Every year, I pack up my nieces and nephews for a car trip. Before we go, we review our checklists: Toothbrushes? Swimsuits? Underwear? Socks? McManus?
Leaving Patrick F. McManus home would be unthinkable. He is the centerpiece of a Collins vacation, the delight of my teenage kin. We strap the bags on top of the car, put the ice chest and soda pop on the floor and as we hit the freeway, whoever's sitting in the back seat on the passenger side opens the most current book and begins to read out loud.Within miles we are laughing and beginning to spin tales of our own.
McManus has been called a cross between Mark Twain, Art Buch-wald and Garrison Keillor. It a pretty apt description.
His books have no plots, no running themes. They are a collection of bits and pieces of one man's experience with nature over decades in the great Northwest. Often, the experiences have been enhanced with some good, old-fashioned exaggeration.
"Real Ponies Don't Go Oink!" follows the tradition established in "A Fine and Pleasant Misery" and carried through six other books, including "Rubber Legs and White Tail-Hairs" and "Never Sniff a Gift Fish." They are humorous, simple and completely good-natured.
Cussing, in McManus' world, is saying "Criminy!" or "Gol-dang!" Sex is something about wild animals that determines whether they are boy-animals or girl-animals. Drinking is not a good idea if you're going to be ice fishing.
"Real Ponies Don't Go Oink!" has a simple rhythm as it moves from adult hunting adventures to childhood escapades and back again. It's a book that becomes beautiful because everyone who reads it can relate to its conversational tone and lack of pretention:Although I am not overly fond of ghosts, I am certainly not afraid of them. I am not even sure they exist. On the other hand, I'm not sure they don't exist. Over the years I have had several encounters with phenomena that might be ghosts, but urgent business elsewhere required that I depart the premises in haste, and I was therefore unable to conduct a proper scientific investigation, much to my disappointment.Simultaneously, I noticed that I had levitated several inches off my chair and the book I had been reading left my hands and ricocheted off several walls and the ceiling. Time seemed to stand still, something I had no intention of doing myself, as soon as gravity cancelled out my levitation and I could gain sufficient traction. Then a voice from the waders said, "Look at me, Grandpa." I immediately investigated the waders and found a small, redheaded child concealed inside. Mimicking the child's favorite television show host, I asked if he could say "Cardiac arrest.""Real Ponies" joins a long line of books I refer to as "keepers." It's in pretty fine company, on the shelf with Mark Twain short stories and James Herriott's "All Creatures Great and Small." And all those others by McManus, of course.