The Newport Girls

At the tender age of eleven, Elaine Colton moved to Newport, Rhode Island, to live with her Navy civilian engineer father. Life had already been difficult for Elaine, having lost her mother at an early age; she desperately needed a friend to stand by her side. Instead, she got not one, but fifteen friends who supported her from childhood through adulthood for the next fifty years. Warm, witty, and full of love, The Newport Girls chronicles Colton's extraordinary lifelong relationship with her closest girlfriends. Beginning in 1952, Colton relates meeting Leenie Callahan, a girl who lived across the street, and how the two soon became best friends. They expanded their friendship circle in high school to include other like-minded girls. Together, these friends modeled for the local department store, wrote columns for the school paper, and enjoyed their carefree high school years. Despite the girls' wide dispersal around the country following graduation, they never lost affection for each other. Through marriages, career changes, children, financial hardships, divorce, and even death, the bond these women maintained for so long continued to hold strong. Along with numerous snapshots, other Newport Girls share their experiences in touching personal essays. In a story of the power of enduring friendship, the Newport Girls were always there for each other and still are today. "Women over 60 can relate to this book in a very sweet way. Its history goes back to the 1950's which was a calm and safe time growing up on a small island. The author is a survivor, she is the main focus of the book while her friends surround her with their own tales of heartbreak and also of happy and fun times. This book was published a year ago, the Newport Girls are turning 70 this year and they continue to be healthy women. They live all across the USA and chat on the phone often. Some even use Facebook. You ask me how I know ... well, because I am one of The Newport Girls. It was a privilege to write a chapter and an honor to read the others. This is a wonderful coffee table or guest room book. It is about life experiences and the inter-action of old and good friends. Buy it, you won't be disappointed." Gretchen Kelly, contributor to The Newport Girls

Author Elaine Colton has jam packed her seventy-five years of life with awesome experiencesfrom the bold to the hilarious and from the daring to the wow. In What More Is There to Say?, she chronicles more than fifty years of stories, both personal and professional, including reinventing herself as an author at the age of sixty-eight. From her teenage years to her seventies, this collection shares events and anecdotes that discuss what it takes to have a good life, what it takes to go where no woman has dared to go, what it takes to be brave enough to surrender to love at middle age, and what it takes to conquer ones fears. What More Is There to Say? provides fodder for introspection. Colton hopes to inspire and propel others to complete the items on the bucket list, and she communicates its never too late to have a variety of satisfying, enjoyable, and memorable life experiences.

John R. Burgoon Jr. was never one to turn down an adventure. He joined the US Navy at age seventeen and pursued a career in the aviation branch of the navy. One of his first assignments was flying anti-submarine missions from Panama during World War II. Burgoon carried out his work with distinction, and his radio, radar, and electronic skills did not go unnoticed. He became an instructor-even teaching other instructors how to teach. His twenty-year career was never dull, and included a stint in Guam, where he improved upon a shortwave radio station and relayed servicemen's calls to the United States; he also had an assignment as a legal officer in San Diego, where he never lost a case. Burgoon's exciting off-duty life included being an amateur radio operator, a proficient chess player, an impressive hypnotist, and a certified gemologist. In between everything, his good looks managed to get him in trouble with the ladies; this memoir shares all the good stuff in It All Counts on Twenty.