Personal History And Strange Things

Since I started writing books, a few people have asked what I'm like and what I've done in life. Now that's a hard one, but I'll try.

I am handsome, intelligent, genial, healthy, amiable, pleasant, gracious, clever, able, superbly handsome for my years and a wonderfully gifted writer. I have been a brave soldier, a medical person who always cared for his patients, a paperboy who never threw the paper on the roof and an ice cream machine operator who produced almost as much ice cream as he ate. I am married to the loveliest and most gracious woman in existence who never, ever argues or gets mad. She is also a good cook, a wonderful lover and believes all my stories about having a bad back when I'm trying to get out of work. My dog is smarter than any other dog in the world and my cat can purr louder than your cat.

There. Now you know all about me.

•  •  •

It was the post office that decided we and the kids had to have a real street address rather than a route number. When they dubbed the road running through our fifty acres and on to the ten acres each belonging to the kids Santa Claus Lane, our daughter-in-law Linda promptly abolished her mailbox and got a post office box number to handle their mail. She said she wasn't going to be laughed at every time someone asked for her address. I can't say I blame her. It is the perfect address for a Christmas tree farm but I have noticed we get some rather strange looks and have to explain to a lot of people when asked that yes, it really is a real address.

Besides the strange looks, strange things seem to happen on Santa Claus Lane. When the aliens land, they will probably come down right in our driveway. One of the strangest is that, as mentioned, I managed to have a book published about the odd happenings here. Folks who have read the first book, Life On Santa Claus Lane, have accused me of being lazy. That's a canard. I'm not lazy, I just like to work sitting down and writing is easy work if you're just telling the truth about what's going on around your place. Well, almost the truth, barring a bit of literary elaboration. All right, so I exaggerate. I bet you have some bad habits, too, don't you? But sometimes I tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, which brings me to the point of relating one of the most fantastic strings of calamities ever to befall one family trying to move into a new home.

The calamities happened to our son-in-law Rob when he and Pat bought a new mobile home to replace their old one on Santa Claus Lane. Everyone except Pat and Rob thought the events were funny but absolutely no one believed I was telling the unvarnished truth and nothing but the truth when I wrote about them. They thought I was making the whole thing up!

Pat and Rob were happily occupying a fourteen-foot wide mobile home and owned another old mobile home they had lived in previously and kept on hand for relatives to occupy when and if needed. Pat was perfectly content with her little place until Rob started making so much money that he hired Pat as his administrative assistant -- and then she decided it was time to move up in the mobile home world. Did I tell you that Rob manages mobile home lots for a living? No? Well, that's probably where the trouble started. He thought he knew everything there was to know about mobile homes. And moving mobile homes. And setting up mobile homes. Boy, was he wrong!

Copyright © 2004 by Darrell Bain