“Who Stole Junipero Serra’s Heart in a Jar?
A Chronicle of the California Mission Founder's Lost Ticker”
by
John Graham
Who Stole Junipero Serra’s Heart in a Jar? is the story of writer John Graham's investigation into the theft—during an annual street festival in 2007—of the preserved heart of the founder of California's mission system, Father Junipero Serra.
Writer Graham visits the small, coastal town of El Fornio, CA where the events took place, introducing the reader to the likes of John Henry Peabody, the curator of the local historical society, and his "cousin," Janet Librado, a member of the Fornay Indian tribe and an environmental lawyer.
Graham is invited up into the Pass, the mountain top retreat of the Fornay, as well as taken out for drinks by the local Pelican Man, Sean Heany, a dwarf who makes his living in pelican costume.
Between those who want to rebuild the mission, keep it destroyed or just want to preserve a local attraction, writer Graham discovers that any number of people might have stolen the heart—even Curator Peabody himself.
"The Reeducation of a Turd Peddler"
by
John Henry PeabodyAs introduced by writer John Graham in Who Stole Junipero Serra's Heart in a Jar?, John Henry "Hank" Peabody offers up his version of events—in a semi-fictionalized account—of the theft and history of Junipero Serra's heart.
As the curator of the El Fornio Historical Society, and an expert on Native American coprolites (read: fossilized human droppings), Hank Peabody realizes that he has never paid attention to one of the most important parts of his own his history.
The Reeducation of a Turd Peddler follows Peabody's efforts to write the book and locate the thief of Junipero Serra's Heart.An Published Excerpt of the Story that started it all,
The Charmed Life: Story of a Boy Who Changes.
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by JOHN GRAHAM
Copyright © 2008, The El Fornio Historical Society
or
Contact John Graham at john@elfornio.com
