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The Homecoming Tree — 20 years!
My mother and father married on July 27,1935 in the middle of the Great Depression. Most Americans have no idea how bad times were in 1935. My father wanted to be a farmer and by the time 1940 rolled around their family was almost starving. My mother laid down the law and my parents along with my brother and sister moved from the tiny watermelon capital of Louisiana, Saline to the big city of Shreveport. My father was fortunate to get a job at the post office thanks to his brother in law. My mother went to work at Sears & Roebuck downtown.
They leased a house of Buckner Street with plenty of room for the family. Then, in 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. My father was thirty days away from being deployed to Europe when he was told as an employee of the U. S. Post Office, he would keep his job.
Soon after, my uncles from Saline left for Europe or the Pacific. Their families, one by one, moved in with my parents. My father converted a back porch into two bedrooms. The Hennigan “boarding” house was in business.
One of my aunts worked as a taxi driver in Shreveport during the war and the stories my parents told about her antics showed she was far ahead of her time! I loved to sit just off my uncle’s living room in Saline while my parents and their brothers, sisters, and in laws shelled peas and shucked corn and told about life during the Depression and World War II.
In 1999 I had converted all of my parents’ photographs from the past century into an old fashion slide show. My brother, born in 1937, joined them and I turned on the video camera while they told me their life story. Slide by slide we covered their lives from 1914 until to the early 1950’s. In particular, I was interested in life in Shreveport and Bossier City during the war.
In 1992, I became the drama director at Brookwood Baptist Church. By 2005, I had written and directed over 100 long and short dramas and I was ready to move on from drama to dedicate my time to writing books. For my last production, I decided to write a play based on my parents’ stories from World War II for our holiday production in 2005.
“The Homecoming Tree” told the story of a family living in Shreveport from their Thanksgiving meal up through Christmas Eve 1941. It was a huge production covering the entire stage area of our new church campus and featured over fifteen actors and actresses. We had a snow machine for outside scenes. We turned the baptistery into a radio studio. My mother had passed away in 2004 but my father recorded a 1940’s song and along with songs from 1941 it played during the scene changes. I had a three camera setup to record the entire production. (Unfortunately, one of the main actors routinely got off track in the third act and we had to flail around a bit to get everyone back on task.) However, it was one of the best received productions at Brookwood Baptist Church.
A few years passed and I was not happy with one of the characters I had created. I imagined a different framing for the story and rewrote the play featuring a modern day business man about to ruin his family by running off with his secretary. In order to teach him the importance of family, he is sent back in time to 1941 with amnesia and has to learn the lessons of the Greatest Generation. To be honest, many churches asked for the script but because of the scope of the production, they were unable to produce the play.
I decided to write a novelization of the play. “The Homecoming Tree” novel premiered in 2018. Great reviews followed. One reviewer said it reminded him of his favorite Christmas movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life” (which was totally intentional on my part) and that reviewer reads the book every Christmas to get into the spirit of the holidays.
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of “The Homecoming Tree” play and I want to encourage everyone to check out the book for this Christmas. Now, more than ever, we need to remember the sacrifices and devotion of the “Greatest Generation” as they fought and defeated evil throughout the world in order to bring about freedom and liberty.
You can find out more about the book at this link.
Grab a Girdle . . .
Okay, so this is totally off the beaten path. No medical angle. No talking about Dr. Jack Merchant. I have been watching “Leanne” on Netflix. If you haven’t discovered Leanne Morgan, go to Netflix or Youtube and watch some of her comedy specials BEFORE you watch the new series. And try, for now, to avoid the little baby girl overlays of her comedy. You’ll see what I mean. You must see Leanne’s facial expressions to get her comedy.
Then, go to Netflix and watch the new series. Bring a tissue. You’ll be crying with laughter. Leanne Morgan is from Tennessee and her southern accent is genuine and, for this southern boy, strangely comforting. It brings back many memories of growing up on a farm in Blanchard, Louisiana. She is my people!
You can also find many video posts on Youtube with Leanne interviewed by famous people such as Oprah about her series. But the best is with Amy Poehler. During that interview, Leanne talks about her battle with Spanx and girdles and after I got myself up off the floor, a memory from my childhood surfaced.
That’s my mother on the far right at Grand Canyon when I was ten. I’m the kid looking away from the camera. The other two kids are my nephews and my older sister, Gwen, is their mother. The guy in the middle is my father, of course.
My mother was larger than life. Literally. Her entire life, she fought the battle of the bulge. Once, and only once, successfully losing a hundred pounds. She had TOPS to thank. What is TOPS? Take Off Pounds Sensibly! Maybe a Weight Watchers precursor? Guess what? It still exists.
I tell the story of the time I bit into a salad mother made from a TOPS recipe only to find plastic netting in my mouth. Green plastic netting! The recipe said to substitute it for real lettuce to cut down on the calories. And to put fiber in your diet! I think I pooped a flower arrangement!
Tab was the drink of choice back then filled with that mouse bladder cancer agent saccharin. I drank it just like my Mom because I was a hefty, chunky little boy who had to wear “Husky” jeans. A nice word for fat boy breeches. And don’t get me started on Metrical. Those little dry, flaky biscuits could have been used for door stops. And stop me up they did! Anyway, I digress.
But, the battle of bulge reached critical proportions every Sunday morning. My father was a bivocational music director and he served in various small churches my entire life. This meant we were at the church every time the doors were open. Now, my mother drove a school bus. And her preferred clothing was double knit polyester pants and flowered blouses. She made both, by the way, from that lovely, indestructible polyester cloth that will be wrapped around indestructible styrofoam in a landfill. A thousand years from now someone will find that blouse and pair of pants and wear them with a Styrofoam cooler for a hat.
For a short period of time, she made me shirts to wear to junior high school. I tried to burn them in the trash, but as I said, they were indestructible!
On Sunday mornings, when I was young, between about 6 and 10, my mother would call me into her bedroom as she was getting dressed for Sunday morning. She agreed to wear a dress on Sunday morning instead of her slacks because, after all, she was the music director’s wife. She won a battle once to allow her to wear her pants on Sunday evening, but that is a story for another day.
My mother would be standing by the bed with her girdle halfway up her legs. My job was to climb up on the bed and grab the top of her girdle and pull with all my might. My father couldn’t do the job. His hands were too big to fit between the girdle’s lip and my mother’s, uh, skin.
I would heave an ho and pull and tug and grunt and sweat until finally, the girdle would slide up into place and my mother, red faced and short of breath would declare victory. I never thought about this odd request. Didn’t all boys help their mothers with their girdles? Of course they did.
Until I heard Leanne Morgan talk about her girdle and her struggle to get it up over her stomach “the size of a small purse”.
I laugh about this today. I never shared that girdle gridiron touchdown story with anyone until I got married. My wife never wore a girdle. In fact, the word girdle has all but disappeared from our vocabulary replaced with more acceptable euphemisms.
My mother passed away in 2004. And I miss her. But I must admit, I don’t miss the great girdle hitch me up!
Check out Leanne on Netflix and laugh. Now, when she mentions her girdle, you’l see why I found myself on the floor in tears!
The Man with Xray Vision!
I was ten years old and the advertisements in the back of the Superman comic book showed a man with glasses looking at his hand and seeing through the skin to the bones. The glasses were advertised as “X Ray Vision” glasses for one dollar. I knew that Superman had Xray vision and if I could just get those glasses . . .
That afternoon, I pinned a red towel to my back. My mother refused to allow me to tie the towel around my neck because I might “hang” myself. So we pinned the towel corners one to each shoulder. Little did she know I was about to do something as dangerous as the possibility of choking. I climbed up on the roof of the “garage apartment” as we called the one bedroom apartment next to our house and decided I could fly like Superman. If I could fly, I wouldn’t need Xray glasses!
I jumped and fell about eight feet landing square on my back. The blow knocked the wind out of me and still remember lying on the ground unable to breath. I couldn’t get my breath. Luckily, my daddy was out in the yard “piddling” (that means doing little odd jobs, not relieving oneself) and saw me fall. He came over immediately and kept telling me to breath. That was what I was trying to do! Eventually I got my breath back and was able to go into the house. I don’t know how I managed not to break anything. But that little incident bought me enough empathy from my parents that I convinced my mother to order the “X ray Glasses” from the comic book.
Of course, when the glasses arrived all they did was make something look blurry enough you thought you were seeing the bones inside. It was another scam against a young comic book reader like the “submarine” I acquired which was nothing but a cardboard box. Little did I know that one day, I would truly be the man with Xray vision!
Do you know your radiologist? I’m sure you know your internist, family practice doctor, OB/GYN doctor and so forth. Few people realize that if you have any kind of Xray or imaging study, particularly in a hospital or imaging center there is a radiologist responsible for reviewing those studies and dictating a report with the findings and a diagnosis. These doctors work in the shadows behind the scene but are absolutely essential to patient diagnosis. I know, because I am a radiologist.
Becoming a radiologist was NEVER my plan! In fact, one day I want to write a book about my life entitled, “Never My Plan!”. I was halfway through my internship in internal medicine the year after I graduated from medical school and realized I had made a huge mistake. I was miserable. I hated my internship. This was NOT what I wanted to do. I started looking at other residencies and one day, while working the emergency room, ran into my friend, Randy Brown down in radiology at LSU Medical Center. I’ve shared this story before, but I realized God was opening a door I never considered walking through and I ended up in the radiology residency program the following July.
After 4 years of residency and a short fellowship, I started working at Willis Knighton Medical Center with a group of radiologists. That was 42 years ago! I have never regretted the decision. I have been a “shadow merchant” since July 1980!
What does a doctor with Xray Vision do, exactly? I describe a radiologist and his practice with my character, Dr. Jack Merchant in “Shadow Merchant” and “Merchant of Justice”.
At the core of each hospital is a department of Radiology. Like very department in the hospital, radiology has its own drama, struggles, and personal quirks. It is here patients receive diagnostic imaging studies that range from simple X-rays all the way to PET scans.
The cover of “Shadow Merchant” features part of my daughter’s MRI of her brain by her permission, of course.
Xrays most people understand. You know, “hold your breath” when they take a “picture” of your lungs. Or that possible fracture you might have when they Xray your hand. However, the field of radiology includes CAT scanning with an Xray device that produces “slices” through the human body and can reconstruct those slices into 3D images. MRI uses massively powered magnets and no radiation to produce images of just about anything in the entire body. Just slide right into that tube over there! Ultrasound uses sound waves to produce fancy “sonar” images of many parts of the body. Nuclear Medicine uses radioactive tracers tagged to certain chemicals that can image body organs and evaluate their function as well as their anatomy. PET scans are a special kind of nuclear medicine study using a combination of nuclear pharmaceuticals and CAT scans for evaluation of almost any kind of cancer.
Mammography consists of 3D Xray imaging of the breast to rule out breast cancer. The gold standard for breast diagnosis in the twenty first century is the radiology controlled breast imaging centers where a patient arrives with a complaint related to their breasts and they don’t leave until there is an answer using mammography and ultrasound. In today’s world, the radiologist not only diagnoses a possible breast cancer but will discuss those findings with the patient and set them up for a biopsy under imaging guidance by the radiologist. Radiologist work hand in hand with breast surgeons, radiation therapists, and oncologists in the science of the diagnosis of breast cancer.
Most other types of biopsies are performed by a radiologist using CAT scan or ultrasound guidance. Most elective spinal taps are now performed by radiologists using Xray guidance which is much better for the patient. Interventional radiology, a field within radiology has exploded in the past decade and IR doctors now do all kinds of invasive diagnostic procedures or treatments using imaging guidance. And of course, the radiologist still performs upper GIs and barium enemas to look at the digestive system.
When I started out in radiology the field was not nearly as technologically advanced and I have had to LEARN a lot to keep up with the advances. In fact, I attend educational meetings every year just to keep up with the new advances and most of the subspecialties I mentioned above require regular recertification on a regular basis. In our practice group, we have subspecialty radiologists who are more expert in their areas. For instance, my subspecialities are breast imaging and PET scans. This way, our group can cover all of the new advances without every member learning every new advance as that would be almost impossible. This is how complicated this field of medicine has become.
Next time you show up for a “test” in radiology, pay attention to the technologists and the nurses and be aware there is a radiologist in charge who will be responsible for making your diagnosis or delivering your therapy. And, I would suggest you ask the name of your radiologist for the day. We would appreciate it!
Merchant of Justice — Have you been on a Jury?
Every person I have met has the same reaction when the dreaded jury summons letter arrives. Emotions border on hatred and homicidal urges. No one wants to serve on a jury! Cooped up in a room with thirteen other strangers (twelve jury members and two alternates) for possibly days and getting paid a pittance! And to top it off, we have no choice! It is the law! Unless, we can come up with a good reason not to be on a jury. Strategies abound on how to dodge jury duty.
However, recently, my efforts fell on deaf ears and I showed up for jury duty. Within hours of sitting in the dull, oppressive courtroom, I was called in the first twelve potential members of the jury. The next morning after hours of lectures on the process of a jury and a trial and the definitions of murder, I was seated on the jury.
I will never forget the first time I sat in the jury box and studied the “perp” or rather, the accused at the far end of a long table. The prosecution sat at the end of the table closest to the jury. The accused and his attorneys sat at the far end.
Clad in a flannel shirt and wearing black rimmed glasses, the man seemed like an ordinary person I might meet at Starbucks or find sitting behind me in a pew at church. He certainly didn’t look like a murderer. Looks can be deceiving. Skin cannot hide what dwells within the heart of man. See what I did there? I’m a writer!
The trial unfolded swiftly after we were seated. Heartbreaking testimony from the victim’s friends and family. Body camera footage from the police arriving just moments after the shooting. On day two, grim and disturbing photographs of the victim’s body from a pathologist with monotonal delivery. He was far too calm for the carnage exposed on the photographs. I’m a doctor and I found the photos very disturbing, nauseating, dehumanizing. I couldn’t begin to imagine what the other jurors were feeling.
Have you ever served on a jury? If so, have you been part of a murder tria? I had trouble sleeping for about a week after it was all said and done. It is one thing to read about such atrocities. It is another to see it laid out in real time before you while looking the murderer in the eyes!
When the guilty verdict was finally delivered and the courtroom was cleared of everyone but the jury and the judge, my first thought was what if the murderer’s family, friends, or cohorts came after us for this verdict? Were we safe? The patina of apparent safety had been stripped away like pain thinner on the bubbled surface of old wood! No one was safe if this seemingly calm, ordinary man had been capable of the macabre and gruesome murder. I can never look around me now without studying every individual, every movement, every possible intention. Safety is an illusion!
The judge assured us that in the thirty years he had presided over criminal cases, no jury member had every suffered from retribution.
I walked away from that experience a changed man. Here are my thoughts.
First, if I was ever accused of a crime, I would want a jury of reasonable, thinking, willing individuals to objectively assess the evidence against me. I wouldn’t want angry, anxious to be done, uncaring people. I know jury duty is a drag. But it is a necessary duty to keep our society from devolving into chaos.
Second, if I were asked to serve on a jury again, I would do it. Did it waste my time? Yes. Did I get reasonable recompense for my time? No! Was I inconvenienced? Yes. But considering that the victim lost her life and was deprived of a future with her grandchildren and friends, four days in a jury box is nothing! When we are chosen to be on a jury, we become the instruments of justice. Even unwillingly, it is a duty we should, albeit reluctantly, embrace.
Third, the experience taught me a lot about law and what really happens in a courtroom. What we see on television and the movie screen during a tense courtroom drama is NOTHING like experiencing it in real time. This man’s life was in OUR hand! We could with a cavalier attitude put the man away for life! Or we could release a monster out on the streets. At the same time, justice could only be served if we did our job objectively and willingly. The harsh reality of the choices we were called to make puts any fictional drama in its shadow.
Fourth, the experience provided me an opportunity to share with my readers. My second book about Jack Merchant was not intended to feature jury duty. I had another pathway chosen for Dr. Merchant. But circumstances in my practice group and events concerning members of my practice came dangerously close in real life to what I had intended in fiction. I had to back off and come up with another story. For now. My experience on a jury during a murder trail became the central story of “Merchant of Justice”.
So join Dr. Jack Merchant as he reluctantly becomes the “13th juror”.
Merchant of Justice!
Today, the second book in the Jack Merchant Medical Mystery series is avaiable on all platforms in paperback and ebook format.
Much to my dismay, I held in my hands a jury summons. I was surrounded by the destruction of my home at the time. A day before, I had arrived back at my house after a trip to discover a pipe had burst in my ceiling and flooded the entire first floor of my home. There was no way I could show up the next day for jury summons! I sent an urgent message to the jury selection manager and my summons was delayed by six months. I put that date on my calendar, hoping against hope I would not be summoned. That hope was shattered and I appeared for my jury summons on a hot July morning.
Along with the 50 other odd people I sat in an aging courtroom hoping my name would not be called. I was in the first twelve called to the jury box. The experience of being asked personal questions and being told to “always tell the truth” almost threw me into a panic mode. I looked at the witness stand. Over a half a dozen times, I had sat in that very witness stand being grilled in an adversarial fashion by an attorney. Each time, the setting was a malpractice suit in which I was only a witness. But, one time, it became painfully obvious I was being set up to be added to a law suit. That story prompted the opening chapters of “Merchant of Justice”.
Of course I was selected for the jury. I was pulled into a horrific story of unrequited love, greed, and subsequent murder. That experience became the foundation for Dr. Jack Merchant’s next story. In “Shadow Merchant” Dr. Merchant, a local radiologist, is accused of murdering his wife and the story unfolds as he tries to clear his name. In the process he becomes a consultant to the local medical examiner.
In “Merchant of Justice” he has settled into this role rather uncomfortably. His practice partners are not so happy about the prior year when he was recovering from losing his wife. And now, he becomes “the 13th juror” on a murder trial. Reluctantly and not by choice, he fills his roll as an alternate and soon becomes a voting member of the jury. As the trial unfolds, his travails and hardship take second place to a growing realization he may know the perpetrator! Dr. Jack Merchant once again finds his life in danger as he seeks true justice for victims of wrong doing!
The House on Buckner Street
We sat around our dining room table and I listened in amazement at my parents’ stories. The year was 1999 and I had taken my parents many photos and produced an old fashioned slide show for one of their anniversaries. Now, I wanted to hear the stories behind those photographs. I pointed my video camera at the screen as each black and white photo appeared. A carefully placed microphone in the center of the dining room table picked up the running commentary from my mother, father, and my brother as they related their memories.
We passed through photographs from the 1920’s and the 1930’s and arrived at the beginning of the 1940’s. It was at this point, the comments became more serious. My father and mother moved from the tiny country town of Saline, Louisiana to the big, bustling town of Shreveport in 1941. They rented a house “on Buckner Street” with many bedrooms. My father went to work for the post office. My mother worked now and then, children’s needs permitting, at the downtown Sears & Roebuck department store.
Then, December 7, 1941 happened. The world turned upside down and changed forever. What became known as World War II began. My father was slated to be drafted in June, 1942 but a bill by Congress passed restricting the upper age limit for draftees and my father was too old to be drafted. Just thirty days from deployment. And it helped he was a federal employee at an important government entity, the post office.
My many uncles were not so fortunate. Those men whose experiences in life were mainly spent behind the swaying backend of a plowing mule suddenly found themselves sent far away to Europe or to the Pacific. The wives, mothers, and children ended up coming to “the house on Buckner Street” as the war waged on. Sisters would move in to a room at my parents’ house until they found a job and moved into an apartment. My father enclosed the back porch and made two additional bedrooms for more migrant relatives.
The colorful and at times, painful stories all came out at that dining room table. Stories of hardship and sacrifice. Stories of lost loves and missing relatives. Stories of the grit and resolve of “the Greatest Generation”.
These men and women lived through the harsh times of the Great Depression which prepared them for the necessary sacrifices of the years ahead as the world plunged into war. They were ready, prepared having learned how to use everything in the pig but “the oink”. A generation of true patriots who loved God and loved freedom and loved their country.
We will not see their like again, I fear. But they were there when this country needed them.
On this day, December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day I salute my parents’ generation for most of them have gone on to their eternal reward. And they have left us with haunting memories and fading photographs and a legacy we can only begin to appreciate.
That session at the dining room table inspired me to write a play, “The Homecoming Tree” produced in 2005. In 2016, I released my novelization of that play and it is available to purchase at all book sites. I never imagined that simple hour spent around the dining room table would lead to a book that some of my readers say they re-read every Christmas.
Here’s to Lena and Slayton Hennigan and the example they set for me and my generation and generations to come. I love you and miss you. Thank you for your quiet, constant example of hard work, sacrifice, and unconditional love.
Stranded in the Sargasso Sea!
In 1964, a cartoon premiered on Friday NIGHT called Jonny Quest. I was only 9 years old but I was instantly hooked. I can still recall sitting on our green Naugahyde* couch with a glass of chocolate milk and a miracle whip and mustard sandwich, eyes wide open watching a boy not too much older than me fighting lizard men in the middle of the haunted Sargasso Sea. Those images of rotting hulks of lost and abandoned ships covered with mold and sargassum seaweed still haunt my memories. Here is what Wikipedia says about this area:
The Sargasso Sea is a region in the gyre in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is bounded on the west by the Gulf Stream; on the north, by the North Atlantic Current; on the east, by the Canary Current; and on the south, by the North Atlantic Equatorial Current. This system of ocean currents forms the North Atlantic Gyre. All the currents deposit the marine plants and refuse they carry into this sea.
A gyre of refuse and rotting hulks; the ultimate graveyard of ships unwarily trapped in the doldrums; ships and sailors who drifted into the Sargasso Sea and were trapped forever! Here is a perfect description of a maelstrom of misery; a whirlpool of weariness; a prison for those who lose their wind; let their sails luff helplessly, rudderless — lost forever!
Well, I have been trapped in the Sargasso Sea for months now. And, there is no laser wielding boy scientist and his father on the horizon to save me. “What do you do when you have writer’s block?” I have been asked. Always, I have been able to answer this question by claiming that writer’s block has NEVER been my problem. But, what about life block? What happens when everything grinds to a halt and you can’t seem to get anywhere? What happens when crisis after crisis throws roadblocks and speed bumps before you? Life happens. Writer’s block is a symptom far down the line from a life that has been drawn slowly, inexorably into the Sargasso Sea!
It is no coincidence that in the midst of this time in my life, I am trying to finish a new manuscript on depression. I can officially announce that Mark Sutton and I have signed a new contract for an update to our depression book, “Conquering Depression”. Our hope is to launch a new website by July 1 showcasing our current book and helping those who are deep in the doldrums of depression. I guess I need to read my own book!
But, where I am right now is far more complex than depression. I once thought idealistically that there was a point in my adult life when my children would be grown up and on their own and my wife and I would have time for all of that traveling together; golden years of maturity and joy as a reward for a lifetime lived well and fully. I thought of this “golden” time as the years before retirement when we would still have the health and the energy to do whatever we wanted and the freedom to pursue decades of postponed dreams.
Instead, life has grown increasingly more demanding and complex. Aging parents demand more attention than our young children every did! Our grown children face challenges of their own my wife and I never had to deal with at that age. Life continues to happen, unrolling before us as a road with potholes and unexpected detours and roadblocks. How naive I was to think that life would ever be truly uncomplicated and simple. Life is not.
Here is why. Life is change. Life is growth. Life is pain. Life is joy. Life is NOT static. Life is dynamic. The only time when there will be no change; no growth; no pain is when we are dead. This is a startling revelation for me. To live is to face pain AND joy. The two cannot be separated. For, it is in the triumph over these challenges that we find the sweetest joy; the greatest contentment.
As my family journeys forward into the unknowable future, we have to cling to the concept that the Sargasso Sea can trap us, but there is a Navigator, a Pilot, a Captain who can lead us out of the doldrums. His breath is our wind; filling our sails with life and movement and joy.
I cannot even begin to imagine what life would be like trapped in the Sargasso Sea on a rotting hulk of a broken life totally alone without God. In the deepest, darkest moments of despair, God is still there. I may not be able to see Him but the defect is mine, not His. My glasses are clouded by the smears of angrily swiped tears. My eyes are closed against the pain I see in my life. But, if I open them; if I dare to look UP and away from the maelstrom of misery around me, I will see my Redemption is drawing nigh. My sails, though tattered and torn, can still fill with the breath of life and my ship can move out of the dead water into the living Water of life.
As my wife tells me, “Breathe!”. Yes, breathe; inspire; pause and let the breath of God renew you. Today, right now, this moment stilled and frozen in time — reach up with open hands, open arms, open heart to God. His warmth, His breath, His life will renew you as it renews me with each drawn breath.
Today, I choose to sail my broken, scarred ship out of the Sargasso Sea; out of the rotting hulks of depression and despair and defeat. I set my sight on a far shore with a fair sunrise and a promise of unconditional love! Join me and leave the Sargasso Sea behind!
*A marketing campaign of the 1960s and 1970s asserted that Naugahyde was obtained from the skin of an animal called a “Nauga”. The campaign emphasized that, unlike other animals, which must typically be slaughtered to obtain their hides, Naugas can shed their skin without harm to themselves. Naugahyde also was known as plastic leather or “pleather”.
For fun, check out this ‘redo’ of the intro to Jonny Quest in stop motion animation:
Bruce Hennigan 
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