Intimate Passages

The eighth volume in the Whistling Girls and Crowing Hens series features Jan Anthony and Bea Lindberg in the final chapters of their lives together. In Intimate Passages, (1984 to 2013) Bea challenges the intimate aspects of their long-lasting relationship, but Jan persists. Friends and family dynamics grow closer. National events honoring women's art, music and culture inspire them. Bea travels to experience England's Crop Circles. Jan guides her daughter and grandson through Paris-on Segways. Bea and Jan's Goddess-searching journeys throughout the British Isles, Mexico, Malta, France and Egypt enrich their lives as health and aging issues evolve and goals are met.

In this, the final book in the eight-volume series, Author Jan Anthony includes an Afterward that reflects on societal changes during the decades that she Bea blazed their trails. As she says, "Women crashed through the glass ceiling in business, engineering, medicine, military service, and more. We no longer think about "women pilots" or "women astronauts." We're simply pilots and astronauts-along with being the nurses and teachers we were "allowed" to be for decades before our entry into professions that had been largely populated by men."

She adds a caution. "Thankfully, women's lives have improved vastly over the past sixty years, but what's happening now?...Suddenly, the concept of an "America for All" is shifting back to the "Old Boys' Network." Words such as "diversity," "equity," and "inclusion" are being reframed to imply that considering women and members of minority groups for positions is "dumbing down" government....Reading lets us find out about other lives, about loneliness and love, friends and fiends, frustration and fulfillment. We must act to regain what we have lost and improve conditions for all."