My daughter went on an overnight field trip as part of the Maritime Programs curriculum series through her elementary school. She went aboard the “California” as a male merchant sailor in the year 1774. I had a “parental assignment” of writing her a letter from home as if I too was living in the era. Being that I hadn’t let my creative lion roar in over two weeks (aka – work on my novel) I probably went a little overboard with it. I took the meat of what I knew of the Quiggle surname and family history, mixed in historically accurate names and facts about the area they settled in, threw in a dash of fiction, and made sausage.