(“For the next 30 years I walked around with a toothbrush in my pocket waiting for Mrs. Robinson to appear.”)

I’ve been told I should write a second book. I’ve tried to start several times: “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…” Apparently that line has already been taken. Tried “I am invisible.” Same problem. “Call me Ishmael?” No! Not even “All this happened, more or less.” See, it’s hopeless.

I’ve often said to people who ask when my second book is coming out, “If I wrote a second one, my greatest fear would be people coming up to me and saying, ‘Gee, Bill, I really liked your FIRST book!'”

Had my original editor/publisher, Beth Rowland, not retired, there might be a second book. Instead, here on the website’s Blaggo Archives page there are some 260 Unscrambled-ish articles (which are free, I might mention). Some may be less compelling than others, but among them are enough to be publication-worthy that I feel fulfilled without the need to clutch a bound copy in my hand.

As a side note, an occasional criticism of the first book was that it needed to be better organized. I was unmoved inasmuch as the disorder was intentional. I did proclaim that were there a second book, it would be distributed in a loose leaf notebook so that each reader could arrange the chapters as she preferred.

But now let’s get to the point. I pride myself that I’m always ready for any eventuality. In my “youth” I saw The Graduate, and a la Benjamin Braddock, for the next 30 years I walked around with a toothbrush in my pocket waiting for Mrs. Robinson to appear. [Editors note – never happened] In a similar vein in case I receive a 3 AM phone call from a literary patroness in waiting, I already have a cover design for the imaginary second book. [See below]