What follows is how Benny signed my Set Book. I laughed for hours on end.

This is the story about a squirrel hunter named Ezekiel Chang (alias John Foley). Ezekiel Change hunted squirrels by first stalking them quietly in the grass, and then leaping, leaping like a frog, and pouncing on his prey. This story describes the circumstances and happenings of the time when Ezekiel (John) Chang (Foley) first missed his prey on one of his powerful dives into the grass.

It was a cold, damp morning, at about 6:00 am, when Ezekiel Chang decided to take an excursion out to do his passion, squirrel hunting. He needed to prepare nothing but himself for this event (after all, he used no tools but his instincts when hunting), and he did this quickly, for her had done it many times before. Out he walked into the mists of this cold, damp morning, eyes keen to any and all movements in the grass he walked through. However, he had been to this exact same squirrel hunting ground many a time before, and the squirrels knew the name John Foley all too well. They had seen all of John Foley’s tricks many times before, and so when the lookout squirrels spied Ezekiel Chang’s arrival, they all prepared for a big battle. They rolled themselves in nut oil, so when John Foley grabbed at them, they could slip out of his strong grasp. They also prepared the acorn cannons for full defense purposes. Then they drew straws for who was to be the bait. When Ezekiel Chang finally neared their stronghold, they sent out their bait squirrel, and as John Foley neared them, they unleashed all their acorn cannons upon him. Dazed by this defensive shower, Ezekiel Chang leaped blindly, and missed, missed for the very first time in his squirrel hunting career. The moral of this story: don’t go to the same hunting ground too many times.

-Benny Goldberg
August 11, 2001 1:02AM