Menagerie

I'm not really an “animal person.” I like animals well enough... I guess I should really say that I like dogs and cats; but I'm suspicious of other creatures. Those things are out to eat you.

I hasten to add that this is not my parents' fault. I grew up with dogs and cats, hamsters and parakeets, an unfortunate rabbit, and other small animals. My parents took me to my grandparents' farm in the summers where I could spend time with chickens and cows. With an upbringing like that, you would expect that I would have grown up to be a veterinarian.

I blame my sister.

She was critter-crazy. She didn't just love dogs and cats, hamsters and parakeets. She loved everything. She rode horses when she got the chance (horses want to kill you and then you stomp your body into the dirt). She loved rabbits (some strange kind of love that involved trapping the terrified bunny with a lawnmower so she could hold the wild, rabies-ridden thing). She loved lizards (and she didn't love lizards in some normal way that involved putting the lizard in a cage - she would get two small lizards to bite her on the earlobes so that she could wear them as earrings).

I'm sure you can understand how living with a lizard lunatic would put me off my game. I'm convinced that was the thing that made me suspicious of anything with fur, feathers, or scales.

And that stupid hamster bit my finger.

Jack “Siegfried and Roy” Parker

My First Book

I apologize for the blog disruption, but I've spent the last three months co-writing a novel with my friend Keith. Writing a novel turned out to be an all-consuming venture. Not counting my day job and my night job, writing a novel took all of my time.

I was very surprised by this because writing a book hadn't always been so time-consuming for me. I suppose that's because I wrote non-fiction up until now. Well, that is to say, I've only written one book before now, and it was non-fiction. It was a history of the Second World War.

I was six years old. I was a World War II nut, and I knew everything there was to know about the war. No one knew as much about it as I did, so I thought I should write a book telling people all about it. After all, I loved reading books, so how hard could it be to write one?

I knew it would take a little time, maybe all evening, so I got my grandmother's “portable” Royal typewriter and put it in my room. I sat down to the typewriter and thought hard. There was no way to put the immense amount of knowledge I had into one book, so I would have to organize my thoughts and only give the most important information - things the reader really needed to know.

Herewith, the complete text of “World War II” by Jack Parker:

“This book will not be complete. It will, however, be accurate.”

It only took me a couple of hours. I still can't figure out why the novel took so long.

Jack “Count Leo” Parker