Sample Excerpts

Five Kids For One Penny is a witty romp through San Francisco’s history as seen through the eyes of a ninety-two year old landlady. The story features warm, unforgettable characters and a measure of pathos. Below are sample excerpts from this clever and engaging book.

EXAMPLE 1:

On November 20, l916, everywhere in Western Europe soldiers both German and French were being killed at a merciless pace. The so-called "War to End All Wars" was doing a super job of killing off all the eligible bachelors of an entire generation. All along the 475 miles of the Western Front, Germany and the Allies were finding better and crueler ways to kill each other. It it wasn’t mustard and chlorine gases it was machine guns and long range artillery shelling. The French and the British would crawl out of the trenches and die in no-man’s land, while the Germans fought a defensive war and had considerable fewer casualties. The cost in lives on both sides crippled a generation.

My family is French. My mother’s father, the Captain, and his six sons all survived the Great War. My father’s two brothers were both killed at Verdun. That was in July of 1916, the year I was born.

EXAMPLE 2:
This was a time of great change. The world economies, the ones that survived, needed to switch from wartime to peacetime pursuits. We no longer needed tanks and battleships; we needed homes and automobiles. The war was over and returning GIs wanted to do nothing but restart their lives, get married, buy refrigerators, and have babies. I was no different. I wanted the security of a home, a family, and an opportunity for a better life. . . . . On April 1, l946 we became San Francisco property owners.

EXAMPLE 3:
Naked guys I can handle; naked guys with rifles need the cops. It took me about a New York minute to call San Francisco’s finest. A real problem surfaced almost immediately; I didn’t know where the nude guy lived. Fortunately, San Francisco’s finest are not the Keystone Cops. They investigated the problem and determined that the culprit lived in apartment 9. What ensued was right out of Quentin Taratino.

EXAMPLE 4:
Over the years we had every character imaginable. From a couple of Russian Sister who were convinced that the KGB was out to murder them or worse to a psychopath who rigged a shot gun to blow the brains out of whomever happened to open his apartment door. After a couple of years of interviewing perspective tenants in our other properties, I developed a sixth sense. I could tell when a perspective tenant had wacko possibilities. But, on a couple of occasions, my wacko antenna was not always tuned to its highest frequency. Sometimes someone would slip through the radar.

EXAMPLE 5:

Christine was a charter member of the apartment house. In fact, she was probably a charter member of the whole neighborhood. I’m sure she was living in the apartment house when Golden Gate Park was a pile of sand, the Laughing Lady was still scaring little kids at Playland, and the Italians still owned North Beach.

One November morning I was sweeping the back alley as usually when Christine opened her back door and said, “Mrs. B come up; the President has just been shot.” I went up to her apartment and we sat and prayed but to no avail. Walter Cronkite came on TV and announced, “President John F. Kennedy is dead.” A tear trickled down Cronkite’s cheek. We sat staring at the television for what seemed like an eternity. I glanced at Christine and there were tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. My own eyes felt hot and wet. I thought sadly of Kennedy’s wife, his daughter, and their little boy. How could this happen? This wasn’t some third-world country, this was Camelot.