GARGOZO MANUSCRIPT

I don't think Carey realized he was claustrophobic until he went to Carlsbad Caverns.  I've known him since kindergarten and I never suspected he had a problem.  However, there may have been earlier signs that I simply failed to pick up on. In the mid 1960s, Carey was working for Sparklettes.  He worked hard all year long hauling 40-pound bottles up and down Mount Washington.  He had the most demanding terrain to deal with of any of the company's delivery routes.  When he went on vacation it took two guys to fill in for him.  At the time, a Sparklettes employee with less than five years on the job was granted a measly two weeks vacation.  Carey was making good money pushing water and decided he deserved something special in the way of a vacation.  I remember being very surprised when Carey asked me to take care of his dog so he could spend two weeks in Tahiti.   I remember asking him rather bluntly, "How in hel...

Munson returned to the race track in hopes of retrieving the hippopotamus cookie jar he had left behind the day before.  Over the years he had received several large ostentatious cookie jars as gifts from friends and family.  The hippo was the most recent and he had taken it to Santa Anita the previous day as a good luck charm.  It was a bilious bright green and the size of a basketball.   A day at the track with Munson can prove to be quite hectic and yesterday had been no exception.  As the afternoon wore on his analyzing, drinking, wagering, gloating, regretting and threatening of horses and jockeys intensified, and he and the hippo became separated.  He hadn't noticed it was missing until he was almost home.  The following day he was told at the entrance gate that the lost and found was inside the administration office.  As Munson entered the office he spotted the hippo sitting on the desk of a young lady.  She cou...

We drove to Munson's in San Francisco on Thursday night to avoid the weekend traffic and planned on taking in the oyster farm the following day.  Michael was 14 and Marc was 10.  They were unfamiliar with oysters and with what takes place when Munson gets out of bed.  Friday morning provided them with their first exposure to Munson's daily ritual.  My way of dealing with it had always been to go out for Danish and a newspaper.  I had neglected to mention anything to my sons about this in advance.  They witnessed the typical 90 minutes of loud and excessive groaning, coughing, hacking, snorting and retching that could only come from a life-long, self-obsessed hypochondriac.  Once Munson conceded that he would in deed have another day on earth, we went off to the oyster farm. The Johnson family operated their oyster farm in the Point Reyes National Seashore for more than 40 years until it was shut down by the government in 2014....