Walter Falls
Page 23
Last week was my birthday. Janus and Myrian came to visit, Jack phoned, as did Rea and briefly Gee. That morning, I read a piece in the Renton Bugle describing an incident that happened some forty-odd years ago today. A freighter carrying 6,000 sheep sank in Kuwait’s largest harbor, threatening to contaminate the country’s entire water supply if not recovered in time. Karl Kroyer, a Danish engineer, happened to remember a comic strip he read as a boy in which Donald Duck no less retrieved his own boat from the bottom of a lake by filling the hull with Ping-Pong balls, enabling the ship to float to the surface. Inspired, Kroyer had millions of hollow pellets pumped into the sunken freighter, hoping to effect a similar result, and how extraordinary but the plan worked! I think of this tale often now, in dark moments and times of potential crisis, and calculate what around me will float and what will sink me for certain.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the course of any prolonged project, one encounters many people to whom they become indebted. My experience has been no different and I would like to thank then first and foremost: my parents, Ilene and Stan, whose unwavering support was unconditional and for whom no words of thanks can ever be enough; my brother, Bob (Bobby), whose own endless support—and love—proves once again that sibling rivalry need never affect our relationship: my publisher, James Pannell, for his generosity, his faith and vision all but unheard of in this day and age; Debra Hudak, for innumerable suggestions on the manuscript and overseeing the entire production process; Martha and Jim, the dearest of friends; Barbara Ellis, for her own blind faith; my agents, Elizabeth Winick and Henry Williams of McIntosh and Otis; and last, but never least, my glorious family, my core and foundation, the everything on which I selfishly balance my madness, my daughter, Anna, son Zach, and eternal Mary. Thank you. Without you, I do not exist.
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