How to Win Friends & Influenza

About the Book

For years, Ed Kurtz jotted down his memories of growing up in New Jersey during the 1920s and 1930s. Combining them with some essays on modern problems such as road rage, information on the origins of popular sports, and several (often spicy) jokes and stories, Ed enlisted his sister Mitzie, now 93, as a typist, and created the manucript he titled "How to Win Friends & Influenza."

This book traces a New Jersey childhood through the eras of America's Prohibition and Great Depression, and an adulthood that included overseas service during World War II, leading troops of Boy Scouts through the snake-infested woods, and building a house the Pope slept in.

In a voice all his own, twinkling with humor and wordplay, Ed Kurtz relates a life well lived.

About the Author

Eighty-seven-year-old Edward Kurtz is a lifelong resident of New Jersey. At 18, he went to work for the Forstmann Wollen Co. in Garfield as an oiler boy, and rose to quality control supervisor. When the mill closed, he formed a house painting business. During the Second World War he enlisted in the Army Signal Corps, spending one year at Camp Crowder, Mo., and subsequently serving overseas in five countries as an instructor in radio communication. He currently holds an amateur extra class radio license.

Ed has served the Boy Scouts of America as a scoutmaster since 1940. He earned the Silver Beaver award and is still in scouting.

Ed, recently retired, lives in Clifton with his 93-year-old sister, Mitzie.