Slightly Off the Mark: August 2026

Writing: A Glimpse Into Ian Grant's Past

Sometimes you just gotta be silly.

Well, I do. People like my humor, but up until now my books have been halves: half humor, half romance; half humor, half history; half humor, half adventure. Although The Notorious Ian Grant looks and feels like a romantic comedy, I felt like ramping it up to the level of my humor blogs, just to see if it would work as well for fiction as it did in the newspaper, back in the day. I think it does. I could be wrong.

The blurb:

When infamous party boy and b-list celebrity Ian Grant learns his sister is marrying a cop, he abandons Hollywood and drives to Indiana. His plan: to make up for all those times he embarrassed his family, by taking charge of the wedding planning. So, Ian’s never planned a wedding … how hard could it be?

But Ian's past has followed along--and may be trying to kill him.

Ian Grant isn’t exactly a type A personality, although he has the looks for it. He’s Cary Grant with a Groucho Marx brain, and he’s not ashamed of it … even if he is ashamed of a "few" youthful indiscretions. Like dancing on Charlie Sheen’s car, drag racing Justin Bieber, and of course peeing on a bouncer’s shoes. (Ian still insists Bieber cheated.) These days Ian’s on a path to redeeming himself—he hopes—but his past keeps coming back to haunt him. Here's a snippet from early in The Notorious Ian Grant, in which he meets two residents of Hurricane, Indiana for the first time:

They stopped by the intersection, where the cop now stared daggers at Ian. “Here, me first.” Beth hopped down from the horse with ease and grace, and once she’d cleared Ian managed a dismount with none of either. As he stumbled away, the animal turned toward him and made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

“Good horsey.”

“His name is Honey,” the cop said, as she stepped around her patrol car.

“Really?” Ian looked back at the horse. “You hear that? All the other guy horses make fun of you.”

Honey turned his head away.

“Hey, I was kidding —“

Beth patted the horse’s flank. “It’s okay, Honey—he’s a scumbag.”

“Beth, sweetie …” Fran (the cop) hooked a thumb toward Ian. “What have I told you about picking up strays?”

“He says he needs to get into Hurricane.” Beth leaned in toward the woman. “His name is Ian Grant.”

“I don’t care if his name’s—oh.” Fran gave Ian an even closer look, if that was possible. “I’ve seen your jail book-in photos.”

“Was I smiling? Could you see my dimples?” Fran had long hair, secured in a tight ponytail, along with big brown eyes and high cheekbones that pointed toward a full Hispanic heritage. She probably had a nice smile. He almost regretted letting his agent talk him out of joining the cast of Lady Cop 3: Hollywood Vice, especially since his agent dumped him weeks later.

“You smiled, but the bloody nose and the missing tooth spoiled the effect.”

“They put the tooth back. See?” Ian gave her his most ingratiating smile, to no effect.

“Very nice. However, around here those trimmed stubbles are not in fashion.”

“I’ve driven for three days —“

“May I ask your reason for being here, Mr. Grant?”

Uh-oh. Official voice.

I love a good sequel.

Ian had better watch himself, because the girl he got a ride from is his future sister-in-law, and the cop is his future brother-in-law’s best friend. Too bad he doesn’t know that yet. That’s one of the fun things about Ian Grant: He really does want to do the right thing—but he just can’t seem to keep his mouth shut.

I wonder if Ian’s trickster spirit might have something to do with why my original publisher released the book a month before I was told they would? In any case, the updated The Notorious Ian Grant is available as print or e-book. It can be found in various formats at:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F3KWHWK8

https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Notorious-Ian-Grant-Audiobook/B0F27KVWMF

https://markrhunter.com/fiction

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25393144-the-notorious-ian-grant

These Photos Are For Turkeys

It's been an incredible month--incredible sometimes meaning incredibly bad--so this is just a flyby photo post; I hope it won't be too much of a turkey.

The only time I ever saw turkeys as a kid was at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. That's because over-hunting and deforestation wiped them out in Indiana. (For which I plead innocent: Despite my name, I've never hunted. I have cut down a few trees, but never mind.)

But they're back!

I'm sure most of us consider that a good thing, but not necessarily.

You see, despite the famous WKRP In Cincinnati episode, it turns out turkeys can fly. Wild turkeys can, anyway, for up to a hundred yards at 55 miles an hour. I once saw a car come within a few feet of hitting a turkey flying across the road at windshield level, which would definitely have made a mark. I don't think that driver would have been happy with his catch.

The Indiana Department of Natural Resources brought turkeys back, and they arrived in northern Indiana during the 80s and 90s. These days you can find rafters of turkeys in all 92 Indiana counties. (That's the official name for a flock of turkeys. No, I don't know why.)

I took all of these photos in northern Indiana. Most, like the one above, came from Pokagon State Park or the area of Chain O' Lakes State Park. The near-collision I witnessed was about halfway between Kendallville and Avilla in Noble County.

The one above I tried to sharpen, but just made it look worse, and then I couldn't locate the original ... so I left the rest alone. (I mean I tried to sharpen the photo, not the meat carver.)

I also took most of them from near a road, or even from the car. As if deer weren't a danger enough! But I can tell you from experience that if you're on a trail and hear a turkey crashing through the underbrush, it sounds like you're on the wrong end of a Jurassic Park movie. My wife tells me armadillos are just as loud in the woods, and they're expanding in Indiana, too. At least they can't fly. Can they?

There are now some 125,000 wild turkeys in Indiana. But the Hoosier state is also a top producer of domestic turkeys--some 20 million turkeys are produced for consumption annually, just in this state. I hope the wild ones aren't planning a jailbreak--but I'll keep an eye on ham production, just in case.

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Remember: Benjamin Franklin thought the turkey should be our national bird, but he also had a great library.

A Fire Department Block Party, and the Block Isn't Even On Fire

Music. Beer. Buff firemen. Well, some are buff, and we'd prefer to be called firefighters, 'cause it's the 21st Century.

Yes, the Albion Volunteer Fire Department is hosting its first block party, an event which, typically, involves having a party on a block. In this case it's the Noble County Courthouse Square, which is indeed a block. If you want to be specific, it's around the area of Main and York Streets, which--come to think of it--I can see from my part time job.

But I can't have beer on my part time job. Still, I'm betting there will be other beverages there, and besides, most of the people reading this don' t have my job. This is on a Saturday (September 12th), so there'll be plenty of parking in the courthouse square area, too. But if you plan to visit the beer tent, bring a designated parker.

This is where I usually post a link to the Facebook event page, but I can't get it to work properly because FB is dumb. Okay, I probably pushed the wrong button, but the AFD's page is here:

https://www.facebook.com/albionfd

The money raised goes toward, among other things, tools, fitness equipment, and training props. The fitness equipment part is pretty self-explanatory. Let me explain: When we started out in 1888, most members of the department had physical work that kept them in shape. There were butchers, bakers, candlestick makers ...

Well, our first fire chief was among other things a baker, and butchers would make sense--I don't know if we had any candlestick makers. Here is what I eventually determined is the first known photo of the Albion Volunteer Fire Department:

I had this photo for a few years before I realized the little frame building under construction on the right is, in fact, Albion's first firehouse. It took me awhile after that to figure out that the men marching in the white belts are some of the town's first volunteer firefighters, which dates this photo to late 1887. The women behind them? Probably the Ladies Auxiliary, or whatever it was called back then. Their job was to follow along and, if one of the men chickened out and tried to run from the fire, shame them into going on.

It's possible I'm making that last part up.

Back then I would probably have been a candlestick maker, working on my feet all day, walking from place to place, drilling with the fire guys to hand pump the engine, and having earwax problems. I don't know. Wouldn't candlestick makers have wax issues?

Now we need fitness equipment. These are the days of typing on keyboards, riding trucks instead of pulling engines, and drinking beer instead of well water. (We can't actually go to a fire if we've been drinking, which is the main reason why I never took up drinking.)

But when those fires break out, we still have to put on a zillion pounds of equipment and go running toward the flames.

Speaking of beer, there are also those training props we need to pay for. We used to find buildings due to be demolished, and train there on every aspect of firefighting, until it was time to let the place burn down completely. These days it's a lot harder to find a building we can legally beat up for training. The State of Indiana does help out on training resources, but there's the need for us to build our own doors and windows to force, roofs to ventilate, and 150 pound mannequins to haul around.

Should various government entities pay for our training needs? Sure, but in some cases they can't, and in others they won't. Besides, now we can have a block party.

So come over, have a beer, listen to music by Sweetwater All Stars Band, and bring the kids! Not for the beer. For them there'll be a "touch a truck", the fire prevention trailer, and no beer. Enjoy the local cuisine, which is a Greece word that originated in Turkey, meaning food. Oh, and if you wander over to the AFD's booth (let's fill that boot! With money. Duh.), you can buy a beverage Koozie to remember us buy. That might not seem like a big deal to you, but my dispatcher Koozies are getting ragged.

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