Literary Lion, or A Dirty Old Man Goes To The Dogs

All readers of great literature love dogs (and sometimes cats).

A few years ago my daughter, who is a librarian, promoted a Read To A Dog program at her library. This encouraged kids who are slow readers to sit on a mat with a dog and read a simple story aloud to the non-critical, non-threatening animal. Kids’ reading skills improved drastically in the low-pressure environment. The kids loved to read to such an appreciative audience.

Playing around yesterday, I offered that for anyone buying one of my books, I’d post a picture of their dog on my site. (See yesterday’s post if you want to get in on this).

My e-friend Amrita in India countered my offer saying that if I’d buy her dog, she’d post a photo of my books on her blog! What a hoot!

Amrita already owns a copy of my book I’m Confused About Prayer. So here I’ll post a photo of her dog; Sheeba has just chased a mongoose out of the house and has it cornered in the back garden:

The idea for posting of dog photos in relation to my books came about in a chance conversation with my friend Carol who owns copies of my books Glog and Crackers & Carpetbaggers. Here are her happy dogs in their baby stroller:

Last week, some Jacksonville firemen (sorry, I don’t know their names) bought nine copies of Heroes All, my history of the fire department. In honor of them, here is a photo of Lucky, a puppy rescued by firefighters from a fire at the Jacksonville Humane Society last year when over 200 other dogs died in the flames. The firefighters adopted Lucky as a mascot:

Another reader who already owns a copy of my fire history is Wendy. She and her husband, both firefighters, live in Texas. She contributed a chapter to my book. Here she is with her dog. I think it’s a border collie:

Brittany’s owner, here in Jacksonville, owns a copy of my book A Dirty Old Man Goes Bad. My book weigh more than the little dog:

Maybe a good title for my diary this year when I publish it next January would be A Dirty Old Man Goes To The Dogs.

Of course having great taste in literature does not mean a person has great taste in pets; EQ owns a copy of my novel The Lazarus Projects and many of my other books—along with this window full of cats:

Cat lovers, Donald and Helen, computer people, not only read my books, they designed several of my book covers themselves and they set up my on-line book catalogue for me. They also have copies of Barbara White’s Along The Way series of books (which I edited).

I tolerate cats, but this couple not only own books and cats, but they print pictures of their cats CC and Perl (named after computer programs) on the chest of tee shirts and actually wear them out in public.

There’s no accounting for taste in books or pets. Witnessed by the fact that whenever I visit Donald and Helen, their herd of cats ignore every fawning cat-lover in the room and come rub against me and want to sit in my lap.

Yes, cats love me. But they’re illiterate.