Say, isn’t that the beneficent Mr. Hall hiding behind Wine-opoly? The game of cork-popping fun?

What, you may ask, does Wine-opoly, the game of cork-popping fun have to do with Fame? Or Fortune? Or the Road to Publication?

So glad you asked. I won a Fortune from you-know-who. And the cards were really, really well-written.

At the “Out with the Old, In with the New” Our Town Magazine luncheon, I got a gift. Just in time for Christmas.

Actually, I received a nice card, of which a nice gift was
enclosed. But that’s not the gift I oohed and ahhed over. Janet Lennox gave me another gift: a book called Zanzibar Zoop, The Soup Swimming Fly.

Janet’s husband, Jeff (don’t you love married folks who have match-y names like Janet and Jeff?) wrote this charming children’s tale about a fly in the split pea soup and how this little bug helped saved the day.

Jeff is a physician by day and a writer by, well, other times of the day. Besides his children’s book, he also writes a column for Our Town Magazine. Maybe Janet talked him into that role, since she was one of the magazine’s publishers.

Now Our Town is changing hands; we have a new publisher, Delfy Flores and his lovely wife, Norma (admit it, you thought of Marilyn Monroe, didn’t you?). So I guess I’ll be working for them, now.

But I’ll always be thankful for friends like Janet. Without the gift of Our Town Magazine, I may never have found my writing niche. Or had the chance to read Zanzibar Zoop.

Gifts, Christmas, friends. I’m feeling pretty Fortune-ate.