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 By Peter Mandel

The truth about my new book, Jackhammer Sam, is that, with all of his atta-ratta racket and his puffed up hardhat-guy pride, Jackhammer Sam, himself, told me to write it.  
One day, there he was in his T-shirt and those green suspenders, out on the sidewalk right in front of my house.  I can’t remember his exact words, but it was something like, “Hey, listen, you gotta tell kids about what I do!”  
“Oh, yeah?” I shouted from my upstairs window.  “Why should I?”  (My cat, Betty told me to say this.)
“’Cause I said so,” replied Jackhammer, starting to unload his drill and equipment.  “Kids like LOUD noises,” he said.  “An’ they like working on stuff, and building things, and digging underground, and cracking things to bits!”
“So?” I shouted back.  (My cat, Cecil told me to say this.)
“Listen to me,” said Jackhammer.  “You writers!  You’re always writin’ about the same noisy things.  I’m talking fire engines, trucks, bulldozers, airplanes.  Thousands of books with stuff like that.  Not one single book about me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied, “but I am way too busy.  And, anyway, I don’t believe you’re as noisy as you say.”  (My cat, Emily made me say this.  And it was a bad mistake.)
ATTA-RATTA-Binga-Bong!  Jackhammer’s hammer went to work.  Right there on the sidewalk outside my house.  
ATTA-RATTA-Pinga-Pong!  His hammer made a HUGE crack in my concrete front steps.  
ATTA-RATTA-Singa-Song!!  Coming home from work in her high-heeled shoes, my wife nearly tripped over Jackhammer’s lunch bucket and air hose.
“Stop!” I shouted from my window.  (I had no more cats left to tell me what to say.)  “Okay, okay, Jackhammer,” I said.  “I’ll do it.  I’ll write a really LOUD and fun book about you and all the stuff you do...”  
“I’ll make it about Manhattan, too--about the giant buildings and crumbly cracks that were what my Chelsea neighborhood was made of back when I was a kid.  I’ll write about the subways that rumbled and grumbled underneath.  And about the whistling cops and honking traffic that filled up Seventh Avenue along my walk to City & Country School…”  
“But,” I added.  “You have to do me a favor, too.  Stop drilling.  Stop scaring Betty, Emily and Cecil.  Stop it now!”  
With that, Jackhammer Sam gave me a grin, and unplugged his drill.  He tucked his bird guide under his arm and tipped his hardhat as he waved goodbye.
Betty, Cecil, and Emily waved, too.
(You see, he’s really not a bad guy after all.)

 Visit Peter Mandel at his website and check out more of his hilarious travel adventures here!