Pat McManus

[DShock]

When I was Volunteering at the Senior Center today, someone gave me this book; Rubber Legs and White Tail Hairs, Author Patrick F. McManus. Here are a couple of Quotes by him.
FLY TYING BOOKS
"The other problem with Fly Tying books is that the author has deliberately designed each fly so that it will contain ONE material that the fly-tyer doesn't have on hand. This requires the tyer to drive forty miles around town looking for a Shop that hasn't sold the last of the material to some Guy who came in fifteen minutes before the tyer arrived."

Toilet Tissue (Duck Hunting)
"It is a well-known scientific fact that a hunter scurrying out of a blind with a roll of toilet tissue in hand will bring in every duck within a ten-mile radius. The trick here is to have a second gun concealed some distance from the blind."

Doug

[Gnu Bee Flyer]

Way back when I rode motocross bikes and 3 wheelers in the sand dunes at Moses lake and Oregon. If you spotted someone heading out into the dunes with a roll of toilet paper you would alert all the regulars. We would head for the highest dune around and watch where the toilet paper Spode* would go. You give him about a minute or so then quietly as We could we'd get as close as we could then on a signal 10 to 15 riders would all crest the hill at the same time. If you timed it just right and he had his pants down you could ride madly toward him cut sharply and with your back wheel throwing heaps of sand bury his pants under a foot or two of dirt. We'd all take our shot and then ride away. It was especially effective if one of you in all the confusion was able to also steal his only toilet paper.

*Spode = Motocross newbie , Spodes were considered fair game. Old timers kept toilet paper well hidden.

Still makes me chuckle. Cause the guy would have to struggle out of his pants and then dig them out of the sand. We always left him along to do this, once rousted this way they were now considered off limits. Code of the west or something like that.

[Rev Rob]

I love Pat McManus books!!! I usually have a book or two on the table beside the bed. Once I was laughing so hard I was shaking the bed. I woke my wife and groggily she asked what was so funny. You can't explain it ~~ you just have to read it. Rubber Legs and White Tail Hairs is a classic. I love the story of him getting a pig when his friends all had horses ~~ Real Ponies Don't Go Oink.

[Betty Hiner]

OMG!!! "Real Ponies Don't Go Oink!" That is one of the funniest books I've ever had the pleasure of reading. In my Mothers later years, I tried to read it out loud to her (as a way to pass the afternoon, and give her a chuckle). Needless to say we didn't make it very far, before dissolving in laughter!

[Byron Zuehlsdorff]

My sides get sore just thinking about some of his writings!!

[PanFisher]

Pat was the greatest author of all time - I don't care what anybody says!

[EdD]

Pat was the greatest author of all time - I don't care what anybody says!

Was? I think that he's still bopping around. He had a couple of books out this year. Years ago I met him at a book signing here in Nashville. He is as nice a guy as anybody could ever want to meet. It was late Fall and he was warning about the dangers of hypothermia and frostbite. After doing his speech, he looked around at a bunch of outdoormen who were all grinning at him as asked if the dangers of sub-sero temps were less in Tennessee than in Idaho and Montanna. We assured him that they are MUCH LESS severe. He was amused at his own error and charmed the entire audience.

Ed

[PanFisher]

EdD,

Somewhere I had heard he was no longer with us. With your comment I had to be sure. So Google informs all. Check out the website! http://www.mcmanusbooks.com/index.html. It appears he is doing quite well! If his schedule showed him coming to Phoenix I would be the first one there.

Now I know where I will be doing my Christmas shopping for myself.

[DShock]

The Night The Bear Ate Goombaw by Pat McManus

P- 184 (last)
WHINERS; Your vehicle suddenly expires forty miles back in the wilderness, and the Whiner says, "I knew something like this would happen! Now what are we going to do? Why do these things always happen to me when I'm out with you guys? I just wish you would check these things out to make sure they're running properly before you haul me all the way out here in the middle of nowhere on a wild-goose chase."
The only fit punishment for a Whiner is to lock him up inside the vehicle with the Explainer, the Cowboy Philosopher, and the Impressionist. Sure, it's cruel and unusual punishment, but it serves the wimp right.

Joe, I thought of you when Pat said the "Explainer" since you sign with "Joseph the....."

Doug

[flybinder]

For all the great McManus fans here at FAOL, I just finished reading "The Deer On A Bicycle", by Pat. (Copywrite 2000)
If you haven't read it and run across it, thinking it's like his other great books, it's NOT.

The sub title on the cover, in fact, reads: "Excursions Into The Writing Of Humor".
I'm not saying, at ALL, that it's not a "good" McManus book, it's only that it's not like the books we're all used to, from him.
The book is about "How" Pat became a humor writer, and if anyone is interested in becoming one, also, he wrote this book more or less as a "how to become one", type of thing.

He retells, in this latest book, several of his original stories then dissects them, explaining, "Why they're funny, who the appealed to the most, (type of publication he sold them to and why), etc." And on some........ "How he came up with the story idea to begin with".

I took two writing classes from Pat McManus several years ago, when he was a visiting professor at Washington State Univ. (Yes, thank you, I'm well aware that the classes, I took, never took hold), and this book is a lot like his classroom material he gave us to use.

Anyhoo, it's a good read, if you're interested in how he got started, etc.!!