Cold Sweat: The Strange Misadventures of Grandpa Chas, Professor Clem, and Others (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9798886402605)

Each of the Cold Sweat Stories written by Peter C. Linzmeyer and illustrated by his younger brother, Thomas, contains a bit of truth which expands into hilarious exaggeration and mirth. Peter appears in the Stories as "Chas" and later as "Grandpa Chas". There really was a cuckoo clock at Peter's boyhood home which he took apart and could not put back together so that the clock's pieces sat in a cigar box on a desk in the home's front hall for decades. The incident involving the large steel wheelbarrow into which Peter's younger brothers piled for a ride with the garbage to the curb actually occurred including the total loss of control of the large, steel, one-wheeled vehicle as it careened down the driveway like a rudderless ship to spill boys and garbage into the street. And, Peter's town where he grew up featured a symphony (that term being used loosely) which had concerts to which his Mom dragged him to get some culture. This group of volunteers of varying degrees of musical competency was financed by an octogenarian named Otto who also actually was the main tympanist, i.e. the basher of big kettle drums, who was very hard of hearing and could not keep his drumming on pace with the rest of the group causing young Peter to very inappropriately break into loud and prolonged fits of boisterous and impolite laughter. Later, Peter shows up as Grandpa Chas (who can never get anything right) in several stories including "The Confounded Christmas Tree" where he never satisfied the expectations of his wife, Mauve, regarding the type of tree to buy and struggled to get the darn thing into the house and where he messed up its decoration, only to see the tree knocked over by one of his goofy grandkids. In another tale, Grandpa Chas landed up in a biker bar drinking beer rather than timely picking up is daughter's wedding dress. Read also about the hilarious and crazy exploits of Professor Clem and local town officials all of whom were members of the Buffalo Club (because every town had to have a club named after a large animal). To complement the stories are amusing poems authored by Peter and illustrated by Thomas.

Every reader has surely experienced situations similar to those depicted in the Cold Sweat Stories and will recognize someone, perhaps a school friend, whose antics are or were not unlike those of an amusing character in the Stories.

Thomas is an accomplished illustrator. In his youth, he produced long and loud mostly fake laughs at his older brother's usually corny and dumb jokes. Their goofy conduct sometimes got them into trouble in the small town where they grew up. It was a good thing for the two of them, Peter as author and Thomas as drawer, to combine their talents, such as they are, to produce the Cold Sweat Stories. Peter recently retired after more than fifty years of practice as an international corporate attorney.