How I got my start

I was a nervous kid. Everything bothered me. It got so bad that one time a leaf landing on the ground next to me gave me the shiver-me-timbers for a week.
My parents had enough and took me to see our family physician Dr. Flawbers, and he recommended, “Just Like Dad!” brand candy cigarettes. He showed me how to smoke them, and the sensation of the sugary smoke calmed my little kid nerves. Suddenly nothing rattled me anymore.
But then what happened was I sweat sweet sweat that night while sleeping, and I was carried away by a pack of ants to their lair, and when I woke up inside the ant colony I developed claustrophobia and was a wreck again.
I managed to get free, wrote about my adventures, and sent the manuscript to Highlights kid’s magazine. They published it under the title, My Astounding Night in the Ant Trenches!, which got made into an ABC movie of the week starring Danny Bonaduce from the Partridge Family.