Spencer, Iowa is a small farming community that has endured a lot of heartache over the past century. An economic recession, an economic depression, a raging fire, and the generally hard work of being a farmer have all taken their toll on this town. In spite of everything, Spencer stood tall and endured.
One of Spencer’s citizens and the author of this book, Vicki Myron, has also endured a lot in her life. Aside from the farmer’s lifestyle, she had a failed marriage with an alcoholic husband, she depended on welfare to see her through college, and she suffered through her family’s genetic curse of cancer as it took many of her loved ones‘ lives as well as attempted to take hers.
How exactly does any person, let alone a whole town, get through it all? With the help of a little kitty pie named Dewey. The teeny tiny cutie was found shivering, cold, and alone in the drop-off box of the library where Vicki Myron worked.
Wrapping him in a blanket and nursing him back to health was just the start of a beautiful friendship between Dewey and Vicki. In spite of the hardships he suffered in that drop-off box, Dewey was a total extrovert and wanted the love and attention of everybody coming and going through the library. Word of Dewey‘s beautiful aura spread throughout the small town of Spencer and eventually the entire world.
How could a teeny tiny kitty pie like Dewey bring so much attention to the lonely old Spencer, Iowa? Because that‘s what cuddle muffins like him do. He wasn‘t just a library cat. He was a beacon of love for a world full of brokenhearted families. Just putting a hand on his fluffy fur was enough to send waves of joy and happiness through the body and soul of the one petting him.
His legacy of love lasted for a little under two decades. He lived a long and joyful life. But like all good things, his time on earth had come to an end. Even though he was already old and sickly, it still came as a depressing shock to the world that he had to be put down and cremated to ashes. Vicki Myron was so saddened by the loss of her beautiful kitty that she retired from library work.
Whatever magic Dewey was conjuring up, it was enough to make his biography the most inspirational, heartwarming, and heartbreaking bestseller in recent memory. Even if you’re not a cat person, you can still appreciate this tale of fighting through adversity and becoming stronger for the experience.
***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“There’s a group in California that wants to make suicide a federal offense punishable by death. That’s like punishing somebody for being on a hunger strike by sending them to bed with no supper.”
-Bill Engvall-
You all know Bill Engvall as a giggly blue-collar comedian who will forever be known as the guy who hands out signs to morons that read “I’m Stupid”. In his 2007 memoir entitled “Just a Guy”, he’s still a giggly blue-collar comedian known for saying “Here’s Your Sign”, but his material is a little more personal this time. Bill was always known for having a great sense of humor, so his future in comedy just came naturally. A classic example of this is when he was jumping around with his sisters on the bed and he fell off and sliced himself open. Instead of being gross and perverted like a lot of horror authors, he took the hyperbolic route and in the book described the blood flow as being worse than the entire Saw series. You don’t actually have to watch the Saw movies to know what he’s talking about. Just the fact that the movies have that name is enough to let the reader know that someone’s getting slashed up worse than Bill plopping on a sharp wooden floor. But for all you writers out there, keep in mind that the only reason Bill Engvall can get away with hyperbolic descriptions and you can’t is because A: he’s a celebrity, and B: he’s a comedian. That’s why when he described a tall-haired woman on an airplane as looking like Marge Simpson, he gets more laughs out of that one sentence than most writers get out of an entire novel. Or how about the time when he described himself as being so sore after a baseball game that he walked like he crapped his pants. Huh? There’s an image you’ll never get out of your head! Having said all of these things about Bill Engvall’s comedic prowess, “Just a Guy” isn’t without its somber moments. They’re few and far in between, but they’re still there and they’ll still haunt you. The one that sticks out for me is when Bill’s mother divorced his father and he was left with a huge hole in his heart that couldn’t be patched up with levy cement. It pained me to read that a funny guy like him was actually crying his eyes out whenever the thought of his mother leaving him came about. Yet another one that sticks out in my mind is near the end of the book where Bill talks about becoming more and more invisible as he gets older. He’s away on the road for so long that the only function he has anymore is buying pizza or taking the kids for a ride to the mall. As someone who’s been a ghost before, this is troubling to me. But don’t let these two tearjerker moments draw you away from this book. It’s a giggly read from beginning to end and it’ll go by so fast that you won’t have time to have dewy eyes. Definitely worth whatever you pay for it!
***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“My son plays the piano and one day he said he wanted to play something for me. He says, ‘I’m going to play you something from Harry Potter.’ And I say, ‘The movie?’ And he says, ‘No, the book. Here’s your sign, Dad!’”
-Bill Engvall-
