S3 E47 What is our new book?....It's a mystery...!!

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Good evening and welcome to the Comforting Voice podcast. I'm your host, Shasta Ray, and it's just you and me in the studio tonight. No particular reason, other than I spent about four solid hours just playing with the mini macaw and hanging out with her watching TV. We took a nap, uh, we played the bite game and the foot game, and I think she was kind of hungry, so I put her back up by her food dish so she could get a little bit of nutrition after all of that rambunctiousness. And Murray and Baxter, the cockatiels, are upstairs. Since this is the first chapter of our new book, I thought it would be nice just to hang out together and leave all the chaos in the bird room. So, oh my gosh, new book, new story, Friday Night Adventures. We got a fun one. Yes, we do, it's a vintage classic. But first, let's get comfortable and let's get you through your sleep prep, because you want to be cozy when you do this. So just make sure you've got everything you need at your fingertips. If you have a beverage of choice, extra blanket, extra pillow, whatever you need. Get your pillow squished into that perfect shape that's most comfortable for you. Get your listening device set at that optimum volume, and when you're ready, engage in a really good productive stretch. Reach in through your arms, into your hands and fingers, through your legs, into your feet and toes, stretch all your fingers and toes, wiggle them really good, and then release that stretch. Really good for you, shrugs off tons of stress and toxicity from the day. And then of course, you know what's coming after that. You're gonna take a really good deep productive breath of air. Inhale to about the count of four, hold it to about the count of three, and then top off that inhale with a quick little inhale, hold it for another count or two, and then exhale real slow to about the count of six or eight. You put it all together, you've got a four count inhale, hold it for about three counts, quick little top off inhale, hold it another count, and then exhale slowly. You can mix and match that with the stretch, do a couple of each, do what works for you, and guess what? You're all ready for a good night's sleep. It's just that easy. In fact, I bet you're relaxing already, aren't you? Okay, before you fall asleep, I want to remind you, head on over to the website, check it out if you haven't already, comfortingvoice.com. We are still in our join the fun challenge, so make sure you share that link with people. If you're in any Facebook groups or discussions where people are looking for some new ways to relax or stories or anything like that, give us a mention. That is the best way to grow our listener base is word of mouth. I appreciate you. Now for those of you on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, make sure you give us a like, leave us a friendly comment, and that also helps build our listener base. Thank you so much. It's the Join the Fun Challenge. Okay, let's talk about our new book. What do you think it is? It is a mystery. And I I mean that literally. I picked a mystery for our new book. You know, we spent all this time having amazing adventures with a little girl named Alice the past I don't even know how many weeks. So I thought maybe we need to just turn things around 180 degrees and have some adventures with the fellas. And so tonight we're starting the book The Hardy Boys, The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon. And this book was copyright 1927. It's in the public domain, and it's the first of the Hardy Boys mystery books. So I thought it would be fun. Don't forget that this was written a hundred years ago or right at a hundred years ago, ninety-nine years ago. So there's gonna be some old fashioned goodness thrown in. But that's all you need to know to have a great time. So let's get into our first chapter. Again, it's The Hardy Boys, The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon. This is chapter one, and this chapter is called The Speed Demon. After the help we gave Dad on that forgery case, I guess he'll begin to think we could be detectives when we grow up. Why shouldn't we be? Isn't he one of the most famous detectives in the country? Aren't we his sons? If the profession was good enough for him to follow, it should be good enough for us. Two bright eyed boys on motorcycles were speeding along a shore road in the sunshine of a morning spring. It was Saturday and they were enjoying a holiday from the Bayport High School. The day was ideal for a motorcycle trip and the lads were combining business with pleasure by going on an errand to a nearby village for their father. The older of the two boys was a tall, dark youth about sixteen years of age, his name was Frank Hardy. The other boy, his companion on the motorcycle trip, was his brother Joe, a year younger. While there was a certain resemblance between the two lads, chiefly the firm yet good humored expression of their mouths, in some respects they differed greatly in appearance. While Frank was dark, with straight black hair and brown eyes, his brother was pink cheeked with fair curly hair and blue eyes. These were the Hardy boys, sons of Fenton Hardy, an internationally famous detective, who had made a name for himself in the years he had spent on the New York police force and who was now at the age of forty handling his own practice. The Hardy family lived in Bayport, a city of about fifty thousand inhabitants, located on Barmett Bay three miles from the Atlantic, and here the Hardy boys attended high school and dreamed of the day when they, too, would be detectives like their father. As they sped along the narrow shore road with the waves breaking on the rocks far below, they discussed their chances of winning over their parents to agreement with their ambition to follow in the footsteps of their father. Like most boys, they speculated frequently on the occupation they should follow when they grew up, and it had always seemed to them that nothing offered so many possibilities of adventure and excitement as the career of a detective. But whenever we mention it to Dad, he just laughs at us, said Joe Hardy, tells us to wait till we're through high school, and then we can think about being detectives. Well, at least he's more encouraging than mother, remarked Frank. She comes out plump and plain and says she wants for one of us to be a doctor and the other a lawyer. What a fine lawyer either of us would make, sniffed Joe. Or a doctor either. We were both cut out to be detectives, and Dad knows it. As I was saying, the help we gave him in that forgery case proves it. He didn't say much, but I bet he's been thinking a lot. Of course we didn't actually do very much in that case, Joe pointed out. But we suggested something that led to a clue, didn't we? That's as much a part of detective work as anything else. Dad himself admitted that he would never have thought of examining the city tax receipts for that forged signature. It was just a lucky idea on our part, but it proved to him that we can use our heads for something more than to hang our hats on. Oh, I guess he's convinced all right. Once we get out of school, he'll probably give us his permission. Why, this is a good sign right now, isn't it? He asked us to deliver these papers for him to Willowville. He's letting us help him. I'd rather get in on a real good mystery, said Frank. It's alright to help Dad, but if there's no more excitement in it than delivering papers, I'd rather just start studying being a lawyer and be done with it. Never mind, Frank, comforted his brother. We may get a mystery all of our own to solve someday. If we do, we'll show that Fenton Hardy's sons are worthy of his name. Oh boy, what I wouldn't give to be as famous as Dad. Why, some of the biggest cases in the country are turned over to him. That forgery case, for instance, fifty thousand dollars had been stolen right from under the noses of city officials, and all the auditors and city detectives and private detectives they called in had to admit that it was too deep for him. Yeah, then they called in Dad and he cleared it up in three days. Once he got suspicious of that slick bookkeeper whom nobody had been suspecting at all, it was all over but the shouting. Got a confession out of him and everything. It was smooth work. I'm glad our suggestion helped him. The case certainly got a lot of attention in the papers. And here we are, said Joe, plugging along the shore road on a measly little errand to deliver some legal papers at Willowville. I'd rather be on the track of some diamond thieves or smugglers or something. Well, we have to be satisfied, I suppose, replied Frank, leaning further over the handlebars. Perhaps Dad may give us a chance at a real case sometime. Sometime I want to be on a case now. The motorcycles roared along the narrow road that skirted the bay. An embankment of tumbled rocks and boulders sloped steeply to the water below, and on the other side of the road was a steep cliff. The roadway itself was narrow, although it was wide enough to permit two cars to meet and pass, and it wound about in frequent curves and turnings. It was a road that was not often travelled, for Willowville was only a small village, and the shore road was an offshoot of the main highways to the north and west. The hardy boys dropped their discussion of the probability that someday they would become detectives, and for a while they rode on in silence, occupied with the difficulties of keeping to the road, for the road at this point was dangerous, very rough and ruddy, and it sloped sharply upwards so that the embankment leading to the ocean far below became steeper and steeper. I shouldn't want to go over the edge around here, remarked Frank as he glanced down the rugged slope. It's a hundred foot drop. You'd be smashed to pieces before you ever hit the shore. I'll say it's best to stay close to the cliff. These curves are bad medicine. The motorcycles took the next curve neatly, and then the boys confronted a long, steep slope. The rocky cliffs frowned on one side, and the embankment jutted far down to the tumbling waves below so that the road was a mere ribbon before them. Once we get to the top of the hill we'll be alright, it's all smooth sailing from here to Willowville, remarked Frank as the motorcycles commenced the climb. Just then, above the sharp putt putt of their own motors, they heard the high humming roar of an automobile approaching at great speed. The car was not yet in sight, but there was no mistaking the fact that it was coursing along with the cutout open and with no regard for speed laws. What idiot is driving like that on this kind of road? exclaimed Frank. They looked back. Even as he spoke the automobile flashed into sight. It came around the curve behind, and so swiftly did the driver take the dangerous turn that two wheels were off the ground as the car shot into view. A cloud of dust and stones arose, the car veered violently from left to right, and then it roared at headlong speed down the slope. The boys glimpsed a tense figure at the wheel. How he kept the car on the road was a miracle, for the racing automobile swung from side to side. At one moment it would be in danger of crashing over the embankment down on the rocks below. The next instant the car would be over the other side of the road, grazing off the cliff. He'll run us down, shouted Joe in alarm. The idiot! Indeed, the position of the two lads was perilous. The roadway was narrow enough at any time, and this speeding car was taking up every inch of space. In a great cloud of dust it bore directly down on the two motorcyclists. It seemed to leap through the air. The front wheels left a rut, the rear of the car skidd violently about. By a twist of the wheel, the driver pulled the car back into the roadway again just as it seemed about to plunge over the embankment. It shot over toward the cliff, swerved back again to the middle of the roadway, and then shot ahead at terrific speed. Frank and Joe edged their motorcycles as far to the right of the road as they dared. To their horror, they saw that the car was skidding again. The driver made no attempt to slacken speed, and the automobile came hurtling toward them. Oh my gosh, we are off and going on our new adventure with Frank and Joe, but I'm gonna let you in on a tiny little spoiler of the first chapter of the first Hardy Boys mystery book. Don't worry, we're only in the first chapter, and they made tons of these books. So nothing happens to him on this dangerous cliff passage with this crazy driver. It's all an excitement and fun. I don't want you to worry. Okay, that's all we've got for tonight. We'll be back on Tuesday with our regular mishmash ramble chat of goodness. And until then, sleep tight, good night, and bye bye.