Is This Your Idea of a Joke? 1945-1999 - An Early Autobiographical Memoir by Jacob W. "Jake" Slagle, Jr.

The author was somewhat oblivious to his pedigree as the son of a nationally famous football hero and part of a family at the pinnacle of Baltimore Society. By the age of six, he had two very different peer groups. One of them lived in the small African American settlement directly across the stream from his parents’ Green Spring Valley spread. The other consisted of his fellow first grade students at Baltimore’s exclusionary and prestigious Calvert School. Through Calvert and Gilman Schools in Baltimore and then five and a half years at two state universities, he describes himself as an occasional misfit with a wide range of friends and a well-earned reputation for mischief.

At age 29 he learned that his lacrosse buddy Gerry Riviera at the University of Arizona had become Geraldo Rivera.  That realization triggered the beginning of an unlikely sequence of life-changing events.  They all happened in the pursuit of numerous different goals, which if achieved could bring happiness. Some of them he reached; others failed to materialize. Every goal brought adversities as well as opportunities that typically segued from one into the other. Either way, important life lessons accompanied all of them. The joy regarding the goals that were accomplished turned out to be in the journey.