I WAS IN RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT

        It was a surprise to see myself in Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not in Seattle's Post Intelligencer newspaper on April 8, 1979.  Nowadays my having a pet tarantula would be a common thing, but they were not considered pets in 1979, especially in the northern U.S.  Two years before, though, I did write the first book on pet tarantula care.

       Last week I went with my sons Andrew and Leif to the Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not Museum here in Branson, Missouri, and got a kick out of Leif telling the lady there that I was in Ripley's.

       By the way, when I was a bank teller at Seattle First National Bank in Bellingham, I did not look like this.