizabeth’s arms and legs. She let the dizziness pass and, willing her stomach to settle, tucked both cameras under her arms and climbed to the sky.
       The warm-up band had just finished, the announcer promising that Orwell, fresh off its national tour, would soon take the stage. A wall of people surged forward. Despite the scalding July heat, this was the group’s homecoming and the locals had turned out in force, thousands of ragged kids with beards and muumuus, jostling each other in a fog of beer and smoke. Two years after Monterey Pop and the festival had come of age. So had the band.
       The tower swayed enough to cause Elizabeth to question her bravado. Despite the knot in her stomach, she climbed past speakers and spotlights for a better view of the makeshift stage, a plywood floor laid across a half-dozen flatbed trailers. The platform had been hastily constructed for the festival, the biggest in Pennsylvania’s Minisink Valley and a warm-up for one she’d heard could be even bigger, next month’s Woodstock Music & Art Fair in nearby New York.
       That was the real object of the evening’s performance, a final rehearsal for Orwell and its leader, Hayden Quinn, the guitarist Rolling Stone had called the next Jimi Hendrix, the man that Elizabeth, fresh out of high school, had followed halfway across the country as the band’s unofficial photographer. It was make or break time for the group. The band’s manager, Elizabeth’s Uncle Morey, had invited the man organizing Woodstock, Michael Lang, to attend the concert. So far, she hadn’t seen anyone fitting Lang’s description.
       As the wind rose to meet the night, Elizabeth realized that, if the crowd pressed closer, the tower could tip. Since her dizziness disappeared if she didn’t look down, she focused on the distance, tracking the Delaware as it wandered between Pennsylvania and New Jersey like a nomad, flowing freely despite the government’s effort to dam the river and drown her family’s farm. With the telephoto lens, she could isolate her property, snug in the rich bottomland of the valley. Camera in hand, river and fields spread below, she felt exhausted, scared, and ridiculously happy.
       Voices below startled her. Dressed in black, two members of the security crew waved her from the tower. The yelling morphed into the sound of hammering. Against the raw wood of the stage, Tommy Reed nailed cardboard cylinders to rows of two-by-tens, preparing the fireworks for the evening’s finale. He seemed dwarfed by the munitions.
       When the sound system kicked in with a recording of “Crossroads,” Elizabeth gripped the metal pipes to maintain her balance. Despite the rush of adrenaline, her arms ached from lugging the heavy Nikons all day. With a normal lens, the weight seemed bearable. But when loaded with a zoom and a motor drive, the outfit felt as if it weighed as much as a bale of hay. Before she descended, she snapped a picture of Tommy as he wired his makeshift rig, the camera hot and slippery in her hands. Heaven help them if she dropped it on his head.
       As soon as she landed, the security officers assumed their positions in front of the stage while the roadies assembled the last of the equipment. Her older brother Robbie frowned as he arranged cymbals and tightened the drumheads, his rusty hair in a deliberately unhip buzzcut. Reaching above his head, Cordell White plugged his bass into a stack of amplifiers and plucked a few notes. Unlike Robbie, who wore his usual white T-shirt and shorts, Del had dressed for show in leather pants, a jacket of purple satin, and a high-crowned Navajo hat with a yellow plume. Both of them looked frustrated, or mad.
       Tommy caught her eye and jerked his head toward the edge of the stage. He, too, appeared angry, a look that was highlighted by chapped lips, hair the color of licorice, and a nose as sharp as a chisel. The only festive thing about him was the tie-dyed headband.
       “Hey, Cuz,” she said, drawing a face that signaled either irritation or fatigue.
       He smelled of oil and mint. As usual, he wore sunglasses so dark that she wondered how he could see to connect the fireworks. Pecking him on the cheek, she took in the rows of rockets, mortars, and Roman candles that crowded both sides of the stage and felt a twinge of concern. “Aren’t they a little close?”
       Tommy scratched his back with a screwdriver. “Close?”
       “To the band.”
       Another crack of thunder and Tommy dragged a tarp over the pods. “Wait and see.”
       As security stopped a ginger-haired man flashing press credentials, Elizabeth regained the tower. One by one, the members of Orwell wandered onto the stage to a cascade of applause. Robbie positioned his cymbals, Del and Quinn hunched over tuning pegs, and Mattie, jiggling her ample ass, asked the crowd how they were doing. As the band struck its first tectonic chord, the audience thundered their approval.
       Mattie belted out the first number with a ferocity that shook the towers, all trace of her Southern accent lost in the ricochet of sound. Robbie thrashed as if he were drowning in one of the cow ponds on the family farm. Even Del, who usually bobbed in place, stalked the boards, his face a darkening cloud.
       Quinn followed with a scorching lead that featured a collision of Bach, Thelonious Monk, and Hendrix. Shirtless now and barefoot, he played with a single-mindedness akin to religious devotion, prowling the stage, slashing his guitar, bending strings until they threatened to snap. He hammered the neck with both hands as if playing a piano, the sound a frenetic cross between Paganini and Robert Johnson, the shaman who’d sold his soul to the devil for his talent.
       From her perch, she tracked the band, feeling more than hearing the smack of the mirror as it lifted to admit the light, the whir of the motor drive as it advanced the frames. Pace yourself, she thought, or you’ll run out of film.
       Like a tsunami, the intensity of the music grew, Quinn hurtling his body into the wave of sound, his head bowed, shoulders hunched, fingers on fire. Dreadlocks flew as he reared, face twisted in ecstasy, the notes tracking across his lips. No matter how many times she’d seen the show, Elizabeth felt stunned, and not just by the acoustical acrobatics. With the flick of his fingers, Quinn guided the music from brave too anxious to calm. Elizabeth felt warmth and humor, sadness and pity, and so much in between. It astonished her that anyone could convey such emotion without the use of a single word.
       The band continued the pace, blazing through songs as if racing to an uncertain end. By the close of the set, their faces shone with euphoria and sweat. Robbie raised his sticks, caught the eye of Quinn and Del, and they miraculously finished on the same beat, even as Tommy launched the first volley of fireworks, burning the night in a shower of red and gold.
       The musicians filtered off stage, waited a beat, and returned to a swelling ovation. With a deep bow, and a nod from Mattie, they launched into one of the medleys Quinn had arranged as an encore. Even before Elizabeth traced their faces through the telephoto, she could tell that, as the music grew more frantic, they struggled to hear. Hitting the final chorus, Mattie looked over her shoulder as if she were lost in the woods. Robbie buried his head in his drum kit. Del and Quinn traded places, Del moving to the monitors along the wing while Quinn arched over the stage to listen to the PA speakers.
       The music had grown so loud that Elizabeth could barely feel the vibration through the camera body as the motor drive cranked through another roll of film, thirty-six exposures in a matter of seconds before she hunched to reload.
       This time, the band didn’t leave the stage. They bowed slightly, as if they’d expended so much energy they had little left for movement, before launching into the second encore, a reprise of their single, “Bomb Babies,” that ended in a cataclysmic version of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Quinn had shortened the piece for maximum impact and, when he nodded, Tommy let loose with his final volley.
       From the corner of the viewfinder, Elizabeth watched the skyrockets arc into the night and explode in phosphorescent swirls. She grabbed a shot of Tommy, who timed the bursts to coincide with the downbeat. As the encore hit its crescendo, he quickened the pace, unleashing a white-hot assault that mimicked the original cannon fire. The band fed off the energy, Quinn and Robbie flailing, Del leaning dangerously close to the fireworks while Mattie spread her arms to embrace the crowd.
       Then, as Elizabeth lifted the camera to her face, the stage flashed with a blinding light and the world exploded.

But our intentions were good

Posted on by under Audio, Authors, Books, Business, Commerce, Creativity, Culture, e-books, Fiction, Internet, mystery, Novel, Technology, tourism, Writers, Writing

Our writers’ group had a discussion this morning about the use of AI to generate content. Is it a high-tech form of plagiarism? Does the work to which it is applied constitute original art? Digitally generated voices have already rendered obsolete the narrators of audio books. Will AI do the same to writers?

To illustrate the dilemma, one of the authors said he was astonished at the accuracy and sophistication of the answers he’d received after asking Microsoft’s AI assistant to summarize the chapters of his memoir. He’s about to pitch the book to an agent and was looking for a convenient way to describe the work.

Another writer said she’d used AI to generate a summary for the back cover of her memoir and felt pleased with the result.

I’ve used AI for research but never for pitching or publication. So, when the meeting ended, I uploaded the text of my first novel and asked Microsoft’s Copilot to write a summary for an agent. It might have taken 18 seconds to get an answer. It wasn’t what I’d expected.

I’ll let you judge whether it’s appropriate. But first, some background.

Peak Season is the first in a series of crime novels featuring a former police officer turned real estate agent and a retired state trooper who virtually lives on his boat along the Gulf Coast of Florida. It is a mystery novel, popular fiction that tackles a number of contemporary issues such as property rights and the environment.

I pitched the manuscript to a number of agents. This was before ChatGPT and other large-language models came into vogue, so my email was entirely human-generated. Here’s what I sent:

Dear [agent’s name redacted]:

She’s the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Responding to a domestic disturbance, CW (Candace) McCoy is forced to shoot a fellow police officer to prevent the death of his wife and child. Internal affairs rules the shooting justified. CW can’t and fears she’s inherited the killer gene from her father. Refusing to carry a gun, she quits the force and escapes to Southwest Florida to sell real estate, care for the grandfather who took her in after the murder of her family, and silence the demons that threaten her new life. But even in paradise during peak tourist season, there’s no outrunning bad blood.

Original book cover

Declared dead by the courts, Bobby Lee Darby appears in CW’s office to demand the family friend clear his name in a scheme to bilk millions from investors. When CW refuses, the fugitive financier kidnaps her grandfather and triggers a chain of burglary, assault, and murder that convinces local police the former cop has gone rogue.

Racing to find Darby and her grandfather, CW must confront her violent past, risky affairs, and love-hate relationship with Florida before those personal demons turn her new-found paradise into hell on earth.

A former journalist with Dow Jones, I am the author of The Spirit of Swiftwater and other books, with an eponymous website (jeffwidmer.com) and an extensive social network.

Since you look for new voices in women’s suspense and represent [authors’ names redacted], I think the CW McCoy series would make for a good fit with your agency.

I’ve included the first three chapters below. Would you like to see the complete 72,000-word manuscript and the first chapter of the second book in the series?

OK. Despite my heroic effort, that letter didn’t work, and I wound up independently publishing the novel in 2014. But what if I were to pitch a rewrite and use AI to generate the query letter? When I fed the text of the entire manuscript into Copilot, I got this:

Dear [Agent Name]:

I am thrilled to introduce Peak Season, a novel that captures the electric tension between fleeting beauty and the transformative impermanence of life. Set in a sun-drenched coastal town where every summer day burns with both promise and poignancy, this story follows [Protagonist Name], a determined soul navigating the dizzying interplay of desire, loss, and rebirth. As the town swells with the vibrant energy of peak tourist season, long-hidden family secrets, unexpected romances, and personal reckonings emerge, forcing our heroine to confront the true cost of chasing a dream—even when that dream burns as bright as the midsummer sun.

AI-generated cover

At its heart, Peak Season is a deeply atmospheric exploration of the human spirit. It invites readers to savor the bittersweet cadence of relentless change: the ephemeral thrill of new beginnings and the heart-wrenching inevitability of endings. Through lyrical prose and raw, immersive storytelling, the novel paints an intimate portrait of individuals who, like the turbulent coastal tides, are in constant flux—seeking meaning in moments both fleeting and profound.

I believe that Peak Season will resonate with readers who appreciate literature that not only entertains but also challenges them to reflect on the impermanence and intensity of life. Its richly woven narrative and authentic emotional depth offer a fresh voice in contemporary literary fiction—a voice destined to captivate audiences in today’s dynamic literary landscape.

Thank you for considering this submission. I would be delighted to send you the full manuscript and discuss how Peak Season can find its place among today’s most compelling literary works.

Warm regards,

The transformative impermanence of life? I’ll accept raw, immersive storytelling. Even a fresh, contemporary voice. But literary fiction? A bridge too far, and an inaccurate reading of the tone of the book, which is more Chandler and Evanovich than Proust or Joyce.

But enough of my views. What do you think? Is AI the shortcut to greater productivity and happiness or a Trojan Horse we’ll live to regret?

Ask your computer or phone. They’ll know.

Spirit Dance

Posted on by under Creativity, Culture, Music

What started as a night of peace and music has become one of the most famous attractions in Sarasota, Florida.

The Siesta Key Drum Circle has been a tradition on Siesta Key Beach for more than two decades. The drum circle began in the 1990s when a small group of local musicians and artists gathered on the beach to play music and dance. Today, the impromptu gathering has swelled to more than 1,000 during peak season, fronted by a core group of two dozen drummers and joined by an equal number of dancers.

According to one of the event’s founders, former military surgeon Marguerite Barnett, local polymath David Gittens organized a full moon drumming ceremony in 1993 by the site of the grandmother tree on the south end of Siesta Key. It was attended by nearly a dozen drummers and one dancer and was led by David in meditative African drum rhythms. The event was so inspiring that the group collectively decided to hold a weekly event at Beach Access 8, until it outgrew the parking a few years later and was moved to the main beach.

As word of the gatherings spread, more people began to join, and the Siesta Key Drum Circle was born. The circle quickly became a popular attraction for both locals and tourists. Except during severe weather, the drummers have performed every Sunday, starting an hour before sunset.

While visitors enjoy the crystal sands of Siesta Beach, others have found a spiritual connection to the circle.

“We original organizers did not do this with the intent of making an event,” Dr. Barnett told Siesta Sand in 2021. “For most of us, it is our church—a chance to put the cares of a busy week behind us and lose ourselves to the rhythms. For some of us, it has led to a community, relationships, and lasting friendships.”

I’m happy to say I made a couple of friends this past Sunday as Dr. Barnett and the drummers invited a group of photographers into the inner circle. They give a lot. Here’s our chance to give something back.

Click on an image for a larger view.

‘This book deserves a second read! (And maybe more).’

Posted on by under 1950s, Advertising, Books, Cold War, Communism, Culture, e-books, Fiction, history, missile race, Novel, spies

Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews has given Distant Early Warning, my novel of the Cold War, a five-star review:

It’s an amazing plot that has multiple subplots that help the reader get to know the Andersens and the incomprehensible events that have affected their lives. The characters had a lot of depth and were very realistic. This book deserves a second read! (And maybe more). It’s definitely un-put-downable!

You can read the full text on the review site or on Goodreads. And, if you’d like to explore the effects of natural and human disasters on a family already facing the fear and paranoia of the 1950s, you can read a sample and buy the book on Amazon.

Meeting friends, old and new

Posted on by under 1950s, Cold War, Culture, e-books, Fiction, mystery, Novel, suspense, Writers, Writing

I recently had the honor of discussing fiction and publishing with the Kanaya Book Club in Sarasota, Fl. The event also gave me the opportunity to catch up with a friend from our days in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania—B. Aline Blanchard, who founded Pocono Writers circa 1981. Aline, who organized the event, is a writer, sculptor, and visual artist now living in Sarasota. She has a pair of novels, several chapbooks, and a book of poetry to her credit.

We had a lively discussion of Peak Season, my first novel and the first book (of five) in the CW McCoy series of crime novels. Given that our adopted home of Sarasota just suffered a swipe from Hurricane Ian, the conversation migrated to storms and a reading from my latest work, Distant Early Warning, a Cold War novel set in a fictionalized version of my former hometown (Stroudsburg/East Stroudsburg, Pa.) during the devastating Flood of ’55.

Despite the grim complications of crime novels, the conversation turned lively, and a good time was had by all. The wine helped.

Thank you, Aline, for your generosity, and everyone who attended.

From left: Ginny Reck of the Kanaya Book Club, myself, and B. Aline Blanchard

Propaganda to make you see Red

Posted on by under 1950s, Cold War, Communism, Culture, history

In the 1950s, a relatively unknown senator from Wisconsin reshaped America by alleging that Communists had infiltrated the U.S. State Department. By 1954, Joseph McCarthy was accusing the Army of harboring Reds. In riding those accusations to fame, the senator created a state of fear and paranoia that ruined careers and destroyed Americans’ trust in their own institutions.

That legacy that lives today, in the litmus tests of political loyalty.

The Red scare, which predated McCarthy, lasted well into the 1960s. It was fanned by publications such as the 1949 U.S. government pamphlet entitled 100 Things You Should Know about Communism.It defined the objectives of the Communist state and told Americans how to identify supporters and spies. “What is Communism?” the first question reads. “A system by which one small group seeks to rule the world.”

Here are two more examples:

Number sixty-two. “How can a Communist be identified? It’s easy. Ask him to name ten things wrong with the United States. Then ask him to name two things wrong with Russia. His answers will show him up even to a child.”

Number seventy-six. “Where can a Communist be found in everyday American life? Look for him in your school, your labor union, your church, or your civic club.”

Image reading this and other Cold War propaganda as a child. What kind of a world would that create? One you recognize today?

Jeff Widmer’s latest book is Distant Early Warning, a novel of the Cold War.

The sound of the Cold War

Posted on by under 1950s, Cold War, Communism, Culture, history, spies

One of the most fascinating aspects of Cold War spy craft is the most innocuous-sounding: numbers stations. They broadcast seemingly random strings of numbers or letters over shortwave frequencies. The broadcasts are received by agents embedded in other countries. Because the signals are one-way, spies are able to hear and decode the messages without fear of radio-tracking.

Originating during World War I, numbers stations proliferated during the Cold War, that period of tension between eastern and western powers from 1947 through 1991.

In the novel Distant Early Warning, Wil and Glenn Andersen believe these broadcasts are aimed at a spy operating in their neighborhood.

This is what the boys might have heard on their shortwave receiver. It is a recording of a woman reading a string of numbers in German. The numbers were often read in groups of three, four, or five. The file comes from The Conant Project on SoundCloud. The Conant Project consists of dozens of recordings of numbers stations from around the world, available for listening or download. (For a look at contemporary use of the stations, see the Numbers Stations Research and Information Center.)

Soviet spy radio set (Eagle) Mark II R-350M. (Photo by Maksym Kozlenko. Used with permission under Creative Commons license.)

The band with kaleidoscope eyes

Posted on by under Culture, Music, Nonfiction

Fifty-three years ago, a group of high school kids calling themselves Shagg performed as the warmup band for the bubblegum hit machine The Ohio Express. What a contrast in musical styles, and whiplash for the audience, who’d come to hear the Top 40 classic “Yummy Yummy Yummy” and got Hendrix, Cream, and The Who. (“Yummy” hit No. 4 on the U.S. charts in April 1968. Although we eyed fortune and fame, our band never had a hit, or a recording contract. As Kurt Vonnegut would say, So it goes.)

The date was Saturday, June 22, 1968, the venue the Hullabaloo Club in Wind Gap, Pennsylvania, a pole building off a four-lane highway that looked like a World War II bivouac and felt the size of an aircraft hanger. Concrete floor, metal walls. I doubt anyone heard anything except a wall of noise. It certainly sounded that way from the stage.

Shagg’s original lineup consisted of Chip Decker on bass, Bob Dittman on rhythm guitar, John McAllister on drums, and me on lead guitar. The band expanded with the addition of Joey Raynock on keyboards, Gene Gorse on the Hammond B-3, and Ron Oney and Don Chase on vocals.

I wrote about that and other formative experiences of our generation in FINDING WOODSTOCK, which you can find at Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and other fine retailers.

As for the poster, yes, it is the original, on neon cardboard, with additional styling by Chip, the artist in the band. He added the flowers, the smoke streaming from the locomotive, and a girl with kaleidoscope eyes (it was the Sixties). Oh, yes, and the most important element that was missing from the original: our name.