What happens when a pair of evil twins, co-presidents flying the banner of a small private college, bilk alums by sucking them in to retire on the campus in an infirmary that they've converted into a retirement home?
"Cower College -- A Haven Where Education Lasts A Lifetime!" No! Patient abuse, kidnapping, larceny, theft and murder!
As the Galumph twins -- a nasty brother and sister act -- attempt to grow their scam, there's a spot of bother. They need a parcel of land adjacent to the campus to build a larger retirement home. More alums, more money! Josh O'Hare, a 70-year-old fraternity "boy" who works as a janitor in Cower's Infirmary/Home, never left campus. Beloved by many, perceived ne'er-do-well and poster boy for the '60s by others, Josh owns a farm, the only land available for the Galumphs' expansion of their retirement swindle.
O'Hare's old frat believes he's willing the 68-acres to the men of Kappa. And the Galumphs? Well, they're plotting to ensure that the land goes to them for their nefarious plan for a new money machine, a mega retirement center to grind more Cower alums.
O'Hare, with plans for his land to fund educations for orphans, will under no circumstances give up the land to the frat or the Galumphs. No legal circumstance!
When the old man makes his intent public, he suddenly disappears. His will is abruptly changed with Cower the beneficiary, and that's when Doc (pre-med) and Liz (J-school student), a most unlikely couple, come up with and carry out Operation Animal Home!
They hop in Josh's classic Woody wagon and are off to find and recruit the Six Pack, Josh's old college mates, and then bring them back to Cower where they'll slip the elders into the "Home" for a Galumph promoted comp retirement trial. Here Josh's old friends join Doc and Liz in a life-and-death operation to find and save their old friend.
And just when this unlikely team is sure they've located their kidnapped friend the story takes a dramatic and devastating turn.
As Congressman Murray Weinstein, one of the Six Pack harking back to Operation Animal Home, put it so eloquently as he addressed a Cower graduation class the following spring, "Gilbert and Sullivan said it best in H.M.S. Pinafore, 'Things aren't always what they seem!'"
Bob Cairns has published with Sports Illustrated, TV GUIDE, Baseball Digest, Field & Stream, and Golf Digest. His books include the novel The Comeback Kids and the non-fiction Pen Men: Baseball's Greatest Bullpen Stories Told by the Men Who Brought the Game Relief, St. Martin's Press. He wrote V&Me: Everybody's Favorite Jim Valvano Story and Stories I Couldn't Tell Until My Mother Died, Alexander Books.
Cover art by Jack Pittman: a national award winning cartoonist who has drawn for MAD Magazine and numerous Fortune 500 Companies.
