My presentation went well. The seniors -- although somewhat unresponsive -- laughed at the dramatic story of Rose O'Neal Greenhow.

Rose was a spy for the Confederacy, and she was apparently quite the seductress. She conducted many affairs simultaneously with high-placed gentlemen in Washington. Eventually, she got caught, ended up going to England and wrote a best selling book, My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition Rule at Washington. Eventually, the Confederacy was running out of money so Rose took $2000 in gold of her royalties and started to head back to the U.S. The ship she was on ran aground near a Union ship, and she convinced the captain of the ship to give her a small boat. As the boat neared the beach, a swell overturned the boat and Rose drowned, perhaps pulled down by the weight of the gold she was carrying for the Confederacy.

The next day a Confederate soldier found the body of Rose on the beach. He found the bag of gold wrapped around her wrist and took the gold. He then pushed her corpse back out into the water where it was found a few hours later. A few hours after Rose’s body had been found, the Confederate soldier came before his commander and gave back the gold. He said, "I stole the money from Mrs. Greenhow’s body. I must either give it up or go crazy." Even from beyond the grave, Rose was able to charm a man into doing what she wanted him to do.

Ah, yes. Good times. But otherwise it has been really, really, really slow at work. I don't really know what I'm going to do -- except perhaps get more blogging in -- until things pick up. I'm a little concerned, but there isn't really much I can do about it except try to keep myself busy. I haven't heard anything back from Wisconsin Public Television, but every time I get home and see the answering machine flashing, I hope it's from them. I found another job that I want to apply for -- Reference/Arts and Humanities Librarian at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. I had applied there last year and didn't even get a callback, but perhaps this time they will see that I have a few years experience. Honestly!

Oh, and I found this while looking for images of France during World War II. Don't know why I thought the National Archives would have anything, but finding that was worth the search.