Is it Spring yet? by Nancy M Bell

 

To see more of Nancy's books click on the cover above.

Spring

I chose the cover of The Selkie's Song because it's just so pretty and reminds me that Spring is coming. Really, it is.

With that in mind I thought I'd just share some of my poetry that celebrates Spring.

May Moonlight

How many times have you heard

You can’t go back again?

It’s true you know, you can’t

You can go back to the way things are now

Never to the way things were then.

Long summer nights spent under the stars

Riding in the moonlight up Spy Glass Hill

The May darkness rich with the perfume of apple blossoms

The orchard ghostly white in the gloaming

The world is dark around me where I stand alone

Once more at the apex of that steep hill

Silence gathers, deep and still

Muffling the subtle chatter of the river

I see them coming through the cedars

Rising through the pearly clouds of flowering trees

Young and confident riding sure footed horses

Too young to know how the sweetness of this moment

Will linger in memory long years after this enchanted night

Celebrate

The banners of Spring are flying on the blue of morning

Yellow catkins dance in the sunlit air over the ice-skim puddle

Purple crocus carpet the brown and grey prairie

Bright butter yellow jonquils nestle close to the house foundation

Sheltered from the ever present Alberta winds

Spring comes riding the coat tails of the mighty Chinook

The earth breathes in misty tendrils above the rough ploughed field

 

Winter’s back is broken, melt water runs like blood

Warm sun shyly promises the glory of June to come

Alberta blue sky and flowering prairie flowing forever

The long cold months are gone, come celebrate Spring  

But Spring doesn't always come gently, does it?

Spring Snow

The storm demons are howling rabidly across the sky

Dragging their icy talons against the window glass

Screeching their defiance through the hydro wires

Buffeting the house with their fists of wind

Shrieking they the fall upon the exposed prairie

Vomiting great gouts of snow to cover the earth

They hurl handfuls of icy pellets in my face

As I struggle to let the stock into the barn

Mean spiritedly they snatch the door from my frozen fingers

Slamming it open and popping one of the hinges

I bare my teeth at them and wrestle the door from their grasp

Hold it steady as the horses troop in out of the angry storm

The bale of hay spills its summer scent in the frigid air

A sunlit meadow song to battle the storm raging outside

The storm demons grab me in their teeth and shake me

As I blindly make my way back to the house

Power and fury personified; they scream their defiance

Their voices howling through the wind in my ears

Reluctant to exchange the winds of winter

For the thunderheads of summer 

Seasonal Sestina

Why is it that the first flowers of Spring

Are so special and the green of new leaves

Wakes a wild joy in my heart

Is it because they signal the end of Winter

Filled with the promise of long summer days

And the lazy hum of honey bees among the flowers

The tiny white snowdrops are among the first flowers

Along with the purple crocus of Spring

Courageously piercing the snow with their leaves

Small purple clusters to gladden my heart

Throwing a gauntlet in the face of Winter

Shining brightly through the short Spring days

The snow retreats with the lengthening of days

The garden paths are strewn with clots of flowers

The sweet bouquet of flower scented Spring

Bright daffodils dance above their pointed leaves

The tulips glowing red as the sun’s heart

They chase from the path the last of snowy Winter

Now only under the brambles lies the evidence of Winter

Soon that too will retreat from the sunny days

The lilacs burst into a froth of fragrant purple flowers

The scent mingling with the sun warmed air of Spring

Slow awakening summer flowers break the soil with their leaves

Heralding the coming of Summer’s heart

Spring passes softly into summer; the pulsing green heart

That rules the year opposite the white of Winter

The long halcyon green and gold days

Forged by the fire of the sun and the glory of flowers

There is just the faintest memory now of Spring

The full heady bounty of Summer canopied by trees of leaves

In due course fiery autumn will colour the leaves

And the flames of October will quicken the heart

The winds of snow will welcome the Winter

The frosty silver and blue of early winter days

Will make us forget the summer of flowers

Too new and beautiful yet to make us wish for Spring

By January we will be wishing for green leaves and Spring

Our heart will have hardened against the silver beauty of Winter

And we will hunger after the days of Summer and flowers 

Thanks for sticking with me this far, and here's hoping Spring is right around the corner.

Until next month, stay well, stay safe

February is for Lovers and Chocolate by Janet Lane Walters #BWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor #romance books

 

In a curious moment, I started looking at all the series I've written and how many of them are strictly romance. Part of this was done in connection with how many series I've written. There are seven of them but not all are romances. While doing this research, I enjoyed a mug of mocha. Thus the chocolate.

Opposites in Love is the oldest of my series. These stories follow six young women who trained as nurses together. Each story is different but some appear in each others books and each finds their opposite - Astrologically,

Haunted Dreams is from the Moonchild series. There are a variety of careers but all the characters live in the same town. The heroines are all born under the Astrological Sign of Cancer.

Then for a little different take is the Island of Fyre fantasy series. Here each of the heroines belongs to one of the princedoms of the world. There are magical jewels, flying dragons and evil magicians.

Finally comes the Seduction series. The first four books in this series are two sisters and two brothers. The last two of the books belong to friends of the four siblings.

Now, I have other books that could fit into this category but they are trilogies. I don't consider those as series. For me there has to be four.

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Grey Cup vs Super Bowl, by J.C. Kavanagh

Darkness Descends, 

Book 2 of the award-winning Twisted Climb series

The Super Bowl took place February 13 and wasn't it a grand spectacle? Even the game was exhilarating. As a Canadian, I'm fascinated by the exuberance Americans display for football in general and the Super Bowl in particular. It's taken very seriously south of the border, much like ice hockey is 'Number One' in Canada. But back to football. What's the difference between the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the National Football League (NFL)? Here's my list of almost-everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-ask.

Teams

CFL: There are 9 Canadian teams divided into Western and Eastern Divisions.

There are 32 US teams divided into two 'conferences' - the National Football Conference  and the American Football Conference.

Longevity

CFL is entering its 109th season since forming. However, modern-day rules and regulations began in 1958 (64 years ago).

NFL held its 56th Super Bowl (LVI) but was officially founded in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association (APFA), though renamed National Football League (NFL) in 1922. After merging with rival American Football League (AFL) in 1966, the first Super Bowl was held in 1967.

Halftime shows

Grey Cup performers since 1991 include: Shania Twain, Keith Urban, Justin Bieber, Nickelback, Blue Rodeo, Gordon Lightfoot, Bryan Adams and Celine Dion. Prior to 1991, the halftime show typically featured marching bands.

CFL Grey Cup halftime show in 2017,
with a Canadian entrance on a dog-sled - Shania Twain

LVI Super Bowl halftime show featuring Eminem, Mary J. Blige,
Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent and Kendrick Lemar

Super Bowl performers since 1993 include: Michael Jackson in 1993 who revolutionized the format and turned the halftime show into a 'must watch' feature, Prince, U2, Shania Twain, Justin Timberlake, Maroon 5, Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Bruno Mars, Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez and Lada Gaga.

Season Length 

CFL plays 18 games prior to playoffs, from mid-June to early November.

NFL plays 17 games prior to playoffs, from September to January.

Field Size

CFL field is 150 yards (450 ft.) long. Each end zone is 20 yards and the neutral playing field is 110 yards. Field width is 65 yards (195 ft.)

NFL field is 120 yards long (360 ft.) End zones are 10 yards and neutral playing field is 100 yards. Field width is 53 yards (160 ft.)

Downs

CFL has three downs (attempts) to gain 10 yards in order to retain possession of the ball. Canadian teams favour long, 'passing' plays as a result, and teams tend to select 'running' athletes over bulk.

NFL has four downs to gain 10 yards. 

Players on field

CFL allows 12 players, with one additional 'receiver' due to the larger field area.

CFL 12 player field format

NFL 11 players field format

NFL allows 11 players.

Salary

CFL - average annual salary is $80,000 (US) and highest paid quarterback receives approximately $600,000 US.

NFL - minimum contract is $660,000 and highest paid quarterback receives $45 million per season (Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes).

Out-of-bounds catch rule

CFL requires player to have one foot on the ground, within the playing field, after catching the ball.

NFL rules dictate two feet on the ground after the catch.

Pass complete as Pittsburg Steelers player manages to keep both feet in-bound
(photo not from LVI Super Bowl)

Grey Cup vs Lombardi Trophy

CFL awards the Grey Cup to the game-winning team. In 1909, the cup was donated by Earl Grey, then the Governor General of Canada.

Canadian Football League Championship trophy:
The Grey Cup

NFL Super Bowl Champion team receives the Lombardi Trophy 

NFL awards the Lombardi Trophy to the winning Super Bowl team. It was named after the late Vince Lombardi, a player with five NFL championships and two Super Bowl wins. Mr. Lombardi passed in 1970 after a battle with cancer and the NFL board voted to name the Super Bowl trophy in his memory.

Trivia: In case you were wondering, it's estimated that 1.42 billion, yes billion, chicken wings were consumed on Super Bowl Sunday in the U.S. 

(All numbers and stats courtesy of Wikipedia, NFL and CFL official websites.)

Until next time, stay safe everyone.

 

J.C. Kavanagh, author of
The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends (Book 2)
voted BEST Young Adult Book 2018, Critters Readers Poll and Best YA Book FINALIST at The Word Guild, Canada
AND
The Twisted Climb, voted BEST Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers Poll

Voted Favourite Local Author, 2021
Novels for teens, young adults and adults young at heart
Email: author.j.c.kavanagh@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/J.C.Kavanagh
www.amazon.com/author/jckavanagh
Twitter @JCKavanagh1 (Author J.C. Kavanagh)
Instagram @authorjckavanagh
 

Myers-Briggs for Writers by Mohan Ashtakala

 

 The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) has long been a favorite among authors. In fact, the first novelist to use the Indicator was Katherine Cook Briggs, its founder, as a better way to understand her characters.

The MBTI, by way of personality tests, categorizes individuals into sixteen different archetypes, based on Carl Jung’s idea of cognitive functions. The personality test measures the extent of the test-taker’s adherence to the following characteristics: Introvert (I) or Extrovert (E); Sensor (S) or Intuitive (I); Feeler (F) or Thinker (T); and Judger (J) or Perceiver (P.) Each of these sixteen archetypes is assigned a four letter label, and personality traits are ascribed to each such archetype.

But the MBTI is much more than a description of different personality archetypes. Its examination of cognitive functions—Sensing, Intuition, Feeling and Thinking; allows for deeper exploration and “fleshing Out” of characters, especially when combined with “external” characteristics such as Introvert, Extrovert, Judger or Perceiver.

Sometimes, authors run into the problem of multiple characters who, despite outward appearance, all think and act the same way. The MBTI is useful because it allows writers to go beyond characters with whom they are familiar, based on personal experience. By using the MBTI, writers can create primary or secondary characters who would be true to their “character,” in terms of how they think and act. Genuinely diverse characters are important in creating believable tension, an important function in novel-writing.

As one may expect, the MBTI has shown usefulness in many areas, especially in Human Resource departments in the corporate world.

There are critics of the MBTI. Specifically, some find the number of categories to be limited, and perhaps, not fully useful in describing the enormous number of personalities that exist in real life. Of course, pigeon-holing a character into one archetype or another can be misleading. But, since MBTI is one of the earliest personality type indexes, a lot of literature and studies exist regarding the various personality types. This rich repository of information, if well-understood, can help authors create characters who, while showing distinct personalities, are believable and consistent in their words and deeds.

 

Mohan Ashtakala (www.mohanauthor.com) is the author of The Yoga Zapper, a fantasy, and Karma Nation, a literary romance. he is published by Books We Love (www.bookswelove.com.) 

 

The past is more familiar than we think....by Sheila Claydon

 Find my books here

Readers who have read the first two books of my Mapleby Memories trilogy will know that the heroines in both books travel back in time. In Remembering Rose, Rachel travelled back to the 1800s, while in Loving Ellen, Millie only travelled back a few years. The final book is different because this time both the hero and heroine travel back in time together, to the thirteenth century. Writing it has required more research than my other books. Thank goodness for the Internet!

I have learned so much while writing, some of it really surprising. It is, for example, a fairly commonly held belief that people in the Middle Ages never bathed and rarely changed their clothes. This, I discovered, is wrong. True they didn't have bathrooms or showers, and water had to be heated over a fire, but they did wash, both themselves and their clothes, and were as clean as it was possible to be in the often very difficult circumstances of their lives.

I learned, too, that when buying and selling goods they issued receipts much as we do today, and kept invoice books. And towns in medieval times were bustling with traders and craftsmen. No malls and supermarkets then. The people were all individual traders. As well as those we still recognise today such as bakers, brewers, bricklayers, locksmiths and carpenters, there were jesters, acrobats and minstrels who also played a part in everyday life. It was a sophisticated society too. There were barristers, engineers and architects for example, and diplomats, navigators and playwrights. In fact there were far too many occupations available in the Middle Ages for me to mention here. The list is endless.

Castles, too, were interesting. Even the smallest castle had around 50 servants, from chamberlains, laundresses, cooks, chefs and butlers to stewards, marshals and chaplains. Many even had their own doctor, dentist and apothecary. Living in a castle was like residing in a small town. And of course there were knights and soldiers as well. The downside of working in a castle was that the majority of employees were paid by the day. Only people such as the steward, the marshal and the chaplain were paid annually. Consequently most jobs were not secure because whenever the Lord travelled away, to battle or to court, or for any other business, many of the workers would be laid off until his return.

There were huge discrepancies in wealth too, far more than today, and most of the population had to survive on very little. There were no pensions, benefits or sickness payments. No health service. The majority of the population were peasants who had to rely on the goodwill of the Lord who owned the land they worked, and on monks and friars treating them when they were ill.  Some were lucky enough to have a benevolent master, but many were not.

I have woven many of these facts, the good and the bad, into my book, and when it is published in May I hope readers will not only enjoy the story but also the facts they will learn. Now all I have to do is edit it myself before sending to Books We Love for a second edit. Then there might be a third one before, all being well, it is published in May.

Oh and I have to do one other thing. Find a title! The first two books in the trilogy are Remembering Rose and Loving Ellen. To keep things neat I really need to come up with something similar. Unfortunately I am finding this really, really difficult. Still that is a writer's lot. I'm sure I'll get there.

Brave Enough for Happy Ever After?

 

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It’s that time of year again, when pundits come up with lists of the most important love stories of all time…You’ll often find these make the grade:

Romeo and Juliet (1597) by William Shakespeare

Anna Karenina (1877) by Leo Tolstoy

Doctor Zhivago (1957) by Boris Pasternak

Love Story (1970) by Erich Segal

The Notebook (1996) by Nicholas Sparks

Bridges of Madison County (1992) Robert James Waller

Cold Mountain (1997) Charles Fraizer

The Great Gatsby(1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald

What do they have in common, dear readers? Here’s my list:

1.They are written by men

2. Things don’t end well.

Now, let’s consider:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)

Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Bronte

Gone With The Wind (1936) by Margaret Mitchell

Yes. Written by women, and.... everybody gets to survive. Even the heroine of problematic Gone With the Wind is left with the Pandora’s Box gift of hope. 

Why are there so many modern Jane Austen variations? So many sequels to popular HEA (Happy Ever After) romances? Why does Lizzy solve mysteries and the Bennet sisters battle zombies? 

Because romantic happy ever afters are not dead ends of grief and regret (and, as in those crazy kids Romeo and Juliet: bad timing).  

Happy Ever Afters leave us to imagine the future. Did the lovers make good parents? How did they handle the slings and arrows of life? Did they grow stronger together? In short, were they brave enough for their Happy Ever After? 

So… give me Jane Austen’s Emma and and Lizzy. Give me Charlotte’s indomitable Jane, and Shakespeare’s Beatrice and Rosalind and Portia.  They are brave enough to last through a long and wonderful life with their heroes.

A Romantic Birthday

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Like many people, I celebrated a milestone birthday during the COVID-19 pandemic. I spent it in Mexico last fall, during the lull between the delta and omicron variant surges. My kids offered to treat me to the 'experience' gift of my choice while I was there. I thought the ideal present should be something I'd enjoy, but wouldn't splurge on myself. In Puerto Vallarta, I scanned the English language newspaper and spotted an ad for The Iguana Restaurant in the Casa Kimberly Boutique Hotel, the former home of actress Elizabeth Taylor. I decided, this is it! My husband Will and I made a reservation for my birthday at 6:00 p.m., to catch the sunset. 

In 1964 Elizabeth Taylor and actor Richard Burton had a torrid affair in Puerto Vallarta, during the filming of his movie, The Night of the Iguana. Their romance thrilled and shocked the world and is credited with turning the off-the-beaten-path fishing village into a booming tourist destination. On our four previous holidays in Puerto Vallarta, Will and I had walked by the Taylor and Burton homes in Gringo Gulch, uphill from downtown. A pedestrian bridge connects their two residences. You can peek at the statue of them in the hotel entrance, but can't see more than that without staying or eating at the Casa Kimberly. 

 

Armed with our reservation, this time we made it inside.  

   On our walk up the staircase to the restaurant, we were greeted by Liz herself. 

Our courteous server showed us to our table, which had a fabulous view from the open-air window. 

We could see the ocean, although this picture below washes it out and the condominium in the distance blocked our view of the sun sinking into the bay. The cupola stands atop Burton's former home, now part of the Casa Kimberly Hotel. During dinner, Will noticed people on the bridge and wondered if they'd climbed up from the street for a moment of romance. We found out later this wasn't the case.    

We started our meal with cocktails and appetizers. I ordered The Iguana Salad and Will chose the bean and poblano soup, which arrived in an interesting two-colour presentation. 

I loved my salad and had a spoonful of Will's soup, which tasted amazing. Will agreed. For our main courses, he had Cornish hen and I had Diablo Shrimp, which was delicious. I feel like a restaurant critic when I say that the subtle flavours blended into a complete dish that tasted Mexican, yet different. 

Of course, I had to check out the restrooms. They turned out to be ordinary, but the walk there passed through the spacious atrium and a Taylor/Burton photo and movie poster display. 

 

 

It's strange how the ghostly presence of these movie stars enhanced the restaurant's atmosphere, but it did for me even though Elizabeth Taylor was a little before my time. Richard Burton's career peaked later in his life and I'm more familiar with him as an actor and personality. Incidentally, he was my introduction to the concept of imposter syndrome. In a television interview, he confided his fear that people would discover that his acting was no more than what everyone did in their living rooms. Some called him the greatest actor of his day, and I was impressed with his vulnerability.

While I was away from the table, Will asked for the dessert menu. The server wouldn't give it to him until I returned, because it was my birthday. I chose a chocolate cake for Will and me to share. It arrived with decorations.  

As I took my first bite of cake, fireworks exploded behind the high rise building on the bay. This wasn't as as special as you might think, since they set off fireworks in Puerto Vallarta every night.  

We left the restaurant feeling our dinner was worth very peso. On our way out, we solved the mystery of the people on the lovers' bridge. The Casa Kimberly had opened the bridge part way so restaurant patrons could get a glimpse into Burton's former residence, enjoy a photo opportunity, and end the evening with a touch of magic.  

  

Does Anyone But Me Remember Blab Books? by Karla Stover

 

More about Karla Stover's books here

G APARTO DEEPER: DISCOVER WHAT SETS BITISH COLUMBIA SKIING APART

My youngest nephew just turned 13. Next year he will start junior high. Ah, In junior high, were, in my day, we did adult things. We wore special clothes for gym, learned a new game called dodge ball, and had access to a real stage for school plays. At lunch we could buy ice-cream bars for a dime, and we had lockers that we shared with a partner, and a combination lock that only the two of us knew. We carried our four or five schoolbooks on one hip as we changed rooms for classes. And those class rooms offered two terrific things: unknown boys with unfamiliar phone prefixes such as PR(octer), MA(arket), and the occasional LE(nox), and time for Blab Books. While Miss Barnes diagrammed sentences, and told us that Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by the Woods” really was about death, in spite of what the poet, himself, said, Blab Books made their stealthy rounds. In the seventh grade, when our hormones sprouted like plants in time-lapse photography, a Blab Book provided a way to flirt indirectly.

 To make a Blab Book, we put a dozen or so blank sheets of paper in one of those brightly colored folders that used to cost a dime, and had prongs in the middle to fit our three-holed papers. A folder such as this automatically said, “Something special is inside.”  They had the same importance as the ubiquitous Blue Book does in college, these days.  At the top of the first page, in large letters (using a stencil if possible, so the words looked important) we wrote My Blab Book, and underneath that we put our names. Page two had numbers down the left side. From then on, the pages were headed anyway the owner wanted, such as:  prettiest girl in school, cutest boy, best athlete, class clown, favorite movie, favorite TV show, favorite singer, favorite color, favorite hobby, favorite book, and then a list of least favorite movies, songs, TV shows, or anything else the owner wanted to include.  Then across the aisle or down the row of seats they went. The process went like this: Jerry W, who always sat behind me in those days of alphabetical seating because I was also a W, wrote his name after the number one on page two, then he wrote that number on the appropriate page and answered the question.  In reading the numbered answers later on, we learned that he liked spooky books. We discovered that most of the girls liked Tab Hunter, but the boys preferred Jack Webb, and that the girls loved Pat and Justine on American Bandstand, but the boys preferred The Red Skelton Show. Everyone liked a new TV show, Cheyenne, but we had all out grown (or said we had,) The Mickey Mouse Club. When Katie A thought Darrell Z was the cutest boy in the seventh grade, but that he didn’t reciprocate—well, that was just wrong because Katie was always written up as the friendliest girl in the whole class!  But for me, it was a heady day when Robbie G wrote “Karla, U. R. A. Q. T.” Since everyone read everyone else’s answers, which killed a lot of class time, and certainly took the pain out of conjugating verbs, that meant everyone knew what he’d written.  A red-letter day, indeed.

     Tacoma, Washington where I grew up, and where Blab Books were popular, is and was a medium-sized town. I regularly run into old classmates. Over the years, I learned who became a cop and worked with my dad, who in the not-so-distant future died in Viet Nam, and that the tall, skinny girl in music class, who wore glasses and looked like Popeye’s Olive Oyl, eventually went to Vegas and became a show girl. However, when I ask anyone from my seventh grade class at Mason  if they remember Blab books, no one does.

     In those innocent days, boys and girls gathered together on porches after school to compare the day's notes before homework; we went with same-sex friends to the local movie theater on Saturday afternoons and  then changed seats in the dark to be by a “crush,” and we spent entire school dances on opposite side of the floor looking at each other.

Blab Books did a lot to lead us painlessly into serious boy – girl stuff.

 

Love Lock Bridges

 

Available at Books We Love

           

The other morning on my Google feed I found an article about the Old Red Bridge, which I wouldn’t have thought at all interesting except it is a love lock bridge. And it is in – what, this can’t be right – Kansas City? That’s less than five miles from where I live.

            The first time I heard about “love locks” bridges was during my trip to Paris five years ago. The Pont des Arts or Passerelle des Arts is a pedestrian bridge in Paris which crosses the River Seine. It links the Institut de France and the central square (cour carrée) of the Palais du Louvre. For years, lovers come to the bridge and profess their undying love by locking a padlock to the bridge, sometimes with their names engraved, sometimes with other poetic messages. Then they would throw the key into the River Seine. Unfortunately because over 700,000 locks have been secured to the bridge, with an additional 7,500 every year, the bridge cannot handle the weight. So in 2015, the grilles were removed and replaced with glass panels so locks couldn’t be attached. When I was there, metal grilles were again in place but separate from the structural part of the bridge.

Pont des Arts in Paris

 My picture looks rather forlorn as I seemed to have captured a day when love was just not in the air. At one time, sections of grille and boxes of locks were auctioned off, so even if your lock no longer appears on the bridge, it may be out in the universe somewhere standing guard over someone else’s love, or perhaps it has been melted down to become part of another artist’s representation of love.

Although Paris is known as the city of love, it is not actually the origin of this loving tradition. The first notion of love locks appeared in a poem titled “Prayer for Love” by Desanka Maksimovic, a Serbian poet. The poem takes place before the First World War and is about a soldier and young woman who were madly in love and secretly met every night at the Most Ljubavi Bridge in a town called Vrnjačka Banja. When the young soldier was sent off to Greece, he eventually met the love of his life. When his first love found out, she died of heartbreak. Out of superstition, local women started hanging love locks on that same bridge, the Bridge of Love, in an attempt to safeguard their love.

The popularity of love locking really took off after the release of the Italian movie “Ho Voglia di Te” (I want you) in 2007. It was inspired by the same-named novel from Italian author Federico Moccia, which was published in 2006. One scene features the protagonists locking their love by attaching a padlock to a lamppost at the Ponte Milvo in Rome and throwing the key into the Tiber River.

I began to think there had to be more to the tradition than just these two incidents – a poem and a story, so I researched and found a link to twenty love lock bridges, of which not all are actual bridges. 20 Love Locks Bridges Around the World (brides.com) Some are sculptures, others are trees and yes, some are bridges. They all appear to be inspired by the original poem or movie. There are other internet sites that list numerous places in the United States with love lock bridges, sculptures and places of tradition, none of which have much of a history, except perhaps for the people who live there. Places like Loveland, CO use the idea as a promotion of its town and name.

I wonder at the significance
 of a combination lock.

But what I did not find was information on the one particular love lock bridge that had appeared on my Google feed just this morning – Old Red Bridge, in my own back yard. So back to the original reason for my research. Although the original Red Bridge was built in 1859 by a Scottsman, it was wood and was replaced twice over the years. Then in 2011, the New Red Bridge opened, so the previous one became called the Old Red Bridge (because they are both painted red, of course). It was designated as a love locks bridge in 2013, so its “history” isn’t even as old as that of many others around the country.

One significant difference is that after locking in their everlasting love to some appropriate spot on the bridge, people are requested to put their keys in a designated box instead of throwing them into the Blue River. The metal from the keys is bad for the environment, especially the fish. Instead, these keys will be used by the organization Monarchs on the Move to create a sculpture of the iconic Monarch Butterfly that travels through Kansas City on its amazing multi-generational migration. That’s a rather romantic notion, don’t you think?

           

For wonderful romantic reads, visit my page at Books We Love. Be sure to sign up before February 12 for a chance to win one of the luxury spa packages!

 

Love to all,

Barb

http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

https://bookswelove.net/baldwin-barbara/