Rick McBee's Writings
Explore the magic of new ideas and books to read as well as see what books I have written, my favorite photos, my opinions on may subjects, including Science, Africa, the Caribbean, the Civil War, my Book Reviews, and Much More!
Strategy: My 3 Kindle Books Free! 9 days of Worldwide Giveaway!
It’s that time of the year! Share my Time to try out a new strategy! Keep these dates when you and your friends will be able to receive free books of your choice. Forward this to as many of your followers as possible so they can share in the holiday joy!.
What am I doing? I’m doing a worldwide giveaway!>))
- The day when most books sell is Saturday! Check it all out! Sooooooo……
- I decided to rotate my Kindle Kindle Direct Publishing books through the offers they allow authors to give during a 90 day period. This means to offer their books FREE!
- With 9 Saturdays and one Cyber Monday between now and the traditional holiday celebrations of Christmas Eve Christmas Customs, Hanukkah Hanukkah Customs, and Kwanzaa Kwanzaa Customs , to name only a few of the celebrations this time of year. It’s a great time for people everywhere to relax and celebrate with a good book.
- I will be giving away my new South African Adventure novel 0n 5 days: 10/22, 11/12, 11/26, 11/28, and 12/10 between the hours of 12AM PST and 12PM PST (that’s GMT minus 8 hours for those of you on the other side of the planet. Check it out!
5. For all of you true to life history buffs, I will be giving away my Civil War History book on 2 days: 10/29, and 11/5, again between 12AM and 12PM on each date (GMT minus 8 hours) Check it out!
6. And Last but by no means least! For all of you traveling to Florida or the Caribbean I will be giving away my Seashells of the Caribbean book on 5 days: 11/5, 11/19, 11/26, 12/3, and 12/17, again between 12AM and 12PM on each of those dates (GMT minus 8 hours) Check it out!
Sounds Crazy? Yea! Enjoy yourselves and have a very merry holiday!
Another Wacky British WWII Genius
A secret Lake in Canada! A secret plan to defeat the U-boat domination of the central Atlantic Ocean gives rise to an amazing story! The documentation, held secret by the British for 35 years after the war reveal and eccentric genius, a half cocked plan to make an aircraft carrier of ice, and the selling of the idea to Churchill in a crazy bathtub demonstration by Lord Mountbatten. A mixture known as pykrete becomes the secrete to the prevention of melting and fracturing solid ice in order to stop bullets, torpedoes and bombs. Human ingenuity and the ability to think outside the box becomes an asset in wartime and this allows Geoffrey Pike to rise to enter the annals of history with his idea that sparked Britain and Canada to embark on a voyage of scientific discovery that brings to light more knowledge about the properties of water in the form of ice than had been known up to that point in time. A quick read and well worth it for those of us who have journeyed or plan to journey to Lake Louise in Canada. A side trip to nearby Lake Patricia will allow you to reflect on the ideas of a forgotten man, reborn as a genius in this small history. Author L. D. Cross has written an excellent book for a WW2 secret project that completely blew away my mind!
Check out the book on Amazon
Genealogists Love New Civil War History! 4 Great Reasons!
Another Ghost from Richard Clow’s Past Reappears! 
” I googled Richard Clow and came up with your wonderful information on Richard’s first wife Mary Bingham and her husband. Mary is my grandfather Abraham Earl White’s first cousin, as her mother, Rebecca White Bingham Larpenteur, was one of his father’s older sisters. I was so thrilled that you would share her story and photo online, as for years she has only been a story-less name on my family tree with a family-less husband. What a remarkable collection your family has preserved! If you have any other information on Mary Bingham and her family, I would be so interested as the Binghams remained in Little Sioux, Iowa, along with other White sisters and their husbands (Caroline White and Enos Fry, Abigail White and Isaac Ashton, Malinda White and Lorenzo Dow Driggs) while the rest of the family, including Mary’s widowed grandmother Rebecca Smith White, moved to Utah with the main group of Mormons.”
Now this is exactly what makes writing History so great! How else would I have ever been able to find out about these historical relations without someone chancing onto my blog posts in which I have photos and as much history as I can find on each person. This is what makes technology so powerful in tracing the past!
Why do genealogists love new Civil War History books such as “Rough Enough,” the story of Richard H, Clow in the Civil War and then on the frontier?
Here are 4 reasons!
1. The first reason is that new personalities from the Civil War are very often enlisted men who appear on the stage for the first time, thus giving us new information about themselves, their families and their activities during and after the war.
2. In addition to the information about themselves, new persons on the History stage generally bring along other characters with them and introduce us to a wide range of other persons. nI the case of Richard Clow, we meet his two wives, Mary Bingham Clow and Melinda Story Clow within the context of life on the frontier. We meet his father, John Stevenet Clow, his brother, John Sherwin Clow and one of his employers, Charles Larpenteur as well as a plethora of other enlisted men and minor officers, again persons we would never hear about, but who crop up in his letters and Diary.
Mary Bingham Clow John Stevenet Clow
3. We also get a fresh viewpoint straight from the trenches of the Civil War, or of the incidents on the Frontier, not muddled by the often self-serving promotion seen with officer’s reports. In this case we get original versions of songs transcribed directly into Clow’s diary.
4. Lastly we hear stories of the dead. As this tombstone at Fort Buford attests, Richard Clow was in the party that collected the bodies after the massacre, and wrote about it in one of his letters to his sister. It’s transcribed in the book. See Fort Buford, North Dakota
A big thanks to Claudia for making my day!>))
Book Review: China’s Second Continent by Howard W. French
China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa by Howard W. French My rating: 5 of 5 stars A must read book! Listen up, all you former African Missionari…
Source: Book Review: China’s Second Continent by Howard W. French
Book Review: China’s Second Continent by Howard W. French
China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa by Howard W. French
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A must read book! Listen up, all you former African Missionaries, AID workers, Peace Corps Volunteers and Diplomatic corps!
Time to read about the new kid on the African playing field who is picking up the ball that we-all seem to have fumbled during the last 40 years. That kid’s name is China! Author French has given us an eye-opener of a book and we need to read it and talk about what to do for the future of the planetary game.
In the same way that sixteenth century Europe financed explorers, trappers, traders and entrepreneurs to move to lesser developed parts of the world to begin farming, mining, intermarrying, exploring for new opportunities to benefit the homeland; China is sending its people out on a global diaspora that seems to be infiltrating every African nation. Farmers are being drawn in masses to the vast irrigable stretches along the Niger River in Mali to begin expanding rice production on a massive scale. Miners and engineers are moving into mineral rich nations from Namibia and Mozambique in the south through the Congo and as far as Ghana and Senegal in West Africa, and builders are setting up schools, stadiums, hospitals, roads and bridges in Zambia, Botswana, Nigeria and Upper Volta. All these countries are areas that the West only wanted to exploit but never really develop. Africans, sensing that the rest of the technological world might leave them behind have therefore turned towards a different pole of the planet.
This story, of course, is not all about lovely Chinese altruism, but rather a look at a model of development which the Chinese call win-win but, which in fact often gives the Chinese immigrants favored status in the country to do as they wish, while the African nation gets tokens of development and a lot of cash flowing into the pockets of the high officials within the country in order to keep them mollified. Does anyone out there still remember neocolonialism and imperialism? Will the Chinese become like the Portuguese or the British, or will they move beyond this initial exploitation to develop a vast commonwealth of African nations?
As one who considers himself to be somewhat of an “Old Africa Hand,” I find Howard French’s somewhat rambling dissertation on how China is beginning to wield its power, intriguing yet a bit disconcerting. We could be losing the whole ball of wax of the African continent’s vast wealth while we piddle around trying to see if we can install democratic governments into nations so diverse that we don’t even understand half their languages.
In the same way that it is a must read book, French’s excellent book is also a must discuss book.
The Prince of Serendipity Strikes again for Richard Clow and “Rough Enough”
Talk about a really amazing coincidence today! Out of the blue comes an email from one of my new followers who just happens to be the Great-Great – Step – Grandson of Richard Headley Clow (1847 – 1926) CW veteran 1864-65) about whom I wrote the book “Rough Enough” in 2013. Check it out!.
The really neat thing is this, and I quote from his note to me:
” I have one letter from Richard Clow to his father from Petersburg another from later describing an attack on a wood cutting party. Homesteading documents I have as well. I also have grandpa Clow’s dad’s saber and saddle carbine.”
What it looks like is, that out of the blue we have another connection back to Petersburg, VA where Richard was in the 56th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry after joining up in Boston during the Civil War.
Then there appears to be another letter about an Indian attack at Fort Buford, Dakota Territory about 1869-72 when Richard was there, at a totally different site from the one which I describe in the book.
Additionally! We may now located the saddle carbine and sword that Richard Clow would have carried as First Sergeant at Fort Buford, D.T. in 1869 – 1870 See Fort Buford before he mustered out of the 13th Infantry.
All current artifacts known to have belonged to Richard Clow are now in The Museum of the Rockies on Montana State University Museum Info. His original letters and diary are in the Montana State Library with copies in “Rough Enough.”
I’m hoping to get a copy of the letter and photos of the two weapons with permission to put pictures on my blog and also put that info into the Baker Camp, OR newsletter for the SUVCW.
Keep posted!>)
Come into Gretchen Lowell’s Parlor!
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Heartsick is one of those books you won’t want to put down as long as you don’t get put off by several of the flashbacks in which Detective Archie suffers through the psychotic tortures inflicted by the fiendish psychological killer, Gretchen.
What truly amazed me were author Chelsea Cain’s character descriptions, traits nuances of character and tiny human flaws that can lead any of us down the road towards insanity, murder, manipulation or victimization. Cain is a master of this psycho-suspense genre, placing her characters in seemly normal Portland, Oregon where one would least expect to find murder, dissection, and mayhem in the basement of one of those classy old houses up near the rose gardens.
Do we love or hate Gretchen Lowell for her serial killings which she will only reveal to former victim, Archie Sheridan? She is like a sweet smelling flower within which lies a predatory spider. We, like the unwitting flies and bees, approach, settle down into apparent tranquility, only to be sucked into the web of her schemes to control and kill. You’ll love the intrigue as Archie tries to pull his own life together with Sunday visits with Gretchen in prison, while trying to chase down another Portland serial killer.
Ouch, my thighs! Mt. St. Helens climb
What a way to have fun! Take off early from Portland (20Sept2016) and climb Mt. St. Helens! It’s hardly light as we set off through the two and a half miles of spruce forest. Note how the size of the trees decreases as we gain altitude and enter the lava fields. Then we’re out on the scree, rocks and pumice for 10,000 stairsteps upwards for the next 4000 feet.
Now we climb, up, up, up for the next two hours until we near the seismic monitor on the mountain where we will eat breakfast. More steps, the moon begins to wane above Ken as we clamber over boulders. David poses next to one of the winter climbing markers. We search for the best way through this tangle of mountain debris. Mt. Adams to the East looms 70 miles away.
Now it’s lunch time and we scoff down liquids, PBJ sandwiches, mountain mix and candy bars. Then it’s on up the mountain with more boulder clambering as clouds begin to rise on Mt. Hood. Ken and David pose before Mt. Adams, we look across the remnants of a once mighty glacier with only a few crevasses remaining in the ice field – almost gone! Ice crystals coat the rock from last night’s rain at lower elevations – still frozen solid at mid-day.
The last flat place before the final scree/pumice leading to the rounded summit could be a moonscape if you pasted in the astronauts and took out the distant trees!
The summit at last 4 and a half hours after our start! Right to left – Rick, David and Ken all looking pretty happy! Only 3 and a half hours down to go! Look at that last picture!
The Mt. St. Helens Crater with new mount forming below us 1000 feet down in the basted out remains of the once perfect cone mountain. Beyond is Spirit Lake with tree skeletons – the burial site of the old codger, Harry Truman who refused to leave his cabin prior to the eruption. Beyond in the mists the massif of Mt. Rainier is barely visible contrasting slightly with the clouds.
What was the title? Ouch! My Thighs! But look again at the top and the scenery and the smiles on the faces of the 3 guys and you see we had one heck of a great time!
Well worth it!
Book Review – Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Here’s a great book for your enjoyment. The fact that I got through it in two days, meaning of course that my wife was a two day book widow, shows how engrossing this book is! What a great smooth entry into the book – The guy who has every thing against him – tattoos, piercings, looks, a heinous crime. He’s guilty from the word go! This is where I love Grisham’s writing. The crisis is right there on page one and the momentum continues through the book! We have the psychopath, the crooked cops, the power hungry DA, the mobster, the cage fighter, and the ball and chain broken marriage of the lawyer himself. Wow! A great plot, great transitions from section to section and a wonderful ending.
Harvest time in Hood River
Here we are already at the beginning of September and because of the early spring we are already picking, canning and drying our produces from the McBee garden.
Here’s a dozen quarts of canned prunes: 
And here’s my dried apples ready to start up 135degrees F for 24 hours. 100 apples gives about 3 gallons of dried apples. Great for winter eating.
Enjoy the fall, winter is almost here.
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