Inside the
Summer Issue:

Home Page

Harry Chapin’s
“Ripple” of Influence
Grows Every Day

Jen Chapin Leads Us
On A Lushly-Written
Journey Into Her Life
In “Ready”

WHY Takes Holistic
Approach to Fight
Hunger & Poverty

DMC’s New Disc
Strikes Many Chords

Hard Rock Café
Serves Up Benefit CD
to Fight Hunger

When Howie Met Harry:
Catching Up With
Drummer Howard Fields

Performing Artist
Inspires Audiences
Through Prose

Celestial Cross-Pollination
Yields a Harry Chapin-
Dante Anthology of
Student Essays

Amish Farmers’ Co-op
Finds Innovation in
Simpler Ways

Still Wild About Harry

Behind the CD “Cause”

Do Something!

Goat Tales

Circle! Calendar

From the bottom of her wrinkles

by Bill Hornung

After 28 years, you’d think I would know pretty much everything about my wife. Imagine my horror when I discovered she’s been secretly trafficking in illicit substances.

It all started innocently enough. I found a lumpy brown envelope in our mailbox. It caught my attention because, well, it was lumpy. And it was covering up my latest issue of Progressive Goat Farmer magazine.

You can’t be too careful these days. So I did what any actor playing a CSI Miami cop would do. I shook the envelope. Held it up to the sunlight. Examined the seal. I have no idea why they do this, but I followed the procedure just to cover my bases.

The package was adorned with suspicious looking postage stamps. The stamps were from Canada, a fugitive country known for major drug dealing.

The writing was cryptic. Lots of apostrophes, some dots over letters and upside down exclamation points. It was obvious that the words were in a foreign language. I know my foreign languages… after all I have a teenage daughter who says things that I rarely understand.

I ripped open the package and out fell two mysterious tubes printed with the words “Preparation H.” I couldn’t remember exactly where I had heard of Preparation H except I was sure it involved some government conspiracy that reached to the highest levels.

I kept reading for more clues until I found conclusive evidence. Printed right below the name were the words reduit les hemorroides which is French for “please find me a cushion to sit on.”

The notorious Canadian hemorrhoid cream was being delivered right to our home. Common street names: Clod buster, Zippy, ItchWitch and PuffBGone.

Yep, I needed to get to the “bottom” of this. I confronted my wife with the $32 receipt and the two Prep H tubes.

“Oh, Sophia down the street tells me this stuff is a fantastic wrinkle remover,” Gena confides. “But you have to buy the Canadian stuff… it still has Bio-Dyne, some wonder ingredient that was banned in the U.S. a few years ago.”

“You’re actually going to put this on your face?” I inquire. “Aren’t you afraid that your eyes and lips will shrink into one of your nostrils?”

“No, but I have thought about applying it to you as you sleep. Just as a test. To be safe.”

Needless to say I remain shaken by my wife’s dark side. Is this the start of a desperate spiral into dealing other lurid Canadian goods, such as Paul Anka records? Maybe she needs to put her experience in trafficking medical goods to a better purpose.

Like helping with Atlanta-based MedShare International, which collects surplus medical goods and equipment from hospitals and then distributes the items to some 89 countries that often lack basic healthcare items like bandages, syringes, hospital beds and monitoring equipment. Since 1998, MedShare has distributed more than $25 million in donated goods. Many of these “recycled” first-quality products were destined to fill 540,000 cubic feet in area landfills… but are now helping in the recovery of thousands of people throughout South America, Africa, the Caribbean and other parts of the world.

MedShare’s Four-Star Rating from Charity Navigator (a charity watchdog group) is the highest possible ranking for fiscal responsibility and effectiveness. The good work and sound business practices have attracted contributions from Hospital Corporation of America, Kimberly-Clark, The Coca-Cola Africa Foundation, the UPS Foundation and many others.

At this rate, I’m sure MedShare will be hearing from Preparation H folks soon. If not, I have some good contacts.

Watch for the Next Issue of Circle! on September 7