Author: C.R. Yeager

ISBN:  9-780977-066209

You Can Purchase This Book From Amazon 

Mr. Yeager grew up in Cleveland Heights, Ohio – with a British mother and American father. And, he is dyslexic. Yeager explains that people with dyslexia as those “whose brains were wired by non-union electricians, resulting is us doing things in reverse, getting lost in intersections, feeling like a cat on a screen door when called on in class.” 

 The author claims that there is a tendency to think the “outering” suburbs are just a “buffer” between the city and countryside – “a place where people migrate to get cheaper car insurance, getting loaded means filling the mini-van with groceries, and ethnic awareness is limited to coach boy statues next to the picket fence.”

 Yeager’s description of the upkeep of birch trees was hysterical! He equates the care to that of paying taxes – “maximum investment for minimum return.” He suggests that you can flood the place with pesticides and chemicals and “still lose the damned things.” Nature thanked them for not using pesticides (with middle finger extended). The first birch “fizzled faster than a sparkler.” The second birch “started losing branches. Wasps the size of F16s hemstitched its girth in search of grubs, divebombing us as we walked by.” The rest of the birch trees “showed signs of wilting.” He writes about strong poisons that would kill the boring insects that were killing the trees in his yard. It turns out that one poison in particular had a half-life – “half of two birches croaked.” The author contacted the nursery, whose suggestions were to “continuing dousing till our yard glowed in the dark” or cut the trees off knee-high (whereas Yeager figured he would be old and gray before having shade trees again).

The outering suburban living put the family in touch with the wildlife – their experiences ranged from creatures living under the porch to “deer eating yarrow and ornamental grasses” out of the yard. Most of the list described destruction. Yeager explains that if all the wildlife had visited at once, “we’d now probably be living in a gated community where animals gain entrance only in styrofoam meat trays.”

Yeager goes on to talk about the pitfalls of installing flowerboxes, Mother Nature and her Midol habit, lightening in November, and his garage sale bargaining skills that he compares to a state trooper’s bargaining skills when he stops you. He explains how his mother got buckteeth by pushing on the teeth with the ball of her hand and wondered if the whole family (and perhaps the cats, too) jumped up and down, they could have a basement. He writes that the Japanese had calculated the value of pi to 1.24 trillion places and admits that this is close to the number of time his in-laws have come to visit unexpectedly.

This is 185-pages of the best humor since Erma Bombeck – all for $21.95! If you don’t find a laugh on each page, schedule a doctor’s appointment to have your sense of humor checked. If you can’t relate to most of what Yeager writes about, look for your ship back to Mars to land any minute.  This isn’t the book to read when everyone else in the house is trying to sleep – your laughter will wake the sleeping beauties! This is the kind of book suitable for anyone engaged to be married, married, buying their first house or those that have done all this and are now living in a condo somewhere – they need to recall what they left behind for the new life. 

I can hardly wait until the next C.R. Yeager masterpiece of sidesplitting humor is available. He can add me to his fan club list!

 The above review was contributed by: Sue Vogan: Sue is a Writer & Author of NCO-No Compassion Observed: To read more of Sue's reviews Click Here