Back in the 50s, companies ran contests for people to enter their own lyrics or jingles as part of advertisements for their products. A lot of the time, the company would provide a prompt ("I use Dial soap because:") and then ask people to provide an answer in "25 words or less," with prizes for the best responses. The prizes varied from wristwatches to cars, wall clocks to trips to Europe. And Evelyn Ryan, mother of the author, made a part-time career out of her skills at writing answers for these contests, winning prizes for nearly one out of every four entries she sent in (and many times beating out tens of thousands of other responses). Their family was extremely poor, and the father was an alcoholic, leaving Evelyn Ryan to use her wits to help the family to survive. But the amazing part of the story is how the prizes always came in at the crucial moment: thousands of dollars used to buy a house right when they were about to be evicted, and several years later thousands of dollars more used to pay for the second mortgage on their new house three days before it was due, and a year's worth of prizes used as Christmas presents for all the kids in a year when they didn't have enough money to buy any outright. It was really amazing reading about how determined and intelligent she was, and how able she was at providing for her family when it was needed--in such an unconventional way. Bonus: A few days ago, we saw on cnn.com that Romney was campaigning in Defiance, Ohio!
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