This was a few days ago. In another few, half of the leaves will be gone. Everything's peak color, but there's a brittle dry quality to everything, and you suspect that if you kicked a trunk, every leaf would fall off.

I was given an assignment: go do something about the oldest cemetery in town. Halloween, and all that. There was a new exhibit at the Hennepin County History museum, said the press release. I was supposed to find interesting tombstones with interesting inscriptions - something that made me wince internally, because I know that cemetery and there’s no such thing. The stones are illegible, and the people they planted there were generally not well-off enough to afford a big monument with a Bible verse. But I went there on a sunny Saturday, and strolled up to the gate.

It was closed.

Huh. Hmm. Well. Instantly in my head flashed the budget I had written for the story, the conversation about clearing the decks for Wednesday’s paper, the promise of getting it in early Monday morn so the desk could clear it. I was in trouble. Ha ha! I’m in trouble.

But. No. This can be salvaged. I shot what I could through the bars.

Then I went to the Hennepin History Museum to see if there was anything there (not really, although there’s a segment of the rope used to hang a notorious serial killer, which was suspiciously clean and neat) and then went home and wrote. I would have two pieces in the paper the forthcoming week, and that’s great.

Also, I am utterly and completely indifferent to having two stories in the paper, because I just feel like an ambulatory corpse. Any day the tumbrel could pull up to my cubicle and the driver will jerk a thumb: get in. Shrug; okay. Can I finish my coffee? It’s pretty good coffee. I made it a few minutes ago. Same as I have every morning since I started making coffee in 2020, roundabouts April, t’warn’t no one here, ever. Had the place to myself. All your folk had gone home to work, and they liked it like that, and you’ve had to send out posses to lasso them and round ‘em up and bring them back, and still they balk, and hide in caves. Me, I was here alone, turning in 125 pieces a year.

Yes? I can finish the coffee? Great. Say, let me tell you about the day I started here. I was absolutely overawed by the place. The industrious newsroom, every desk filled. Shortly after I started we went through a reorg to shuffle people around, create new teams. Had no impact on quality or production as far as anyone could tell, but it kept the middle-manager class busy. Then we merged with Knight-Ridder. Cost a lot. Thought it would make us both stronger, but it seems as if we’d both just opened a vein and sat down to watch the sun set.

Don’t ask about 2008. I don’t want to talk about it. In fact, I don’t know why I’m bothering. The history of this place is walking out the door one person at a time. The new people aren’t print people.

Okay, I’ll get in the tumbrel.

Anyway. Monday has three pieces due, and I feel happy and connected to one of them, and that would be the column. Now on Substack. Free today. Subscribe! It's cheap.

We're still in 1934. We'll be in 1934 all year.

Emmenagogue?

Wikipedia:

Emmenagoguesare herbs which stimulate blood flow in the pelvic area and uterus; some stimulate menstruation.

But also for pain and colds? You really do wonder what was in these things. It's a bit late in the game for morphine and codiene, I think.

It's the end of the month, so:

This episode:

The Ghost is getting a bit sidetracked here. He should have bigger things to do. He’s wasting time because he’s sloppy.

Remember? I mean, this really is all you need to know.

When last we met Dick, he was in an ep called BEHEADED. He went through a door where the Ghost had picked up a big beheading-style pike. Well:

OH COME ON

There’s no way he could’ve known that.

Dick gets the fingerprint clue, but it’s not good enough. So Dick calls the Secret Council - whoever the hell those guys are - and holds a special meeting to draw out the one who’s the Ghost. Remember, the Council sent the Ghost’s associate, Rackets Regan, to the chair. How they did this I’m not sure, unless this group of wealthy industrialists also operates as a Star Chamber and has its own electrical execution device.

Anyway, the spunky gal character says she’s discovered her father’s diary, which contains all sorts of information, and she’s stowed it at his secret waterfront laboratory.

What eminent criminologist would be without one.

So maybe you should’ve shut up about the whole “revenge for Rackets Regan” business, eh?

The ghost goes invisible and gasses the lot of them and get the diary - but he drops his medallion and it breaks, which makes him visible. Back at the secret waterfront lab, the spunky gal, who is also a scientist, analyzes the sound made when the Ghost is around.

Now, bear with me: the ability to reproduce the sound somehow negates the effect of the invisibility device just by existing. Miles away. The Ghost figures out they have a record of the sound to counteract his powers, so he’ll have to destroy the record.

Again, he’s getting off message here. The whole wave-of-crime thing is playing second fiddle to cleaning up his own mistakes.

How will he stop them from jamming him? Why, by booby-trapping the phone, of course.

Boy, things sure were flammable in those days:

Spunky Science Gal tries to escape through the usual “ceiling grate,” but alas:

Tracy arrives and heads in to the conflagration in a scene too long to show here, but it’s damned good. He goes back to save the record of the Ghost’s sound, which somehow doesn’t melt? And so:

And now, the Monday Boon! This should hold you for today. See you around.