Seventeen years ago, I met an individual from "the other side" of the ideological tracks. He was an "animal rights" activist. I was not. Up until then, I pigeon-holed everyone working for "the animals" as misguided phonies who hated humans. I had fair to good reasons. My firstborn, Johnny was born with his left ventricle unformed. It's an all to common birth defect called "hypoplastic left heart syndrome."
Thanks to numerous medical procedures developed largely by veterinarians working with dogs, pigs, primates and any variety of other animals, Johnny lived and enjoyed a very fine life up to his teenage years. Infants with that condition traditionally die a few weeks after birth.
After three open-heart procedures and doctors at Children's Hospital being happy their skills offered him as close to a normal life as could be hoped, I was told by a friend still at NRA that I might want to look up a group advocating for animal-based medical research. Using my best imitation of Joshua assaulting the fortifications at Jericho, I was given an opportunity to literally give public tribute to the medical researchers who gave my son his life. Going public on this topic is not for the weak. One ad I wrote featuring an image of Johnny unconscious with tubes running literally everywhere into his infant body juxtaposed with a smiling, vibrant six-year-old drew over a hundred missives best characterized as "hate mail" from animal advocates.
I know the origin of most because where possible I tracked down the authors and phoned them to ask why they adopted the PETA-inspired line that the life of the rats sacrificed to develop medical treatments was far more important than the life of a "genetically defective" child - their term. My outrage was equal only to my disbelief that humans could harbor such nonsense.
At any rate, when I met David Wills I was prepared to despise him. Instead I realized I was looking at my mirror image. We both knew what CITES was (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). We both knew and were disgusted by the money-minting, fund raising corporate world known as the "animal rights" community, but not at the goal they claimed they were fighting for - helping the helpless. We both knew that working to "do things right" for the benefit of humans AND animals was what we wanted to do. We knew we wanted to do it our way and not help engorge the bank accounts of the ego-inflated multi-million dollar fund raising institutions.
The "kid" as I call him was a pretty amazing fellow. We've worked together for nearly two decades with no regrets. Well almost none. One year while he was doing an analysis of the commercial fisheries of the Bahamas, I was spending a freezing week at a whalers convention in Iceland.
Recently David turned the tables on me. I'm a writer. He's more the project developer in our business. Now he's the writer.
We put together a small publishing firm and he's authored two of the first three volumes sporting our logo. The one still awaiting publication is about his five years working undercover investigating the dark world of ivory poaching, parrot smuggling etc. It describes the smarmy world of international trade in illegal animals and animal parts. It's a great read and a movie waiting to happen. Animal Rights groups and their opponents will want to read it. It will shock and amaze them both. More about it once we send it to the printer.
The second is a wisp of a book. Barely 60-some pages. Big print. Hardly what you would call a "tome." But it is the kind of book that makes its mark on your very soul. It's called "Talk to My A** My Head Hurts" and subtitled "My Life With Uncle Joe."
It's a true tale about how a man, deemed "not quite right" after an insult to his brain during infancy, taught a young, very abused (by "difficult" parents) boy the joys of life.
Jerzy Kosinski wrote a dark and disturbing book called "The Painted Bird" about growing up in Nazi-occupied Poland. That book left you equally dark and quite disturbed.
David K. Wills' remembrances of his Uncle Joe, still living, is its polar opposite. Yes, his words make you reevaluate how you view people who are "not quite right." Yes, it challenges quite a few preconceptions. But when you finish reading it, you feel an inner peace and you literally feel you are breathing in life quite a bit better. It can, no lie, make a grown man cry.
This is a very short book that should be required reading for every high school and university class dealing with all things social, psychological, spiritual, and how we view and treat each other. I am not exaggerating. So click out of this blog. Go to Amazon books and enter either the title or subtitle. Buy the book and enjoy. It will become your new best friend.
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