Off the Wall

About the Book

This review will divulge enough to pique one’s interest in the book, I hope, but not satisfy it, if I can help it. Why the title Off The Wall? Well, there is no unifying theme, place, or time as the setting for these stories, except a certain odd sense of the ridiculous. Perhaps they were inspired by the Imp of Diversity, that genie who intervenes in human affairs to confuse, confound and condemn, purely for His Own Delight.

The stories:

The Clippety-Clop Driver Education Vehicle, the D-E-V or Simply the DEV. What careful driver has not become enraged at the speeding highway aggressors who make driving dangerous and unpleasant for the majority of us citizens who also pay taxes, and especially for the stranger to a city or road, the elderly, the handicapped, the hesitant and uncertain driver, the new driver, etc.? Driving on the Interstate and in heavy heavy traffic anywhere is one of the defining moments of contemporary life. Smokey Maggart’s DEV provides an imaginative cure which the reader may not approve of but find amusing anyway.. Smokey’s solution is better for you than bottling up that mindless road rage.

Second Freshman Football speaks to all wannabe’s and not-quite varsity players who suffer by the emphasis on only the highly skilled. One remarkable game in this story almost salvages the season for a frustrated Second Freshman team. The sheer audacity of the late game plan is nearly unbelievable, but both friendly and unfriendly spectators will swear that the plan was executed – at least, initially. The outcome was highly pleasing to some but it would have been heart-breaking for the losing team if it had not been so ridiculous.

The characters of Point Counterblam are not identified, but a lot of us have shared in one way or another in their musical battle. We can insert our own names as characters. Perhaps that is the merit of the story; we all can empathize with someone whose hemorrhoids interfere with the enjoyment of his music..

How to Cook a Duck severely tests our Smokey Maggart in his performance of an ordinary culinary chore. Perhaps as Smokey says, there is something inherently funny about a duck, cooked or uncooked. His so-called “friends” must have thought so because they laughed uproariously at his predicament. .Smokey didn’t see it that way but he did succeed in maintaining his computer intact and his aplomb in spite of difficulties in cooking an subsqent illogical behavior of others. He learned a lesson from this experience but his girl friend did not.

The Enchanted Mesa is an adventure of R.’s that borders on fantasy , not completely credible when he had returned to the “civilization” of New York City. An anthropologist, supposedly a friend whom R. unexpectedly saw at an Acoma Indian dance, came home to New York and circulated back East the base canard that R. had hit the only surviving tree n New Mexico, a story that aroused risibilities and obscured R.’s feat of ascending an unclimbable mesa. It was the most remarkable day in R’s memory, still resonating when he revisited New Mexico and the Enchanted Mesa some fifty years later.

An Electrifying Proposal is a story that women will like. True love cannot be denied although Smokey, yes the same Smokey, seemed frustrated in his long pursuit of a lady companion who was “not the marrying kind.” Whatever the outcome, it may or may not have been influenced by a power outage, a roller-coaster ride at an amusement park, and Divine, maybe, but certainly, strategic bolts of lightning.

How to Win at Tennis Without Actually Cheating. The advice in this “how to” is for amateurs who play with good friends, who sit around a table or bar afterwards, maybe to rehash the match but more usually to explore other topics, to catch up on their news, or si

About the Author

Ralph B. Murphy, gifted humorist, was born in Kentucky, 1917,and grew up in New Albany, Indiana, received Harvard A.B. in English Literature, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, scholarly interest in Jane Austen, with Marines in South Pacific, WWII, landings in New Britain, Pelelui, Okinawa. Murphy has traveled throughout the country and abroad, long-time resident and urban guerilla in Northeast Megapolis -- Boston, New York, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, loves big cities, now retired from occupation in hospital administration and facilities planning. Resides in Pennsylvania village of Ridley Park, bon vivant, "man about village," unapologetic OPTIMIST, wicked pen and tongue.