Show 1 1 1 f It Seems To M Me MeBy By fly Joseph H. H Roberts 1 11 11 1111 1 11 Porcupine eggs COPYRIGHT 1977 1971 Contemporary Features Syndicate Inc I have nothing but admiration for the entrepreneur who uses a creative mind and a sense of humor to package and sell a aweless useless item I thought the enterprising purveyor of pet rocks a couple of or seasons ago was a genius It delighted me no end when I read that people were standing in line to buy common rocks at or each Mch I even got a chuckle out of it when I found one in my Christmas stocking There is something frivolous and extravagant about such gifts gag-gifts that appeals to me at Christmas time They seem to deny that there is a recession or that people have lost faith in the economy They express a kind of defiance of the gloom seers who warn of impending disasters and try to take all the fun out of life I say lets let's drape tinsel on our artificial trees hang candy canes and Styrofoam snowmen on the branches put up tinkling glass bells and wax mistletoe and stuff fun gifts in our stockings We may have been grimly practical all year long but now the season to be jolly I dont don't think there will be another novelty gift equal to the pet rocks in originality and wit however Joe Berry of Birmingham who has been supporting a wife and four children by selling colored sand sandin in bottles has made his bid for forthe forthe forthe the novelty trade this season with wilh porcupine eggs Most Southerners are familiar with the old stories stones probably apocryphal of naive Yankees being suckered into buying porcupine eggs by rustic con men but usually the eggs were doctored up pine cones Berrys Berry's are just plain oF 01 cockleburs the kind of prickly little burs that get all over you when you go walking in the fields The humor is in the packaging and the instructions On the cover of a small white carton is printed You are now the proud parent of porcupine eggs For best results place the your armpits they will hatch in only one day Berry started in a small way selling a few cartons of ot oi his eggs to his rus fellow Southerners Southerners Souther Souther- ners at arts and crafts shows along with his standard wares- wares bottles filled with various colored Alabama sands If however an Atlanta distributor is correct in his prediction Berrys Berry's porcupine eggs willbe will willbe willbe be the novelty gift for this Christmas I believe however Berry will need to provide more Instructions instructions instructions in than can be printed on the top of the carton The humor should be extended to include such lore as how to tell the male egg from the female egg the female is larger and its quills are closer together what to feed the young porcupines after they hatch they eat only top sirloin steak why the eggs are rare the female lays only one egg a year because of the painful quills and other such delightful nonsense that Berry passes on to his customers at atthe atthe atthe the arts and crafts shows Perhaps a booklet on the care and feeding of porcupines would help push puch up sales Anyway I wish Joe Berry of Lexington Road Birmingham Birmingham Birmingham Bir Bir- mingham a profitable venture in the novelty trade Like I said anybody who can employ a bit bitof bitof bitof of creativity and humor to sell a worthless item has my admiration admiration admiration ad ad- and I cant can't think trunk of anything more worthless than a box full of cockleburs Can you i t r THE MOUNTAIN FOREST of oC the West has less rainfall because moisture moisture moisture mois mois- ture from Crom the Pacific is barred by the Cascades and Coast Ranges Prominent species are ponderosa pine foreground western white whitepine whitepine whitepine pine sugar pine Englemann spruce and Douglas fir |