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EVERYTHING IS TRUE, EXCEPT THE PARTS I MADE UP

by F.P. Kopp; Foreword by Ed George

246 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0612; ISBN 1-4120-2784-5; US$21.99, C$28.00, EUR18.20, £12.61

During the reign of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, Fred Kopp's image, name and deeds were erased from all obelisks, temples and public monuments in Muscatine, Iowa. This book attempts to rectify that injustice.

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About the Book      About the Author      Excerpts      Catalogue Information

About the Book

Humorous episodes from author's grade school, high school and junior college years in a small Iowa river town, in the 1950's and 1960's, complete with nuns, junior high peeping toms and motorcycles driven through grocery stores.

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About the Author

Frederick P. Kopp is a native of Muscatine, Iowa. He and his wife Sharon now live in Rock Island, Illinois where Fred practices law. Fred and Sharon have two adult children, Elaine and Phil.

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Excerpts

From Chapter I:

... Speaking of heavy guns, the TV shows now say, "Kids, don't try this at home" for a reason. Back then, they didn't and we did. Good guys and bad guys never killed each other in our TV shows. But the bad guys were forever slugging the good guys over the back of the head with the handle of their gun to knock the good guy out. And the good guys would invariably regained consciousness uttering the phrase "I'm okay. He just knocked me out."

So we tried that out ourselves. What harm could there be? Trouble is, they didn't teach "knocking each other out" in school or anywhere. So all we did is leave each other wide awake with darned sore heads. But we kept trying. Obviously, all we needed was practice. It worked so well on TV. Picture, if you will, a neighborhood full of bizarre children unsuccessfully conking each other over the head with cast iron pistols.

Denny Kopf was my personal favorite target. But I wasn't going to tell him I was practicing until I was as good as the TV guys. ''Ouch, ouch! What are ya doin'?" "Sorry, Denny," says I, "There was a mouse on your head (a common childhood problem) and I was kinda tryin' ta knock it off ya.'' Sounded reasonable to me.

I wonder what we'd have done if only the TV of our day had said "Kids, don't try this at home..."

From Chapter VII:

... Don't ask me the grade, but somewhere early in the game we Catholic school kids began dealing in "Pagan Babies". At that time other kids our age collected stamps, coins, bubble gum cards, insects and leaves. We did all of that sort of collecting, too. Guess the Church just added Pagan Babies to our list of collectibles.

At the beginning of Pagan Baby season (was it Lent or Advent or both?) Sister would announce the current bargain price for Pagan Babies. I remember they were fairly cheap. But there were never any clearance sales or two-for-one sales. Fortunately, we were too young to see the similarities to the commodities exchange, you know, orange juice up .25 at $2.25, pork bellies down .75 at $6.50, Pagan Babies unchanged at $9.25.

From Chapter XLV:

...I can't say that I was surprised by the ease with which the assassin had gotten to Bobby Kennedy. About three months prior to the assassination, I had walked past the security guards at Veterans' Auditorium in Des Moines to get a close-up picture of Kennedy. As he sat at the Speaker's Table on the main floor talking with Governor Harold Hughes, I stood four or five feet away with my camera -- nothing between Kennedy and I but the table and a plate full of banquet food.

I had come to Des Moines on a Saturday night ... to hear Kennedy speak. Like the rest of the low level contributors (make that real low level, as in next to nothing), we were all in the highest, farthest-away-from-the-action section of the balcony. I knew that I wasn't going to get much of a picture from there with my little Kodak Instamatic camera (comparable to one of today's disposable cameras). So I headed down the back stairs, all by myself. On the main floor level there were two guards on duty by the back door. I approached them holding my camera in my hand.

"What's the score?" one of them asked me.
"Huh? Score?" I had no idea where we were going here.
"The Iowa basketball score. Haven't you got the game on your radio?"
"It's not a radio. It's a camera. I wanted to get a picture of Kennedy."

With that the guards laughed, waved me through and stepped aside to allow me to enter the main floor. Forget about the technicality that I hadn't paid the $100 or $500 that entitled me to main floor admittance. Up I walked to the head table. I stood across the table in front of Kennedy for about five minutes fussing with my camera. He smiled for me. I smiled back, nodded my head and went back upstairs.

Unfortunately, I assume that similar security arrangements continued in Los Angeles. I wonder if they asked Sirhan Sirhan what the Dodgers' score was?

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Catalogue Information