CHARLOTTE

1. Hoop skirts
2. Bobby socks
3. Saddle shoes
4. Eddie Fisher 45s
5. Queen for a Day television show
6. Woolworth’s soda fountain
7. Cheerleading
8. The Homecoming bonfire
9. Wooster’s Halloween parade down Market Street

FUN PHONE FACTS

1. Alexander Graham Bell was just twenty-nine years old on March 7, 1876, when he received the patent for his revolutionary invention—the telephone.
2. At first, telephones were rented out in dedicated pairs, for communication between just those two phones.
3. The earliest telephone switchboard operators were boys, who had proved adept as telegraph operators, liked to shout “Ahoy!” when they answered the calls. It was decided to have girls instead, because they were “patient and polite.”
4. On January 25, 1915, Alexander Graham Bell placed a transcontinental phone call from the AT&T Building in New York City to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, in San Francisco, officially beginning AT&T’s transcontinental service. Today, that building in Lower Manhattan is home to this book’s publisher, William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
5. The first transatlantic telephone call—from London to New York—took place on March 7, 1926.
6. Famous TV phones include the phone booth Clark Kent ducked into to change into Superman (Superman), the red “Batphone” connecting Commissioner Gordon to Wayne Manor (Batman), and Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone (Get Smart).
7. Jim Croce’s hit 1972 song “Operator” was inspired by his memory of standing in line to use a telephone while in basic training during the Vietnam War.

One Last Treat from Grandma

A few of my grandmother’s recipes are included in this book. Here’s one more for you, since you’ve read this far. “If I close my eyes, I can still taste Grandma’s baked beans—they were the best!” is what my editor thought I might say, but I hate baked beans and have never made this recipe. Try it at your own risk.

Read On

On the Nightstand in 1952

This was the New York Times Fiction Bestseller List for December 14, 1952, so these were all the books Vivian was not reading:

1. East of Eden by John Steinbeck (Viking Press)
2. The Silver Chalice by Thomas B. Costain (Doubleday & Company, Inc.)
3. Giant by Edna Ferber (Doubleday & Company, Inc.)
4. Steamboat Gothic by Frances Parkinson Keyes (Julian Messner, Inc.)
5. The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk (Doubleday & Company, Inc.)
6. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (Charles Scribner’s Sons)
7. The Wonderful Country by Tom Lea (Little, Brown and Company)
8. Sironia, Texas by Madison Cooper (Houghton Mifflin Company)
9. Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh (Little, Brown and Company)
10. The Houses in Between by Howard Spring (Harper & Brothers)
11. Queen’s Gift by Inglis Clark Fletcher (Bobbs-Merrill Co.)
12. Don Camillo and His Flock by Giovannino Guareschi (Amereon Limited)
13. The Man on a Donkey by H.F.M. Prescott (Macmillan)
14. Prisoner of Grace by Joyce Cary (Harper & Brothers)
15. Kiss Me Deadly by Mickey Spillane (E.P. Dutton)
16. A Shower of Summer Days by May Sarton (Rinehart)

How many of the above have you read?