`Uh-Oh': It's Fulghum Again, Waxing Curious

The rubber chicken pinned to the wall of Robert Fulghum's studio is not just a piece of pop-culture flotsam passed off with a smile as "art." No, it didn't replace an Elvis-on-black-velvet painting.

Instead, the scrawny critter keeps Fulghum focused on one of his many current projects: an essay for The New Yorker, the venerable weekly that heretofore has never published anything written by Fulghum. Perhaps that's because the best-selling Seattle author hasn't yet addressed the subject of rubber chickens.

In true New Yorker style, Fulghum is writing the definitive, exhaustive article on the subject. You thought John McPhee told you more than you ever wanted to know about plate tectonics and Alaskan geology? Wait till you read Fulghum on rubber chickens.

"It's curious to me why this funny-looking thing is so ubiquitous in our culture - it may be our national bird," observes Fulghum, dressed in his usual Big Mac overalls, drawing on his pipe and relaxing in the portion of the 10,000-square-foot "studio" near Seattle's waterfront where he wrote his newest book, "Uh-Oh: Some Observations from Both Sides of the Refrigerator Door" (Villard, $19).

"It turns out that the highest-quality rubber chickens are made in a factory outside Barcelona, Spain," he says, "while most of the knock-offs come from Taiwan."

Fulghum says all of this seriously, but his eyes are lighted by wonderment as they peer out from behind the round-rimmed spectacles and silver-white beard that wreathes a face still youthful at 54. It is the same attitude of bemused curiosity that animates "Uh-Oh" as well has his two previous bestsellers, "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" and "It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It."

To call them "bestsellers" is to use inadequate terminology. Even in the age of the Tom Clancy/Stephen King blockbuster, Fulghum's first two books have been successful on a historic level: The hardcover edition of "Kindergarten," now in its 37th printing, has sold 1.4 million copies since it was published in 1988, and Ivy Books has more than 4.3 million paperbacks in print.

Like most follow-ups to a blockbuster, "Fire" has been less successful, but still fabulous by any other standard: In its ninth printing, 650,000 hardbacks have been sold, while there are 1.98 million Ivy paperbacks in print.

Not long after "Fire" came out in 1989, Fulghum became the first author in the history of The New York Times' bestseller list to have books simultaneously in the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in the nonfiction rankings; "Kindergarten" stayed on the list for 96 weeks, and "Fire" lasted for 53. And last December, when a special gift edition of "Kindergarten" came out, Fulghum was the first author to have three books on the list at once.

The books continue to sell. On today's New York Times paperback bestseller list, "Kindergarten" is No. 5 after 91 weeks on the chart, and "Fire" is No. 9 after 22 weeks.

It is too soon to tell how "Uh-Oh" will fare - it just began arriving in bookstores last week but it should find a wide audience eager for more of the brief, witty, down-to-earth homilies that enlivened the earlier books.

It is easy to be cynical about the former Unitarian minister's feel-good folksiness - part of his "credo" in "Kindergarten" declares that "Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you." And in "Uh-Oh," syrupy sentiment sometimes undercuts his thoughtfulness and sensitivity: "In the shower I drew all over myself with some Silly Soap left behind by my granddaughter. For breakfast, I ate a bowl of Cheerios topped with jelly beans. And drank a glass of Goofy Grape . . ."

Yet the sentiment is more often quietly effective, such as Fulghum's brief appreciation of former President Jimmy Carter ("He may not be in the list of great presidents - it is too soon to say. But it is not too soon to say that he is the finest ex-president. . . . He is proof that there is no limit to the amount of good a man may do if he does not worry about who gets the credit"); or a telling tribute to the Salvation Army ("I admire them," he explained at his studio, "because they're not talk folks; they're do folks").

And the eyes of even the most hardened cynic may mist over with Fulghum's story of a large, slow-moving dog named Gyda (the "grand old virgin aunt in a dog suit"). The rules were bent to allow new neighbors to bring Gyda onto the dock Fulghum shares with a number of other Lake Union houseboaters, and her presence became a grace note in the life of the small community ("Gyda's coming increased our humanity in a funny but critical way," writes Fulghum, who himself overcame a fear of dogs rooted in a childhood mauling).

Fulghum, of course, is aware of his critics.

"I'm not writing etudes; I'm writing dance music," he says with a smile that masks few self-illusions. "For that reason, I don't expect my writing to be taken seriously by those who have more elite literary tastes."

His fascination with the vocabulary of intimacy - the limited number of words that communicate volumes between people who are close - has led him to write as directly, as simply as possible. Fulghum says he approaches it as if he were composing "a really good letter" to a friend. It was the same approach he urged on students during the 20 years he taught art and writing at Seattle's private Lakeside School, a job he held while also serving as minister of Edmonds Unitarian Church ("People used to say, `How can you do it? You have two full-time jobs.' But for me they weren't jobs; it was a life").

The simple clarity of Fulghum's vision and the universality of his themes have obviously touched a responsive chord, especially within that large population that rarely opens a book. The result has been a financial reward undreamed of: Fulghum acknowledges that the three books, along with their paperback rights, have generated a personal income approaching $10 million.

"Part of what I find exciting about my life now is that I'm a steward of a certain amount of power," he says. "I came into such an unexpected amount of money, and now the question is, what do you do with it? One of the hardest choices you have to make is where you're going to put your muscle."

Fulghum ticks off four areas where that muscle is being applied: the environment, the population explosion, civil rights and health care. He has become a pro bono speaker to help organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, the American Friends Service Committee and Planned Parenthood, and though his commitments clearly bear a liberal stamp, he declines being drawn into debates that bear labels: "I'm not for or against abortion," he says. "I'm for intelligent family planning; I'm in favor of a culture that doesn't need to have abortions."

His success in "retirement," in the meantime, has allowed him to pursue his passion for painting and to travel and spend more time with his wife, Lynn Edwards, a Group Health family physician. Robert Fulghum seems a contented man still astonished at his good fortune.

"If you live the kind of life I have, this is an incredible bonus," he says. "It's a surprise, because I really have focused on making a life, not making a living."