Friends of Jim the Wonder Dog in Marshall, Missouri, put out a call last month for 4″ x 4″ pencil drawings of Jim. Their plan is to create a wall hanging with the submitted drawings.
I was intrigued and couldn’t resist, so, of course I was compelled to create an entry.
Four inches by four inches is not very big so I suspect they are planning on a lot of submissions. It sounds like an interesting idea, and I am looking forward to seeing the finished product.
It took about three hours to arrive at my destination–the studios of KCUR 89.3 in Kansas City, Missouri, an affiliate of NPR, National Public Radio. Now 11 a.m. Friday, July 19, 2019, I am in a recording studio. It’s kinda cool to sit in front of a funky-looking microphone and listen through headphones to what is being said, what I am saying.
This is an interview for part of an upcoming series of NPR podcasts about lesser known community histories. Producer Suzanne Hogan contacted me for this interview after reading my book JIM aka The Wonder Dog. Jim was an actual dog that lived in Missouri from 1925-1937. He had some very unusual talents which have never been explained, even today. Although Jim lived in three towns in Missouri, Marshall is the community that has taken Jim to heart and is doing what it can to keep the dog’s memory alive. There is a Jim the Wonder Dog park located in the exact spot where the Ruff Hotel was. That also happens to be where Jim lived. There is a museum next to the park.
My interview is scheduled to be aired in November 2019.
Stay tuned.
PS: A note from Suzanne: “The interview sounds good.”
When I was a 20-something I lived in Marshall, MO, and worked in an office of the Missouri Valley College there in Marshall. One day in the office all the buzz was about a discovery the newly hired librarian had made. It seems the former librarian, who had retired, had placed a stack of books in the vault “never to be placed on the college bookshelves.” Among her personally banned books was one written in 1942 by Clarence Dewey Mitchell titled Jim The Wonder Dog.
What could possibly be so bad about a dog book that she would actually ban it? Turns out the book was written from the dog’s point of view, and she said, “Dogs can’t talk.” Ergo no placement where students could find it!
Naturally, after work, I bee-lined it to the city library and checked the book out. I was not enthralled with the way it was written, but the story was fascinating. It was stored somewhere in the back “shelves” of my brain and I went on with life.
Many years later, having just completed my first book, the members of my critique group quickly asked, “What are you going to write next?’ I shrugged my shoulders. Then out of my mouth came the words, “Jim the wonder dog.”
“What?” “Huh?” “Wonder dog?”
They had never heard of this marvelous dog. And I knew what my next book would be; now available!