Month: March 2025

On being 70

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Yesterday, I turned 70. And I couldn’t be more surprised. I was reminded of the time my 95-year-old mother said, “I never thought it would go so fast!” Which sent a chill down my spine.

I have never been one of those women who wanted to hide my age. And I still don’t, but for some reason 70 has me pensive. Up until now, I didn’t feel like a senior citizen, even considering the day my sweetie pie signed me up for AARP. “Here’s your card!” Ryan smiled and handed me that bright red-and-white confirmtion that I’m old.

I wondered what my 7th decade might have in store, and it turns out that AARP had the answers. The article “What to expect in your 70s and beyond,” was enlightening. There were things I already knew, of course, like one’s skin gets drier and wrinkles appear. Note that I have made my peace with wrinkles, as they are a sign, I think, of one’s life experiences. Apparently one-in-three women will get osteoporosis, though if we get some regular exercise we might be able to keep that particular scourge at bay. Our eyesight will become less acute. Our hearing will diminish and we are encouraged to get over our pride and acquire hearing aids. Our sense of smell will fade, so we are urged to try ethnic cuisines like Indian and Thai foods with their yummy spices and flavors.

I know what you’re thinking, being in one’s 70s sounds a bit dreary, but it’s not all doom and gloom. It seems that people in this age range kick butt in one particular category. According to AARP, “The 70s tend to be some of the happiest years of your life. One explanation for the trend: years of experience. ‘As you get older, you know that bad times are going to pass,’ says Laura Carstensen, Ph.D., director of the Stanford Center on Longevity. ‘You also know that good times will pass, which makes those good times even more precious.’”

Many of us are concerned about losing our mental acuity, and while it’s true that some of our brain circuitry starts to burn out as we age, the good news is other parts of our brain can pick up the slack, especially when we keep our gray matter stimulated. Social interaction, reading, doing puzzles, dancing, learning a new language, and taking music lessons can all keep our brains healthy. And don’t forget regular exercise, which can help our brain and body age more gracefully.

Here’s what I didn’t see coming: It seems that once we’re in our 70s our ears and noses get bigger. I’ll let AARP explain. “Non-articular cartilage, the type that gives ears and noses their shape, continues to grow with age, making these appendages larger. But look on the bright side: Such cartilage growth may have evolved to enable people to track and funnel sounds and smells as they age” Doesn’t that sound like nature is looking out for us older folks? I think so.

Maybe happy aging is all about mindset. I remember when I was home for the summer after my freshman year in college. My mother had arranged for me to be the caretaker for an elderly man, Mr. Frank Towey, who’d been a lawyer and a congressman who represented New Jersey in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was in his late 70s, going blind, and would sometimes, rather annoyingly, strike his cane on the floor to get my attention. As he was demanding and persnickety, we didn’t hit it off, at first. He constantly referred to me as Dizzy—Diz for short. In retaliation, I called him Commander. Very quickly however, we became friends. One of my fondest memories is chauffeuring him around in his 1955 black Cadillac convertible which boasted red leather interior. He would don a canary-yellow blazer and straw fedora and say, “Take me for a drive, Diz!” Then he’d grin.

I mention the Commander because one day he looked at me and said, “Do you know what the strangest thing about aging is?”

I stared into his watery-blue eyes. “No.”

“It’s that your body ages, but your mind still thinks you’re 30.”

I didn’t understand what he meant back then. Now I do. And maybe that’s the key. Even though our bodies might be growing older, our brains don’t have to.

Here’s the thing. If we’re lucky, we’re going to age. And we can live our lives in ways that make the aging process a whole lot more comfortable. And that’s exactly what we should shoot for. So exercise. Try new things. Give your brain a daily workout. Eat healthy food, but sometimes have a piece of cake. And perhaps, most importantly, stay in touch with friends and loved ones. Get out there and be social, because that, above all things, will make us happy as we age.

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Anne Montgomery

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to a Graves Registration Company, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?

Release Date: June 6, 2024

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Bookstores, libraries, and other booksellers can order copies directly from the Ingram Catalog.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

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Old dogs: They’re our responsibility

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I have written before about my aging cattle dog Bella, now a 14-year-old with bright blue eyes, a black and white coat, and a very grey face. She’s always been a gentle girl, pretty much as far from an alpha dog as one can get.

My girl Bella is now 14, and it’s my job to make her comfortable.

She wasn’t feeling well recently, and the vet determined she had ear infections, a slight lung infection, and perhaps some abscessed teeth.

‘We need to check her mouth,” he said, something Bella wouldn’t allow while awake. (She feels the same way about the rectal thermometer, which seems perfectly understandable.) So, we scheduled the surgery, even though I fretted about putting her under anesthesia at her age.

Everything went well, and the vet seemed surprise that all of Bella’s teeth were fine, though she needed a deep cleaning.

“She’ll feel better now,” he said.

“Would you like an itemized receipt?” the vet tech said. I considered the $820 I’d spent on her initial visit and shook my head, though I couldn’t help glancing at the bottom line: $659. I handed over my credit card.

And it was all worth it, because in a couple of days my old girl was bright-eyed and dancing when we took out the leash for her daily walk around the neighborhood.

But then, for no apparent reason, she started limping. We hurried back to the vet for another exam. They checked Bella for tick-borne diseases and took some X-rays. As I waited for the results, I couldn’t help thinking of the time a few years back when I got a call from worried friends informing me that Bella had a broken leg. However, the tests proved otherwise. “Bella is just a drama queen,” the vet had pointed out that day, just before handing me a bill for $624.

“There are no breaks and no apparent damage,” the vet explained when she returned. “But we’ll have a tech read the X-rays and get back to you,”

“I squinted at my dog, wondering if she’d gone all drama queen on me again, then handed over my credit card without looking this time.

The next day, I received a call. “I’ve read the X-rays and there’s nothing remarkable.”

Bella seems to be on the mend. And she has her little sister Mousey looking out for her.

“You’re just average.” I mouthed at Bella who was sitting at my feet.

“She probably has some arthritis. She is… um…old.”

I scratched Bella behind the ear. “I know how she feels.”

“No walks for two weeks,” the woman explained, then reminded me that Bella had been given a shot to reduce inflammation and has some pain meds she should take twice a day.

I know what’s coming. I’ve been in that special room at the clinic more times than I can count. “We don’t do suffering,” I told the vet. “It’s about her quality of life.”

But Bella’s not there yet. I know it’s my job—and that of all pet owners—to be vigilent, pay the bills, and know when the time is right to let our babies go.

For now, Bella’s life has slowed down. She spends her days with her little sister Mousey and is always happy to be curled up near her people.

I’ll keep you posted.

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Anne Montgomery

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to a Graves Registration Company, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?

Universal Buy Link

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Bookstores, libraries, and other booksellers can order copies directly from the Ingram Catalog.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

Goodreads

Amazon

Authors: Polish that elevator pitch

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I was at a book event a while back, and as often happens when you get a bunch of authors together, the same question was asked repeatedly: So what’s your book about?

Seems simple enough. But as I listened to a few of my peers rattle on and on about their books, I wanted to gently point out that the fewer words they use in what is called an “elevator pitch” the better. An elevator pitch, is a brief description of one’s current writing project, one that might pass between the author and the president of a huge publishing house on the occasion that they find themselves in an elevator for 30 seconds or so. Obviously, this pitch is short. Very short.

Writers know that it is much easier to fill five pages than a 30-word paragraph. The latter is extremely difficult as every word must count. Though the above elevator scenario is unlikely to happen, the ability to define your work in a few sentences is important to you and any agents, editors, publicists, or media people who might be interested in your book. So the elevator pitch is a tool that every author needs to have ready.

The pitch should be maybe 20-40 words. It should identify the main idea and what the protagonists are seeking. For example. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory: “Two sisters, Anne and Mary, are driven to advance their family’s power by courting the affections of the King of England and a ruthless rivalry develops between them.”

Here are a couple more, like the one above courtesy of Reedsy.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han: “When her secret love letters somehow get mailed to each of her five crushes, Lara Jean finds her quiet high school existence turned upside down.”

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown: “A murder inside the Louvre, and clues in Da Vinci paintings, lead to the discovery of a religious mystery protected by a secret society for two thousand years, which could shake the foundations of Christianity.”

The point of course is to make your book unique and compelling and to get that CEO—or whomever your trying to pitch—to say, “Tell me more!”

Developing an elevator pitch that makes someone’s eyes light up and request additional information is the goal. Your handful of words needs to be striking and memorable. So, be clear: Who is your protagonist? What do they yearn for? How do they plan to get what they want? What is standing in their way? Make sure not to include spoilers. Memorize your pitch and be prepared to deliver it in a conversational way. Smile and sound confident

It is ironic that of the tens of thousands of words authors put into their books, the few in an elevator pitch are perhaps the most important.

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Anne Montgomery

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to a Graves Registration Company, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?

Universal Buy Link

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Bookstores, libraries, and other booksellers can order copies directly from the Ingram Catalog.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

Goodreads

Amazon

The case for metal flowers

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I’ve been a gardener for decades, mainly in the desert. For the past 30 years I’ve toiled in the raised beds on the east side of my Phoenix, Arizona home. That’s the first thing you learn. Never plant your garden where the scorching fingers of the afternoon sun can creep in and turn your lovingly tended plants into sad little twigs.

I taught my son Troy how to plant and tend a garden, but when I left town, he forgot his lessons.

The other thing you learn is that we have two growing seasons. In the fall—the first week of October or whenever the heat has subsided to nonlethal temperatures— we plant greens and herbs. In the spring, around the first week of March, we plant carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, and peppers and hope they bear fruit before the heat hits.

It’s a delicate dance.

Today, I spend part of my time in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and I’ll admit I couldn’t wait to get my hands into that rich tropical soil. While I don’t have as much room as my garden in Phoenix affords, my sweetie pie built me a moveable rack from a discarded door where I hang pots. I figured container gardening couldn’t be all that tough, especially with all the gentle rain we get. For those of us who are desert dwellers, the idea that water comes naturally from the sky is quite exhilarating

What I didn’t expect is that gardening in the tropics can be as fraught as it is in the desert. My first crop was happy at first, but then inexplicably everything died. Who knew there were growing seasons in the tropics? Something a kind man pointed out while staring at my cleverly designed door that, at that point, held mostly dead plants.

“Try again in December,” he said. “It’s too hot now.”

My first attempt at gardening in the Virgin Islands didn’t pan out, but I’ll give it another try.

The problem is I’m not on my little island in December. We generally head back to Phoenix in November, where I recently found myself staring at what was previously my beautifully landscaped desert yard. What did I find? Dead plants! It had been an extraordinarily hot summer and fall, with virtually no rain. I expected the boys—okay, they’re men in their late 20s—who live in my home to have noticed my thirsty trees and flowers and herbs.

“Why didn’t you water the plants!” I pointed at the front yard where sad-looking foliaged drooped in the heat.

“I didn’t notice,” my son said, avoiding my gaze.

“How could you not see everything dying?”

He shrugged.

The indoor plants were equally as bedraggled, most overflowing as if they’d just been watered because I’d soon be coming home. As for my garden, nothing survived, not even the indestructible rosemary bush or the pomegranate tree that had shadowed my herb garden from the sun for decades.

The great thing about metal flowers is no one can kill them.

At that moment, I realized that given my nomadic lifestyle I might have to give up gardening altogether. Even if I’m in the right place at the right time to plant a garden, I won’t be there to tend it.

Recently, I walked around my backyard, rather depressed. It use to burst with color. But, as I am preparing to head back to St. Croix, there seemed to be no point in planting anything.

Then, I had a thought. I asked Ryan to get some paint to spiff up our two beige sheds, while I went to the Mexican Import Store.

Yes, I know they’re not real flowers. But, hey, no one ever has to water them. While my solution is not perfect, it works. And even the boys can’t kill my metal flowers.

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Anne Montgomery

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to a Graves Registration Company, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?

Release Date: June 6, 2024

Universal Buy Link

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Bookstores, libraries, and other booksellers can order copies directly from the Ingram Catalog.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

Goodreads

Amazon

Simple hacks to being a better writer

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Luckily, writing is a skill not a talent, which means authors can impove as long as they practice. Just for reference, a talent is defined as an innate, natural ability one is born with. Think swimmer Michael Phelps, with his massive feet and incredible wingspan. I mean the guy was born to be a swimmer. A skill, meanwhile is something we acquire which develops over time through education, dedication, and practice. Note that Phelps didn’t just have immense physical talents, he had the drive to spend tens of thousands of hours in the pool over his career, honing his abilities on the road to those 28 Olympic medals.

Even though I was not a good student when I was young—I’m a low-level dyslexic and hated to read—I have spent much of my life writing as both a reporter and an author. I only mention this because I believe that if I can be a competent writer, lots of other people can too.

There are some things you can do right now to improve your writing. Little hacks that make your prose more professional. One is to avoid the repetition of words. There are about 170,000 words currently in use in the English language. Americans typically use only about 5,000 when speaking and 10,000 when they write. While that seems like a lot, it’s not. Using the same words over and over is a bore, and we lose the opportunity to add richness to our writing when we don’t branch out. Now don’t go crazy and use words that seem pretentious or grandiose. Also try to avoid overused words like good, bad, old, beautiful, happy, sad. Learn to love your thesaurus app and check out options if you find yourself repeating the same words in a paragraph.

Because writers love their words, they are often tempted to use too many. As a former journalist, I had to learn to utilize my words sparingly, since I was often constrained by time limits or word count. That often meant eliminating any words that were unnecessary. For example. Here’s how I initially wrote a previous paragraph. I deleted the underlined sentence because it added nothing essential to the story: Even though I was not a good student when I was young—I’m a low-level dyslexic and hated to read—I have spent much of my life writing as both a reporter and an author. That I ended up making a living from words surprised some who knew me back then. I only mention this because I believe that if I can be a competent writer, lots of other people can too. (I will point out here that in this paragraph I overused the word “word”. Sometimes, there’s just no way around it.)

Good writers take their readers along with them right into the story. The best way to do that is to give readers the opportunity to smell, taste, touch, and hear the story. Warm cotton sheets. Birds chirping in the trees. Smells of toast and bacon. That first sip of coffee. That’s called painting a picture for your audience, one that touches their senses. Note, however, that writers sometimes add too much description to a scene, and this often bogs the story down. There’s a fine line between not enough description and too much.

Another way to make your writing more dramatic is to use fewer pronouns. Try of avoid he, she, his, hers, it, we, they, them and all the other pronouns since they add little in the way of description. Now this doesn’t mean you can never use pronouns, just think before you do and consider if there’s an alternative. Using proper nouns or linking two sentences together are good ways to eliminate pronouns.

Like anything else improving your writing involves practice, practice, practice. So go ahead and give it a shot.

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Anne Montgomery

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to a Graves Registration Company, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?

Universal Buy Link

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Bookstores, libraries, and other booksellers can order copies directly from the Ingram Catalog.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

Goodreads

Amazon