A Measure of Friendship

I just read Shut Up and Eat Your Snowshoes! by Jack Douglas.  Jack Douglas was a comedy writer who wrote for many TV shows and comedians from the 40's to the 70's.  He counted hundreds of those people as his friends.  At the point in his life covered in this book, he chose to move from Connecticut with his wife, son, 5 wolves, a cougar, and 2 dogs to Northern Ontario.  He bought a hunting lodge 116 miles from the nearest town.

It was 25 miles just to the nearest road.  Imagine going to buy groceries every other week!  His wife had a baby in -25 degree weather in a tent in a blizzard!  But that wasn't what impressed me the most.

What impressed me the most about this story was the New Year's party shortly after the baby was born.  The guests would have to make their own individual arrangements to fly to the little town in northern Canada in the midst of winter where they would all meet and be driven a hundred miles in a school bus to meet the Douglas snow tractor and ride the lumber sledge to the hunting lodge.  All of this for a party and an overnight stay of only one night.

They weren't sure anyone would come, but they all did.  Here is a partial guest list:  Jack, Randy, and Miriam Paar;  Merv and Julann Griffin;  Johnny and Joanne Carson;  Dean Martin;  Julie Newmar;  Diahann Carroll;  Barbara Eden and her husband;  Joey Bishop; Tony Randall; and several other less well known couples.

The copy I have is autographed To Jack, Miriam, and Randy Paar -- with much love, Jack Douglas.  So this was Jack Paar's personal copy.  I value it highly as a collectable, a story of appreciation of life and the wonders of God's creation,  an ability to find joy and humor in the midst of what most people would consider unbearable and unacceptable hardship, and most of all -- a statement of the value of a man's life measured by the number and quality of his friends.