…because sometimes editors and the reading public are even more anal retentive than we are.

Okay, so I was writing a scene wherein a son and father are clearing out the deceased wife’s things. There I came to a screeching halt. My problem: did they have plastic garbage bags in 1960? More to the point: did they have plastic garbage bags in Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1960?

So I did some quick research online and really didn’t turn up a lot of anything, except that plastic bags were invented by a pair of Canadians in 1950. That didn’t help much. So I called my mother-in-law. We both laughed until our sides split. She said, “But I was only 11 in 1960.” I asked, “But if you needed to take something somewhere, what did you put it in?” She said, “I don’t think we even had garbage pick-up back then. But if we took something somewhere, we put it in a black plastic garbage bag.” Then she said, “Back then, people burned their garbage or threw it into the river.” I told her I’d keep digging and call her back.

In the end, I wound up e-mailing Hefty, well the company owners of Hefty, Pactiv. Within twenty minutes, I had a response to the question When were Hefty trash bags first introduced in the United States? The response: Under the brand name of Kordite®, 1955. Under the brand name of Hefty®, 1957.

I still need to call my mother-in-law back.

- from a local bookseller’s newsletter, this thing of beauty was at the bottom:

While photography is allowed, we ask that there be no posed photography. There will be a [name of store removed] staff member on hand who will gladly take a picture of you and the authors while they are signing your book with your camera.

It’s almost enough to make me want to pick up the phone and call them and say, “Um, y’all, we gotta problem!”

Proofread, people. Proofread! :poke: