Playing Leapfrog with Porcupines
by
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Does anyone out there know the dates of this year’s National Dog Bite Prevention Week? I fear it may already be history, as last year it fell on the week of June 12 to 17. I still have the postcard the dog-bite people added to my important mail announcing those vital dates. Anyway, we can at least pick up a few pointers from last year’s card. "More than two million dog bites are reported each year in the United States," we read. "It’s a problem for everyone – not just the 2,700 letter carriers who were bitten last year." The card includes a list of tips on "How to avoid being bitten." Which leads me to ask, "Where were those tips when I needed them?" Not that I ever served my country as a letter carrier, but for several years (it seemed longer), I risked life, limb, and the seat of my pants daily as a door-to-door representative of the Realsilk Hosiery Mills. In this capacity I served as fair game for all the kids within a three-block area, not to mention bulldogs with teeth too long for their mouths and nearsighted mutts that had trouble distinguishing between a salesman’s leg and a fire hydrant. The traffic at times became so stressful that I would risk having a door slammed on my foot just to get in somewhere out of the dogs and the kids. If I should happen to make a sale, so much the better. An endangered species for years, the door-to-door salesman by now may be extinct. But in case a few hardy souls are still limping down the street, I may keep their species viable by reviving an experience or two from my own "dog days" and adding a tip or two from the dog-bite prevention card.
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About the Book
Among the chapter headings in this volume, there are a number that may require a complete reading for full understanding. "Hand-Me-Down Genes," is such a one. "Lock, Stock, Barrel and Bluing" is another. And then there are "Invest Not Thy Whole Wad," "Ants Are No Picnic," "Things That Go Bump In The Daytime." As for "Take My Husband -- Please," "Gone To Waist," "Tooth Or Consequences," "My Walk With ‘Lady’ Luck," and "House By The Side Of The Road," you can draw your own conclusions. Better yet, why not check the entire shebang (a well-chosen word) and see if you are right? My guess is you’ll miss at least by the proverbial mile.
About the Author
Released from a wartime job in Indianapolis, I packed my wife, Lois, and our two little kids into a house trailer (now upgraded to a mobile home) and took off for Bradenton, Florida, to launch my writing career. I would spend many dreary months tied to the dock, however, before shoving off. So dreary, in fact, that the morning we needed a 22-cent quart of milk for breakfast, we could only raise but 18 cents. That afternoon, in the normal mail of rejections, a strange blue envelope stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. The editor of Extension, a Chicago magazine, regaled me with the news that my Do You Mind If I Breathe had their staff literally rolling on the floor. They would be sending me a check for $150.00 . . . and did I have more. Yes, I had at least a dozen more. And after selling to True and The American Legion, I thought I had it made. I thought wrong. I would spend another twenty years as Director Of Communications for the Realsilk Hosiery Mills before The Saturday Evening Post asked to reprint one of my free-lance efforts. That beloved magazine has to date printed 154 of my original efforts. I was recently interviewed by a sophomore high school student who asked what advice I would give to would-be writers. I believe I said it all in only these three words: "Don’t give up." Therefore, I have given up my daily grind of bikini spotter on Panama City Beach (Florida, of course) for the purpose of selecting another 30 gems from the 158 I have rendered for The Saturday Evening Post. The title: Playing Leapfrog with Porcupines. If you like what you read, I ask only that you tell your friends, your neighbors, and your relatives – even those you don’t particularly care for. If you don’t agree with my outlook on marital predicaments, I would appreciate it if you kept it to yourself. Perhaps I can repay you sometime. During bikini season, that is.