I’ve been thinking lately about the prefix “quasi.” As in quasiliterate (as if we were), or quasiblog (as if it was), or Quasimodo (don’t all start singing at once). Quasi meaning “having all the likeness of something, but without the essential core of the thing.” Or if you want to go with the literal Latin translation: “As if!”

I have written two “quasi-historical” novels. They look kind of like historical books, have all the taste, texture, smell of a historical book, but there are things that are different, things that make them more “fantasy” books than true historical. But I loved doing all the research anyway, loved learning about the past.

Like toilets. Ever wonder what the Victorians did for toilets? After about 1860, you had it made, with more and more homes having the patented flush toilets. But if you have tons of servants, why bother upgrading the house? The good old chamber pot is good enough, isn’t it? Use the pot, call the servant, and…you’re done.

Those poor servants, though. The master may be on the third floor, and the outhouse is in the back garden, and you get to carry the pot throughout the house before dumping it down the hole. At least that’s better than what they did with it in the 17th Century. If you lived then, you’d toss the contents of the pot out the window, onto the street. Look out below!

Nothing makes you appreciate the time and place you live now than comparing to how our ancestors lived back then. But when something happens, like the earthquakes in Haiti, and suddenly the past comes crushing back into the present.

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Solomon, of course.