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I loves me some Amazon.com.
Feb. 16th, 2005 08:39 amIn the interests of maintaining some semblance of realism inside my own head, I bought a book some time ago entitled Policing the Fringe: A Young Mountie's Story, by Nora Hickson Kelly. Mrs. Kelly was working with her husband to write a book of his experiences on the Force starting with joining up in 1933, when he was a wee lad of 23. It's been a fascinating read so far, even if it all does take place in bits of Saskatchewan that an American would probably refer to as Upper Wolf's Ear or East Jesus (if they were being clean about it), considering how isolated most of them were. (1933, remember. Rural telephone service was not what you'd call 'common', if by 'common' you mean 'existent'.) I'm only about eleven chapters in, as I've been reading it on the train since… mmph. The train ride home yesterday.
Pretty sure neither Benton Fraser nor Bill Preston ever called the duty slot of mess orderly or stable orderly 'mess bitch' or 'stable bitch'. Also pretty sure neither of them had to bring anyone in for running around their farmstead nekkid and screaming for no good reason. Seems that in 1933, at least, quite a lot of people who desperately needed psychiatric / psychological attention had to be rounded up and committed by the RCMP. Neat stuff, really. There is, however, one bit where I’m really hoping that between the two of them (the husband telling the story and the wife writing it down), they both inadvertently used entirely the wrong word. It's a case of 'WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY TMI! Way TMI!' versus merely 'er, TMI, dude'. . . ( Cut for embarrassment to a long-gone recruit. ) I'm pretty sure that if it were actually what Kelly said, the sergeant would have done a lot more to break things up.
Isn't realism fun?
Pretty sure neither Benton Fraser nor Bill Preston ever called the duty slot of mess orderly or stable orderly 'mess bitch' or 'stable bitch'. Also pretty sure neither of them had to bring anyone in for running around their farmstead nekkid and screaming for no good reason. Seems that in 1933, at least, quite a lot of people who desperately needed psychiatric / psychological attention had to be rounded up and committed by the RCMP. Neat stuff, really. There is, however, one bit where I’m really hoping that between the two of them (the husband telling the story and the wife writing it down), they both inadvertently used entirely the wrong word. It's a case of 'WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY TMI! Way TMI!' versus merely 'er, TMI, dude'. . . ( Cut for embarrassment to a long-gone recruit. ) I'm pretty sure that if it were actually what Kelly said, the sergeant would have done a lot more to break things up.
Isn't realism fun?
