Just a note: This exchange prompted me to google Nero Wolfe and (according to Wikipedia) neither he nor Charlie age over the course of the books/novellas, even as the world around them changes. This is described as a conscious decision by the author, Rex Stout.

So the pair of them must have a very reliable source of anagathics. :)

On Fri, Oct 26, 2018 at 7:12 PM Greg Caires <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

This keeps coming back to my position – with apologies to Jeff Z – PI’ing is what Travellers do. I don’t think it’s a particularly interesting career (the infamous OTHER) and its more fun to be a cop or military or corporate investigator/repo man (hat tip: great article, by the way – kicked myself I hadn’t written it first myself).

 

Quick story – I was in the Navy. I worked for a guy who, during college, got a job at a PI company, investigating workman’s comp claims. So my guy goes to the house of a guy who was claiming disability but was running a saw/knife sharpening business out of his garage. Dude claimed to be totally disabled but had his side hustle on. My guy is checking him and he’s living with his parents and the only saw he can find in the house is a little hacksaw. So he takes it to the dude to sharpen. His cover story is he’s a tree trimmer. Dude says – treetrimmer? With this little hacksaw? My guy says – I’m just starting out – I thought I’d begin with bushes.

 

True story.

 

Thanks, Greg

 

- 30 -

 

 

 

From: <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> on behalf of Richard Aiken <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
Reply-To: <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Date: Friday, October 26, 2018 at 3:54 PM
To: tml <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Subject: Re: [TML] Playing with an idea...

 

 

On Sun, Oct 21, 2018 at 10:19 PM greg caires <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

Ok so what is their chargen career path?

 

 

 

So far a I can recall - having read most of the stories back in the day - I'm fairly sure that Nero Wolfe had been some sort of resistance fighter (against the Ottoman Empire) in the Montenegro region of Eastern Europe during his youth, with a career which segued from there into first smuggling and then more-or-less legitimate commodities trading. I have he vague sense that Charlie Archer (his legman) was a WWI U.S. Army veteran, as were most of the guys who were hired from time to time to assist their investigations.

 

--

Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein

"I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as Muhammed." Alexis de Tocqueville

"We know a little about a lot of things; just enough to make us dangerous." Dean Winchester (fictional monster hunter portrayed by Jensen Ackles)

"It has been my experience that a gun doesn't care who pulls its trigger." Newton Knight (as portrayed by Matthew McConaughey), to a scoffing Confederate tax collector facing the weapons held by Knight's young children and wife.

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--
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein
"I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as Muhammed." Alexis de Tocqueville
"We know a little about a lot of things; just enough to make us dangerous." Dean Winchester (fictional monster hunter portrayed by Jensen Ackles)
"It has been my experience that a gun doesn't care who pulls its trigger." Newton Knight (as portrayed by Matthew McConaughey), to a scoffing Confederate tax collector facing the weapons held by Knight's young children and wife.