The Kindle version of “River of January: Figure Eight” is on sale today for only 99 cents. Step right up and enjoy the flight.
Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both available at www.river-of-january.com.
Oh, Amazon, anarchy is thy name! Part 1 of my two-part memoir is listed on Amazon books for $15.99 plus shipping. But cyber guerilla’s have used copies priced from $40. to $864.00. Can I get a witness?
Dear readers, if you would like a copy of ROJ got to www.river-of-january.com. That’s where gravity still functions. The book is available at a reasonable price. I’ll sign it if you wish.
Also book 2, River of January: Figure Eight is available on Kindle for .99 cents. The sale continues until February 2.
BTW, Amazon says the book price lists fine on their end.
Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, River of January and River of January: Figure Eight
Beginning Sunday, January 27th, “River of January: Figure Eight,” Kindle edition, is on sale. Purchase “Figure 8” for .99 cents until February 3rd.
Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Visit our webpage at www.river-of-january.com
Think you know Amelia Earhart? Read another view from someone who knew her.
River of January is only 99 cents on Kindle. Sale ends at midnight MDT.
Click below.
Attention Kindle readers! “River of January,” part one of the two-part memoir is going on sale. For only 99 cents relive the thrilling, true adventures of the aviator and the show girl. The offer begins on Saturday, December 29th at 8:00am MDT, ending on Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at midnight MDT.
Check for “River of January: Figure Eight,” part two of the saga, going on sale at the end of January. Stay tuned for details.
This is an excerpt from “River of January: Figure Eight.”
After waiting nineteen months for his transfer west, the actual trip raced by almost too rapidly. One morning he boarded a train in New York City, the next he soared over the Ko’olau Mountains of Oahu. This war waited for no one, and Chum’s new duties began at once.
Lesser damage from the 1941 assault on Pearl Harbor had been cleared away. The runways, taxiing strips, airfields, and hangars bore little evidence of the strafing and bombing that had rained down a year and a half earlier. Not gone from view, however, was the lifeless hulk of the once proud battleship USS Arizona. Broken in the harbor, she had been cut dead in her moorings. Nearby, her sister, the USS Oklahoma, listed unnaturally on her side—both vessels now sacrificed ruins lying prostrate on Battleship Row. The twin wreckage supplied all the reminders Chum needed of why he had come to the Pacific.
Billeted in junior officer housing at Makalapa, the pilot began each morning commuting past the somber remains in the harbor to attend briefings and equipment familiarization. Assigned to Air Transport Squadron Ten, Chum straightaway began logging air time aboard another giant seaplane—the Martin PBM-3 Mariner. Designed for heavy cargo and armaments, this aircraft was enforced with a deep hull. The lieutenant spent his flight time practicing raising the titan from the sea and maneuvering under the weight of heavy payloads.
Opening his orders on July fifth, the lieutenant—along with his newly attached co-pilot, Lieutenant Richard Forman, and seven crewmen—departed from the waters of Pearl Harbor for Johnston Island, 750 nautical miles deeper into the Pacific. On board, the Mariner carried a hefty cargo of medical supplies, military dispatch files, and bags of civilian mail. Lieutenant Chumbley covered his maiden flight in five hours and forty minutes—enough hours, under wartime conditions, to render him a seasoned veteran.
Gail Chumbley is the author of “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles available at http://www.river-of-january.com and on Amazon and Kindle.
I am proud to announce that River of January: Figure Eight is now on Kindle. If you loved the first volume, River of January, this is a chance to discover the rest of the story.
We are in talks to see both books on the big screen. Stay tuned for news on that exciting front.
Now both books are on Kindle. If the spirit of the holiday moves you, give us a short review.
Gail Chumbley is the author of River of January, and River of January: Figure Eight.
Vote, but don’t vote in fear. Ignore the thugs who intend to intimidate.
If alarm guides your trip to the polls, clarify what frightens you. Whether it’s authoritarianism, climate change, or even attacks on our democracy, pull yourself together and vote with thoughtful purpose.
The former president thrives on doubt, lies and chaos.
While the GOP points to crime, and minorities as a threat, understand this distraction provides cover for greed and incompetence. This crowd is motivated by power, not service to country.
Many high officials have been indicted for conspiring to hack the 2016 Presidential election. This is not theory, it is fact. Of those thirty-five, four convicted conspirators “flipped” and were cooperating with Federal Prosecutors to shorten their sentences. These scoundrels rescinded their agreements and the previous Attorney General supported that effort. At the end almost all were granted a presidential pardon.
That is a concern.
Russia, under Cold Warrior and former KGB operative, Vladimir Putin, has unleashed powerful ‘oligarchs’ to perpetrate cyber sabotage against the United States. Never forget that. This is treason-providing aid and comfort to America’s enemies. At this writing the GOP have declared if they retake Congress they will give Ukraine to Russia.
To silence his critics, Putin has quite publicly dispatched hit squads of assassins, at home in Russia, and abroad. For example, executioners brazenly used military grade nerve agents to silence opponents. Though the Russian leader has denied authorizing any such thing, the former president willfully refuses to accept that, all too, obvious fact.
That is a grave concern.
Friendship extended from that White House to other totalitarian regimes similar to Putin’s. Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s butcher of not only family members, but masses of his own people, Rodrigo Deterte of the Philippines, who has pursued extralegal measures to kill “criminals,” and Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey who demanded Trump deport a Turkish journalist, critical of the strong arm regime in Ankara.
The previous president’s family still maintains business ties with the Saudi Prince, MBS, despite the grisly murder of a Washington Post journalist by Saudi assassins.
That is a concern.
Then came January 6th, that violent crescendo of the Trump years. This party is a plague.
Fear is a powerful and toxic impulse to rush the polls on Election Day. However, we must all understand what we fear. Do we focus on the bedlam promoted by that defeated administration, or do we ignore the noise and pinpoint the real threat?
Vote like a boss.
Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both books are available on Kindle. Chumbley has also penned two historical plays, “Clay” concerning the life of Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears,” and exploration of racism and slavery in America.
gailchumbley@gmail.com
An extraordinary event has come our way. River of January, then River of January:Figure Eight are to become feature films. We have signed an option agreement with Falls Park Entertainment of Greenville, South Carolina to bring Helen & Chum’s story to the silver screen. Pinch me, I must be dreaming.
Books are available at http://www.river-of-january.com, and at Amazon.com
October, 1933
By luck or accident the review below popped up on the internet. It’s nearly a year old, and a bit of a nice surprise. Thank you Connie Daugherty wherever you are.
Recommended Reading: River Of January
by CONNIE DAUGHERTY
River of January by Gail Chumbley; 2014
Mont “Chum” Chumbley is a pilot. He’s a natural, and he lives to fly. Helen Thompson is a dancer. She’s a natural, and she lives to dance. They come from different worlds and have nothing in common. Yet they are very much alike and destined to be together.
In her 2014 award-winning biography, River of January, Gail Chumbley follows the lives of her husband’s parents from 1927 through 1936. Using their letters, shared stories, and interviews, along with her own storytelling skills, Chumbly has created an informative and entertaining book that reads more like a novel than a biography. It details the struggles of not only the individual characters, but of the world through the Great Depression and events leading to WWII.
River of January includes historical details of the entertainment business from the decline of vaudeville to the emergence of talkies (motion pictures with sound). As well, the book reveals how developments in aviation also moved quickly in the 1930s. Chumbly adeptly follows those drastic historical changes.
Having both come from humble beginnings, Helena and Chum each choose career paths eventually lead them to their first meeting.
At 18, Chum joins the Navy with the hopes of becoming a pilot. He works his way through the military bureaucracy, getting assignments everywhere, it seems, other than at flight school. His lack of education holds him back, but he’s determined to fly.
He has something to prove to his family, to himself. So, when an opportunity presents itself Chum accepts it.
“A nervous and sleep-deprived Mont Chumbley reported for flight elimination exercises.” Everyone expects him to wash out; after all, he has failed the entrance exams more than once. But Chum knows all he needs is a chance to prove himself.
Meanwhile, Helen has her own struggles. While confident and self-assured on stage, off stage she is a pawn of her controlling mother’s insecurities and personal dreams. The only way Helen seems able to escape—while keeping her mother at least somewhat satisfied—is to accept jobs that take her away from her New York home. She finds herself traveling with dance troops throughout Europe.
This need to escape home and family in order to discover and develop their true potential is one thing Helen and Chum have in common, though the way they deal with it is very different.
Eventually, the stock market crash throws the whole world into economic turmoil, which leads to political turmoil, and Helen and Chum are caught up in it all as the entertainment business and the technology of aviation transform.
Chum finds himself, restless and bored, with a job in West Palm Beach, Fla. He jumps at an opportunity to demonstrate Waco Aircraft Company’s new fighter plane for the Brazilian government down in Brazil.
Meanwhile, Helen is back in New York as 1934 slides into 1935, working in a three–person act under her mother’s watchful and domineering presence. Helen, too, is getting restless and ready for change. “She also knew her time had come to move on from their partnership. She hoped her mother would see it the same way.”
Helen flees New York on a ship to Brazil and lands a gig dancing in a club regularly frequented by Americans. “Three young men seated near the dance floor caught her eye, clearly American by their dress and relaxed posture.” One of those young men is Chum, and he catches her attention immediately.
“This new girl, this sparking, compelling blonde on the stage, radiated a magnetism that surprised him.” In a moment, as their eyes meet, the pilot and the dancer connect. And although they try to be together as much as possible, they each have careers and obligations that take them in different directions.
Eventually, Chum proposes, and Helen accepts. They plan to live in Rio de Janerio, but it isn’t that simple.
Between Helen’s mother, who disapproves of their union, and the war, the young couple’s letter transcripts reveal their struggle against seemingly unmovable objects to continue their love and establish a life together.
In 2016, Chumbley published River of January: Figure Eight, picking up where the award-winning River of January dramatically left off. In the sequel, she tells the story of their continued courtship, marriage, and struggle to keep their love intact, despite the challenges of WWII and the unrelenting interference of Helen’s mother. It is the realism of the story—the struggles and successes, the bad times and the good, as well as the author’s narrative—that keeps readers enthralled and turning pages. These two books are more than a family biography. In telling the story of these two intriguing and imperfect people, Chumbley has captured and preserved the history of an era.
Chumbley is a retired history teacher. In 2005, she received the Outstanding Teacher of American History from National Daughters of the American Revolution in Washington DC. A native of the Pacific Northwest, the author was born and raised in Spokane, Wash., and earned a history degree from Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash. Chumbley and her husband currently live near Boise, Idaho. She received the 2016 Idaho Author’s Award for Memoirs and Biography for River of January.
https://idahoseniorindependent.com/recommended-reading-river-january/
Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir River of January and River of January: Figure Eight. Available at http://www.river-of-january.com, and on Kindle.
gailchumbley@gmail.com
Gail Chumbley 