Dibs

A peculiar odor was emerging from the Illinois home of prolific 77-year-old author Charlotte Towner Graeber, and police entering the building on Monday discovered that it was full of live animals kept in “atrocious” conditions, according to Surburbanchicagonews.com. Nearly two dozen exotic birds and a “two-foot-long reptile” were among the creatures removed by mask-clad inspectors from the riverside home where the award-winning author has lived for some forty years. A neighbor described Graeber, who is also a local librarian, as “a nice lady.” The home was red-tagged and deemed unlawful for habitation. Graeber’s 26 books include the children-with-animal tales Grey Cloud (about pigeon-racing), Fudge (about a boy and his dog), and Mustard (about a cat that dies). Suburbanchicagonews.com adds that in the mid-’80s, “she penned a dozen short children’s books featuring Mr. T, the brawny, gold-draped, Mohawk-wearing television and movie actor known for his signature catch phrase, ‘I pity the fool!’ In Phony Baloney, The Counterfeit Kid, Graeber describes the star’s arrival at an airport through the eyes of a child: ‘Down the steps came Mr. T. His boots clicked on the metal steps. His gold chains flashed in the sunlight. He walked straight towards us.’” … Well, that should be toward, shouldn’t it? Graeber has been charged with several city violations including “companion animal hoarding” and is due in court on July 25. In years past, she also owned a skunk and a flying squirrel. And why oh why does this story also appear in the North Korea Times?