Maybe it's my attitude

If you don't define a social life as dating, I've always had a great social life. If you define having a social life as dating, not so much. 

I didn't usually bemoan this situation, but for some reason when I lived in New York, I reacted when the newspapers featured stories about a new anchorwoman who came to town. I read an article about how she was dating John Heard (the father in Home Alone). Now, I never had a thing for John Heard. I didn't want to date John Heard. Nonetheless, I mumbled to myself that I'd never meet John Heard. It was the principle that annoyed me. 

I put down the newspaper and headed to LaGuardia to catch the Eastern Shuttle to DC. I wasn't an early boarder but I could find an aisle seat about five rows back, my usual spot.  It was Sunday. The plane wasn't full. There were only two people in my row. Me in the aisle seat and, across the aisle, a man in the window seat. John Heard.

That was when I realized perhaps fate wasn't what was holding me back.

The Tilt-A-Whirl and Me

When I was in my early twenties, I spent quite a few summers at the Jersey Shore. My friends and I didn't often ride the amusements, so the times we did stand out. Especially one particular night, one of those nights you might want to forget but somehow you never can.

We were a fairly large group who shared a house in Sea Isle City. A large group with varied culinary skills. The night in question, one group cooked an African cuisine. Another group cooked something less exotic and less memorable but no less spicy. We all shared every dish. 

As soon as we finished dinner, we ran out of the house and jumped into the hearse that one girl's boyfriend drove-very cool at the time--and headed for the Wildwood Boardwalk to ride the "big rides."

You may see where this is going.

The first ride we ran to--and I recall we ran--was the Ferris wheel. Now, to call this amusement a Ferris wheel is a bit of a misnomer. Yes, it was a big wheel. And  yes, it had individual cars. However, the wheel tilted as it rotated and the cars, actually cages, spun and flipped. All at the same time. We bad no idea what was up and what was down. Today I cannot imagine the amount of money it would take to get me on that ride. But back then? We jumped on eagerly and got off feeling fine.  And ran to the Whip. 

Now, the Whip was an amusement that my mother deemed too rough for little me, possibly because she was aware of the concept of whiplash. However, I was no longer a little girl and my mother wasn't there that night. So, we leapt into a car and let the ride, without the benefit of seatbelts, jerk us around like crash test dummies testing the effects of forty-mile-an-hour car crashes. We loved it.

Thinking that we should take our riding down a notch for a break, we ran to what I thought of as the calmest, most soothing amusement: the Tilt-A-Whirl. There were no bright lights flooding the ride that sat on the edge of the pier with a lovely ocean view barely visible in the moonlight. Even though there was erratic spinning involved, the overall mood was calm. I leaned back, breathed in the sea air, and gazed out over the ocean. Everything changed in an instant. At least for my stomach. I'll get to the point. I threw up in my lap.

I was very considerate and had extraordinary aim. The car did not have to be hosed down. I, on the other hand, did. I won't paint a picture. I'll let you visualize a twenty-something woman being hosed down beside the Tilt-A-Whirl. The teen-aged operator didn't seem non-plussed. Apparently, it happened. 

I tried to find out if amusement parks still have hoses near rides. The answer I got was some do especially near particular rides. Want to guess the first ride on the list? The TILT-A-WHIRL! Now they tell me.

© Jane Kelly 2025

My Third Summer

A post I made on Facebook recalled that my mother refused to spend any more summers in a beach house saying, "Everyone else gets a vacation and I just move my job."

My family had been spending summers in Wildwood Crest for at least a dozen years by the time I was two and a half. Oddly enough, the rental house was paid for by my father's job. Every executive at his company got a summer house in Wildwood Crest.  I don't know why. The only explanation I can offer is: it was the fifties. (Aside: At some point my father's perks included a car but I recall stories of my father taking the bus down from Philadelphia for weekends in the early years. Why give someone a house but not a car to get there? Maybe that's why they eventually threw in the car.)

Anyway, back to my third summer. That was not an easy summer for my mother, mainly because of me. I came close to death several times. Not sure why. I got something--no one is still alive that would know what-- got misdiagnosed, was medicated incorrectly, and lost the knack of breathing. Most of the time my father was at work in the city. My mother was alone at the shore without a car which in a way didn't matter because she couldn't have driven it anyway. 

The story of that summer was always told to me in a casual way. Nothing to see here. "Mother used your illness as an excuse to stop spending summers in a rented beach house." Decades later my brother apologized to me because he would get scared and hide. I swear he said under the bed. I think Rick was expecting too much of a twelve year old boy. Until he told me that, I had no idea of the impact my episodes might have on the rest of the family. 

I don't think I fully grasped the seriousness of the situation. The story was related as "Hey, remember when Janie almost died?" I knew a summer neighbor had driven my mother and me to Philadelphia. That was serious. But one story my sister told me when I was in my fifties made me understand.

Rosemary was old enough that summer to remember my mother scooping up a limp baby and running out of the house yelling, "Help me. Somebody help me. My baby's dying."

Wildwood Crest neighbors helped and, spoiler alert, I didn't die. 

As a kid, I was disappointed we no longer went to the shore for the summer, but hearing that story makes  me understand why my mother never wanted to be in that position again.

The silver lining was after we stopped going to the shore, I became a 'friend.' You know, the kid parents always took along on vacation to keep their own kid out of their hair. I was a 'friend' up and down the Jersey coast line. So, when it came time to write murder mysteries set at the Jersey Shore, I had fond memories of a wide variety of towns. This was important because it did not seem plausible that a body would wash up on the shore of let's say Ocean City, on a regular basis.  

Ironically, the town I have fewest memories of is the town where I might have spent the most time. Recently I have been back. I don't expect to recover old memories but I might get to make some new ones.

© Jane Kelly 2025

Mother's Love of Somewhere Else

The one thing I always understood my parents didn't agree on was travel. He didn't care if he went anywhere. She didn't care; she would go anywhere. 

My father was a devout Catholic but my mother liked to say he wouldn't walk to the corner to see the Pope pass by. That was an exaggeration. He'd walk anywhere. It was getting him into other conveyances that posed the problem. 

She did manage to talk him into a car on occasion. I believe the longest vacation was to Cape Cod which I suspect she probably finessed by positioning the trip as a treat for their pre-teen daughter (me) who had a crush on the very cute President from Massachusetts (JFK). The longest add-on I recall was to Niagara Falls which she insisted was just around the corner when we dropped my brother off at Cornell. In her defense, it was only 165 miles from Ithaca to Niagara Falls. However, although there were interstate routes available, I don't recall being on any. Guess who was in charge of the map?

My father was a good sport about road trips. When they opened the Cape May-Lewes ferry, they were there within the week. When they opened the Chesapeake Tunnel/Bridge, they were there within the month. The voice in Field of Dreams that said, "If you build it they will come" was talking about my mother. But only if my father drove her. She never got a license.

She did fly with my father on the occasional business trip but, until my brother moved to Bermuda and sent my parents plane tickets, I don't think she ever got farther than Chicago or Boston. But I am sure she was happy to go to those cities. They were somewhere else. 

Not all business travel involved planes.  At one point my father's job required him to visit twenty-two small towns in eastern Pennsylvania. Scranton was the biggest. My father only had to start a sentence, "Would you like to take a ride to . . . ." She'd be in car. I rode along and she would make the day a special occasion. We were going to the best place on earth. Somewhere else.

My mother raised me to think travel was the most important thing in life. My only goals in life involved being somewhere else. Living in different cities. Traveling to different cities. I got to do both. Probably in excess. She did not.

Sometimes when business travel got exhausting, I would feel as if I was doing it for her. My mother's daughter would never spend a night at the Tokyo airport on a layover. No, I took the bus to the Imperial Hotel (she loved hotels) and got up early on a Sunday morning to spend a few hours touring Tokyo. When dragging myself through the Imperial Palace Gardens, I believe I actually spoke aloud when I said, "Can I go home now, Mother?" But the effort was worth it if for no other reason than when asked if I've been to Japan, I get to say "yes, but only for the day." 

My mother would have approved of my day trip to Tokyo. She might have been a bit jealous. We suspected she even envied my brother's Army deployment to Korea (not the tourist destination in the early sixties that it is now).

My sister actually came up with a solution to my parent's travel issue. For their 25th wedding  anniversary, "we" gave them a cruise to the Caribbean and South America. I think in the end, they both enjoyed it. She got to go to new places and he got to sit in a deck chair and read. I think if they had lived into retirement, cruises might have resolved their issue. Sadly, they didn't.

What I Learned from the Murder Channel 1

True crime is having a moment.  One could think of the assortment of true crime books, TV shows and podcasts as trash entertainment, and many do. But I think they can be viewed as educational. And, even though I make light of the topic, I am not kidding. (I am not going to discuss the comfort watching crimes getting solved can offer to those who suffered the consequences of criminal acts that have not be solved. That is far too serious a topic.)

For me, my affection for true crime stories started with books by Ann Rule, expanded into Discovery/Investigative ID television and landed in the world of true crime podcasts. Once I started writing crime novels, I viewed them as professional reading and viewing. Yes, consuming all the true crime media is one way to do research, but for me it also confirms that what I am writing is, sadly, not outlandish. People harbor secrets, put on facades and do horrible things. Which brings me to the educational aspect of true crime and thoughts of things I would have done differently after consuming all this media.

Back in the 1970s, I stopped to see a friend in Denver on a cross-country drive. I went along with her to a meeting of recently divorced men and women and accepted a date with one of the few male members who it later turned out had never been married. Unlike me, he had not accompanied a friend. Today, any viewer of what I like to call the Murder Channel would have seen that as a Red Flag. I wasn't worried. My friend didn't know the guy but others in the group did. It seemed like a safe decision. Not so safe that my friend didn't feel the need to get his fingerprints on something when he came to pick me up. We thought that was funny. 

I'd never been in a car with a gun rack in the back but I don't recall there being any rifles in it. I'm not sure I would have worried if there had been. I was an East Coast girl discovering life Out West.

We were in suburban Denver so going to a bar in a Holiday Inn that featured entertainment didn't seem that unusual.  The date actually went pretty well for a while. Until, as the cliche goes, it didn't. I don't think I had to ask to be taken home. He was happy to get rid of me.

I only remember one moment of the ride back to my friend's house. We stopped for a red light. It was the 1970s. There was nothing around. He pointed to a police car monitoring the intersection and said, "This is your last chance. You can jump out of the car and run over to get help you or," he changed the direction of his finger and pointed into blackness, "I'm going to drive you that road and murder you."

My response? "No, you're not." I stayed put.

Spoiler alert: he did not kill me. 

But, he could have. I know that now. Thanks to the murder shows.

© Jane Kelly 2025

A Little Background on Swoon '64

The Writing in Time Mysteries feature modern-day amateur detective Tracy Shaw looking into unsolved crimes from the past. I started the Writing in Time Mysteries because of a desire to record the times I grew up in. I might have called them Writing in My Time Mysteries. Maybe I should have. I wanted to set them in the city I grew up in and to tell the story against the backdrop of events—good or bad—that are part of Philadelphia’s social history. Picking the first topic wasn’t hard. Few events united the city like the saga of the 1964 Phillies.

I hoped to create a parallel between the story and the event. If the Phillies had a swoon, the characters needed to experience a swoon as well. Swoon ’64 is not a baseball novel but the action takes place during the fall of 1964, the end of the baseball season, the time of a record-breaking September swoon of the Philadelphia Phillies. 

Why swoon and not slump? From what I can gather, sports teams recover from a slump. But a swoon is terminal. The tournament, the competition, the season is coming to an end and there is no time for recovery. Such was the situation for the 1964 Phillies. Thus, it had to be the same for the characters.

No need for details but at the end of the season with twelve games to play, the Phillies needed one win to clinch the National League Pennant. (There were no playoffs back then.) They lost ten in a row and tied for second place.

Why did I pick this background event? 

I grew up in a family that loved baseball in a city that loved the Phillies.  Or, maybe Philadelphians loved to hate them. I don’t really know. I was too young to understand the intricacies of the relationship between a city and its team that, for several years in the late 1950s, had a lock on the basement spot in the National League. And, not only did they clinch last place for four years in a row, they did so in a spectacular fashion. In 1961 their record was 47-107-1 and, yes, that is the right order. Win-Loss-Tie.

The memory of the excitement of 1950’s Whiz Kids’ first-place finish was just that, a memory. The hope of revenge for their 4-0 World Series loss to the New York Yankees was fading.

So, I imagine that expectations started to rise when in 1962, after four straight years of finishing 8^th in an eight-team league, they climbed into seventh position—in the expanded ten-team league. Their win percentage climbed over 500. Okay, it was 503 but for the first time since 1953, the team posted more results in the win column than in the loss column. I can’t imagine that hope wasn’t high when in 1963, they finished the year in fourth place. For two years in a row their win percentage was over 500 and trending in the right direction.

And then came 1964. A year when it all went wrong. After a season of high hopes, sadness fell over the city. In Swoon ’64, the heartbreak of losing a pennant pales in comparison to the pain felt by the four local families affected by the murder of a twelve-year-old boy on the night of Game 10. The arc is the same for the characters and the Phillies. Swoon ’64 is a murder mystery. 

I like to write traditional mysteries with a puzzle to solve. The answer in this novel is found in the characters who have made critical mistakes, not on the ball-field but in life, and found themselves in a swoon.

Who might like to read Swoon '64? Fans of traditional mysteries anywhere. Philadelphians who like to read books set in their city. Folks from all over who might like to read about the town. Readers interested in life in the mid-1960s. People who like characters who add a little humor to a story. A narrator can entertain without ever forgetting the underlying tragedy. 

Who won't want to read Swoon '64? Anyone looking for blood and guts and violence.

If you think you’d like to read Swoon ’64, it is available on Amazon both in paperback and ebook format. Here is a shortcut: www.tinyurl.com/Swoon64

 © Jane Kelly 2025

You Just Never Know

I don’t have an Oscar story but I do have a Dolby (then Kodak) theater story. 

I needed some fake Oscars for a party at SLA in 2002 or so.  Still in my business clothes from the conference, I  hopped on the subway to Hollywood and Highland, loaded up on fake statuettes and found I couldn’t get back to the subway. The sidewalk was blocked for an AFI Tribute to Tom Hanks. 

I knew I could cut through the theater lobby. So, looking as if I knew where I was going and had every right to go there, I walked along the side of the red carpet. The crowds awaiting stars' arrival had their backs to me. No one noticed me except a lovely young guy with a headset and a clip board. Instead of being displeased when I told him I was headed for the subway, he was thrilled and offered to escort me. 

I looked really important as he walked me through the theater.  He did that not because I was "someone" but because I rode the subway. He rode the subway too!

You just never know what will impress someone.

Random Memories

Kelly Henderson. You survived spending the day with me when you were somewhere around two. I put you in the backseat of  my VW convertible which I hope had a seatbelt and took you to visit a Montessori pre-school that a friend owned. You were a huge hit with all the kids. With my vast knowledge of children's behavior I didn't realize they saw you as a baby,  I asked my friend how everyone knew. Her answer: white shoes.

Rita Rookstool Kenefic. I shared the worst case of church laughing with you. I can still remember where we were sitting in St. Athanasius. You were in the row behind me. We were with our parents I think. I don't recall them trying to stop us. Knowing our fun-loving parents, I can believe they secretly loved it. 

© 2025 Jane Kelly

Jane Kelly, Psychic

I wrote an entire blog entry “Meeting Mr. Smith” that could be construed as referring to my alleged psychic abilities or could be written off to my being a good judge of character. I point that out to emphasize that I am open-minded and do not consider myself psychic. I accept that some people might be. True psychics have some control over the phenomenon. Weird stuff just happens to me sometime.

Weird experience 1

I once developed an office crush on a guy-let’s call him Hank— who liked to lead me on but only to a flirtatious level. He had a girlfriend who worked in the same place. Let me restate that. A girlfriend I knew about. One night I went to an event at the Philadelphia Museum of Art with a friend. We entered through the back and had to work our way through the galleries to the event on the plaza at the top of the recognizable steps (think Rocky).

I led the way. We stepped onto the patio and I headed directly to one of several bars set up for the event.  

“You’re walking like you have radar,” my friend observed.

When we reached the bar, I turned to her and said, “I have this irresistible urge to move to my left. If the man beside me doesn’t move, I’m going to go nuts.”

With that the man next me to me moved.

“Thank God. Now I can move to my left.”

I did and was standing next to Hank with a girlfriend who also worked at the hospital, but not the one I knew about. After that, my crush kind of faded.

Weird Experience 2

I worked with a man with whom I had a cordial but not friendly relationship. For a while, we lived not too far apart from each other on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I never saw him around the neighborhood. We stopped working together and I never thought about him at all except one rush hour when I was on the subway and he popped into my mind. No idea what I was thinking, but he was the subject of my internal monologue on the train and on the platform I used to catch the crosstown shuttle going east where I walked right into him. He had just gotten off the shuttle coming west. We had a cordial conversation. I never saw him again.

Weird Experience 3

I was disappointed when, in my early twenties, a somewhat erratic relationship ended. It would happened eventually but I would have preferred a bit more time. 

After we drifted apart, I kept seeing him all over the place. A few examples out of many. I had lost a very good earring in his car. One day he made a left turn in front of me into a K-Mart parking lot. Without thinking I made a turn figuring I could look around while he was in the store. It took less than a minute to realize that was behavior of residents of crazy town. I hit the gas.

One day I was sitting in a shared beach house and I walked out on the porch for no particular reason. A friend came out in time to see him jog by. “Does he just jog up and down hopping you’ll come out?” He definitely wouldn’t do that. Maybe I hadn’t let go psychically.

I remember the last time I laid eyes on him. I was caught in a traffic jam on the East River Drive in Philadelphia. On the left, a steep incline with trees. Not a horrible view. On the right, a lovely view of boathouses and the Schuylkill River beyond. I had been staring out the left window when I thought how dumb that was. So, I turned to my right and, as if cued by the director, he came jogging by and out of my life.

I haven’t seen any of these people again and probably never will because this is not something I can do on demand. Because, I am not psychic.

For proof that I am in no way psychic, see my blog about my encounter with Christopher Reeve. 

© 2025 Jane Kelly