Will the real Skip Pucci please stand up?

It was far too early on Sunday morning for my phone to be ringing — but ringing it was. I knew it was hopeless for me to try to get up and answer it because, of late, I get up in sections. It takes time to determine which section is in the best working condition and would cause the least discomfort when moved.

After much pondering on the question, I unfolded out of bed and made it to the answer phone. I was jerked fully awake by the icy tone of a female voice telling me I had made a terrible mistake.

She indicated that at my age I should be able to tell a girl from a boy and that cute girl in my “Who Am I” column was not Skip Pucci. I wanted to call her back and tell her that this was the first mistake I had made in my 84 years of life and I desperately needed her forgiveness. I could not do that because she forgot to leave her name and number.

Folks, there is an old Scottish proverb that says; “Open confession is good for the soul.” Therefore, I want to come out in the open and confess to you. I do not plead guilty to sending the wrong picture, I didn’t.

The one I sent is the one you see in this article. A smiling, sweet, innocent looking young man all dressed up to go fishing. His name is Eugene Skip Pucci.

I do plead guilty for falling for that “innocent” look and I don’t want you to make the same mistake. This guiltless looking lad caused the picture problem.  

In hindsight, I should have done more research before I sent the picture winging its way to the Daily Bee.

Let’s start with the name. Eugene is of Greek origin meaning, born lucky. Skip is a word meaning to hop, prance, or bounce.

Now I want to show you a quote that came from Mr. Pucci’s own lips when he said, “The first memory I have, when I was about three, was running (kids that age hop or bounce) away all the time. I would go down to the old wooden wagon bridge and start to cross it.

“There were cars on the bridge but I was never hit (born lucky). My sister was always running after me. I did that for about a year and my dad had Mr. Rosholt make a harness for me that had a wire attached. They would put me in the harness, clip it to the clothesline and up and down the clothesline was as far as I could go.”

Now you can see what happened. I intended for the photo to go straight to its destination. However, from the evidence, we can surmise that running away was in the boy’s photographic DNA — called pixels.

The minute Skip felt free from my computer he headed straight to his old haunt — the bridge. It is a way of life for him. Even his office is located close to the bridge.

I think as he was zipping down to his beloved bridge when all that bypass construction confused him. There was no big sister, Jeanne, to lead him home and in a state of utter panic, which scrambled his pixels, he morphed into a very cute girl named Virginia Woods.

 To support my theory, I offer below the testimonies of some of Skip’s friends and family.

Don Johnson said that he remembered Skip when they worked together on a job site. A bee stung Skip causing a serious reaction. He was taken to the hospital and Don stated, “Even though he looked different in the paper, I was glad to see he recovered.” (born lucky)

 John Pucci shared, “Yeah, he ran away a lot and we had to keep tying him down.

Bill Currie added, “That’s right, and hooking him up to the clothesline served the little (bleep) right.” (Hop, prance, bounce)

Jeanne Dreisbach said, “When I saw the picture I was sure John (Pucci) did it. The worse thing my brothers could say to each other when they were young was, “You look like a girl.”

Helen Newton told me that the picture confusion brought smiles to some of the members of the local Methodist Church.

That is a good thing because, “Life is too important to be taken seriously.”