A Few Historic Truths

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I love to research! So many truth facts I discover are much more fascinating than anything I might have imagined. The old mansion in The Wednesday Sisters, for example, is based on an actual mansion that stood in Eleanor Pardee Park at the time of the story, which I discovered when checking through a book on Palo Alto parks for the details of a different park where I'd originally set the novel.

The Women's March for Equality in downtown Palo Alto is drawn from the real event, too, with details garnered from the files of the Palo Alto Historical Association. Yes, the fellow in the Playboy Bunny outfit was really there, as was Mrs. Linus Pauling. Only the Wednesday Sisters are fictional in that scene.

For the Sisters' reaction to the lunar landing, I watched the old TV footage. I spent a lot of wonderful time watching a DVD on the best of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and introducing my sons to a show I used to love.

One of my favorite bits of information I found in researching for the book was the rubber chicken the folks at Intel hung over the evaporator for good luck. That, like so much of the Intel story, which I garnered largely from Leslie Berlin's wonderful book, The Man Behind the Microchip, is definitely better than anything I can make up!