The Edsel and I

About the Book

The sixties were the heyday of baby boomers from the last 'war to end all wars'. Unfortunately, they were just in time for another war--the Vietnam conflict that was even more senseless than the previous wars before it. Rebellion surfaced in flower children, long haired "hippies", psychedelic posters, and a new type of music...the Beatles were the royal leaders, setting the pace for the dynamic '60's.

About the Author

Jil Carlson was born in Dallas, Texas, and attended a variety of schools where she gleaned a cursory knowledge of shorthand (which she was a whiz at taking down but, unfortunately, could not read) and typing. This led to a later resume that read like an F.B.I. Wanted poster: “Last seen working at a Bob’s Big Boy Drive-In, also briefly spotted sorting mail at Warner Bros. movie studio, inking cels for Disney, typing for Lockheed Aircraft plant, clerking at Bank Of America, painting pottery at Gladden-McBean, and working as a dispatch clerk for United Airlines.

As soon as she turned 21, she joined the Navy and was assigned to be an Air Traffic Controller in spite of a tendency to call pilot’s ”Honey” (“One-oh-niner. ..Take a wave-off, Honey”. Jil also found a new Best Buddy by the name of Howard, who she thought was a radio repairman, but turned out to be Howard Hughes. Her Navy days were over after she married the top pilot on the base and settled down to raise five children.

When she was asked to come to Washington,D.C. and help her brother open his new Mexican Food restaurant, she loved the east so much, she later moved there, working for historic Ford’s Theatre. She also wrote a weekly humorous column for Roll Call, the newspaper the president reads each week.

Ms. Carlson now lives a few miles from Carmel in Northern California,. Her extended family includes five grand children, six great grand children, and Mewriel, her persnickety cat.

Books by JIL are: SKIRTS OF NAVY BLUE, ESCAPE FROM DISNEYLAND, AND THE EDSEL AND I.