Paul’s People, No. 92

Jeffrey Neuberger has been in my column quite a few times, but I had not met him in person until today.

As I had suspected, he’s a good guy.

Here are a couple of my favorite submissions from the retired Air Force chaplain.

Moving with pets: Jeffrey Neuberger’s family was leaving South Dakota and heading to Wyoming. They started out on a cold, blustery day.

“We departed town with my wife and kids in the lead car, and me and Cookie (a cat) in the U-Haul,” he wrote. “We had barely begun when Cookie began pacing back and forth on the back seat, then landed on my lap.

“I thought, hey, she’ll keep me warm and settle down. Instead, she used my lap as a litter box. The result was warm for a moment, then cold, wet and noxious. It was not a good way to begin a 600-mile journey.”

That ran on March 6, 2011.

Here’s another one, from Dec. 27, 2013. (I had asked about strategies for hiding Christmas presents.)

Slice answer: Jeffrey Neuberger’s father was a law enforcement officer in South Dakota. He hid family Christmas gifts in the jail.

Jeff even helped me out when I was writing a story about Spokane’s preparedness for coping with a zombie apocalypse. That ran on Oct. 31, 2010. Here’s an excerpt.

The Rev. Jeffrey Neuberger, an Episcopalian priest, wouldn’t automatically rule out ministering to zombies.

“Our mission imperative is to ‘the least, the lost, the lonely,’” he said.

Thanks, Jeff. I’m always glad to see I have an email from you.