For those of you who haven't read Toppers, the prequel to the book you are reading now, be at ease. This collection of insane stories and conversations between Will Stafford and me easily stands alone. In fact, there are now seven loosely related books in the series begun with Life On Santa Claus Lane, all of which describe humorous events that have taken place on the "farm" since we moved out to the country way back in 1980 (see appendix for the other books).

If you haven't read Toppers, or any of the other books in this series, let me give you a little background that will make for easier reading. Shortly after we decided to build our permanent home on a hundred acres in East Texas and got moved into our new place, we decided to turn it into a Choose-And-Cut Christmas Tree Farm--and thus our address, Santa Claus Lane. When the private roads had to be named for 911 purposes someone at the Post Office had a sense of humor and quickly assigned our road a name to fit the business. I guess it was good advertising for our farm, but it has also gotten us a lot of strange looks over the years when we're asked for our address.

I met William Stafford through the internet after publication of my first novel, Medics Wild. We've still never met in person, but our lives aren't over yet, either. It turned out that Will had been in Vietnam roughly the same times as me and he also served two years, the same as I did. I was a medic. He was a helicopter pilot.

After we exchanged a bit of information, it turned out that we had a lot in common and began corresponding regularly. This went on for three years after I found out what a wildly humorous fellow he is. You'll find this out yourself before long, because Toppers and More Toppers consists of stories we've told each other, along with internet conversations that frequently had mine and Betty's sides hurting from laughing so much. I've also added comments here and there in the books where I thought explanations would help.

I must apologize for the rather disjointed way this is put together, but it's been seven or eight years since I looked at this old mail and I don't remember all the subjects we were talking about. Also, my apologies for including a few pieces which made the rounds of the internet back in 2000, but perhaps it's been long enough so that they'll seem fresh again.

No one likes lengthy introductions so let me close by saying it has been far too long since releasing Toppers. I should have gotten the second part out eight years ago, but I'm lazy, just like Will professes to be. Be that as it may, here it is, better late than never.