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The man in the washtub was Otis Jordan "The Frog Boy" as he was titled in the sideshow business.

The urgency that I'd detected in his voice was very legitimate. He needed to use the toilet and the man he'd been calling to was not around, so I carried him to the public restroom. In doing so, I discovered that his legs were in the same condition as his arms-about the size of a four year old child's and paralyzed.

For the next the next three years, I carried Otis in and out of restrooms, restaurants, and motels. I helped him dress and undress (a pretty complicated maneuver, sort of like dressing a corkscrew). I bathed him, processed his hair and became, for all practical purposes, his arms and legs. Best of all, I became his friend.

I eventually bought my own sideshow and the last year we were together, Otis worked for me.

At this point I've given you a sketchy rundown of what Otis looked like. Although Otis and I would have never met had he not been a sideshow attraction. I feel that his deformity was very secondary to his personality, a fact that anyone who knew him would readily attest to. I will, however, quickly describe him physically because a large segment of the SHOCKED AND AMAZED! readers probably never saw him.

The stock "lecture" on Otis refereed to his condition as "arrested development." Although this term probably leaves a lot to be desired from a clinical standpoint, I'll let it stand. Actually, Otis' physical was the result of several things but, unless you own a dictionary of medical jargon (and understand it), "arrested development" will do just fine. The only part of Otis' body that would pass normal was his head. The rest of him was, as previously mentioned about like a four year old child in size. A paralyzed four year old with the exception of the thumb and index finger of his right hand. Everything above his shoulders worked and his internal organs functioned properly. He had developed the ability to propel his body in whatever direction he desired by using his neck muscles, thereby throwing his shoulders and the frozen anatomy below them from side to side. This took a great deal of effort but he would wobble himself pretty well in this manner.

So there you have Otis Jordan, the Anatomical Jigsaw Puzzle-an unusual sight to be sure. But then there was that face. A noble, scholarly face that instantly drew your attention away from the cruel prank Mother Nature had played on the rest of him. Without uttering a word Otis' face would convey-"All that down there? That's The Frog Boy you paid to see. Up here? This is the part I analyze you with."

As you travel Interstate 75 in Georgia, you'll see an exit marked "Barnesville" somewhere between Macon and Atlanta. Otis Jordan was born there-long before the Interstate was thought of, long before the Civil Rights Movement and long before the brightest and whitest medical practitioners could offer much more than sympathy to parents of such an unfortunate child.

The Jordan home sat at the end of a dusty dirt road in an area doted with similarly sparse little dwellings that housed the black population of the town. At that point in time, dealing with social oppression was a fact for anyone in Otis' circumstances; however, there seemed to be an unending supply of jokers in the deck at the Jordan household. Besides being poor, black and deformed, Otis' next became aware that his brothers and sisters were ashamed of his appearance. This manifested itself in the form of their refusal to take him to school with them. It was at this point that Otis discovered that inner force called determination.

Even as a youngster, Otis had the enviable ability to not only absorb knowledge but to equate it to his own needs and implement it. Here, for example, we had a forlorn child left to his own devices in a yard containing, among other things, a rusty toy wagon and several goats. He and the goats had established a rapport due, perhaps, to the fact that they were the same height.

Over a period of a month, Otis fashioned a crude harness from old ropes and a broken broomstick. Convincing the goats that they were to be the power department was a far more frustrating task. For weeks, they'd either balk at his coaxing to pull the wagon or run off, wagon in tow. But determination won out at the end, and one day Otis' father returned from the fields to find his son, the teamster, proudly circling the house in his goat-drawn chariot.

"My daddy laughed and laughed-and then he cried and hugged me," Otis told me. "Next day he fixed up a real little harness and board with an old pillow that I could sit on."

One evening, seated on the front steps observing Otis' progress with his transportation, his older brother hollered, "Where do you think they're gonna take you, Macon?"

"Maybe," Otis grinned. "First they're taking me to school." And for the next twelve years, they did just that.

Otis' first title before an imaginative showman dubbed him "The Frog Boy" was "The Goat Boy." "The Goat Boy of Barnesville, Georgia" was a familiar sight to the townspeople as he made his way to and from school each day. Otis eventually captured the attention of the local newspaper and they did an article about him, his goats and his quest for education. Several out-of-town papers ran articles and photo coverage as well.

The black V.F.W., in effort to call attention to the plight of young, southern blacks wishing to enroll in college, decided that Otis was the perfect individual to pinpoint the issue. Otis would, according to their plan, make his way via goat express from Barnesville to Washington DC, gathering both media coverage and donations for his college tuition. Otis considered it and decided against it. Why? "Well, it would've been pretty hard on the goats," Otis told me with a wry grin. And we both laughed, much the same way we laughed when we first met and for pretty much the same reason.