Tales of a Small-Town Soda Jerk

Tales of a Small-Town Soda Jerk is the assumed title of Connie Kendall's book although it's unclear whether the final name or not, which she decided to write in #580: “Tales of a Small-Town Thug”. Her writing of it culminated in the production of a radio piece about Odyssey, which appeared as the episode #631: “A Capsule Comes to Town”.

Connie wrote this book to combat Rusty Gordon's book Tales of a Small-Town Thug to create a more positive image of Odyssey.

In the episode #593: “Around the Block”, Connie was going through a case of writer's block, which Eugene tried to solve in a number of methods (including clocks and word counts).

Kelly once deleted Connie's book when she didn't want to be mentioned in it, causing bad feelings between the two until Connie eventually forgave Kelly for what she did.

History

Connie Kendall started the idea of writing this book in episode #580: “Tales of a Small-Town Thug” combat Rusty Gordon's book called Tales of a Small-Town Thug that gave Odyssey a bad name. She wanted to show what Odyssey really was. In episode #583: “The Champ of the Camp” Connie writes the Prologue, in it she includes a story about when she was at Camp Jumonville and participated in a prank war, she used that story to show what she was like "before." In that episode Eugene also finds out about the book. In episode #593: “Around the Block” Connie encounters writers block at the third chapter and Eugene attempts to help her get around it. She decides to quit writing it, but later in the episode she starts writing it again. In episode #602: “Mum’s the Word” Max Hampton says on the air that Connie was writing a book about Odyssey. In episode #604: “Like Father, Like Wooton” Connie is reading Rusty's book and it says that Odyssey is boring. Connie sets out to prove that wrong by finding something exciting to write in her book. Wooton tells her at the carnival to write about the secrets of clowns. She does not want to at first, but then goes undercover as a clown. She does not get any information because she was sworn to "clown secrecy" when she admitted that she was trying to get information about them. In episode #605: “The Chosen One, Part 1” Connie is reported to be at over 600 pages, but she still thinks she needs something. Kelly gives Connie advice on her book, and Connie likes the ideas so she asks Kelly for her last name to put in the acknowledgments. Kelly gets scared at the possibility of lots of people seeing her name, so when Connie was away, Kelly erased the file from the hard drive of Connie's computer and the backup copy on the CD. In episode #630: “Chip Off the Shoulder” Connie has to rewrite the book from scratch, and she gets stuck on the first chapter. She decides to dictate her book on Whit's advice and it works well for her.

Appearances

The book is mentioned in the following episodes:

• #580: “Tales of a Small-Town Thug”
• #583: “The Champ of the Camp”
• #588: “Broken-Armed and Dangerous”
• #593: “Around the Block”
• #602: “Mum’s the Word”
• #604: “Like Father, Like Wooton”
• #605: “The Chosen One, Part 1”
• #606: “The Chosen One, Part 2”
• #630: “Chip Off the Shoulder”