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Part-time Parkite Donald V. Jacobs pens a ‘Goal to Health and Happiness’

Donald V. Jacobs, a part-time Park City resident, published “If I Were a King: A Goal to Health and Happiness,” a collection of thoughts that addresses topics such as adventures, entertainment and peace.
Photo by Carolyn J. Tebo

Part-time Parkite Donald V. Jacobs has always wanted to write a book, and back in September he began what would become “If I Were a King: A Goal to Health and Happiness.”

The book, which can be found at the Park City Library and the Summit County Library Kimball Junction Branch, is small but filled with the former Delta Airlines pilot’s musings on life, liberty and contentment.

“To me, health and happiness are the most important things in life,” Jacobs said. “And to have happiness, it’s helpful if you have excellent health in both the body and the mind.”



Jacob addresses topics that included adventure, entertainment, home and peace. He also wanted to present his thoughts alphabetically and he didn’t want to take more than one page to express his feelings.

“I just started making a list about things I have opinions on that I would like to see the United States and the world do differently,” Jacobs said. “There were other topics that I thought would be interesting, but I didn’t really have an opinion on them. So I left them out.”



Still, the book examines 68 subjects.

“While I had strong opinions about most of the topics, there were some that I wanted to dig into more deeply,” Jacobs said. “So I would look them up and do some research and add things to it. I always made sure I double-checked facts to make sure they were accurate.”

Some of Jacobs’ opinions in the book regarding such topics such as socialized medicine and laws concerning drunk driving were inspired through one-on-one discussions with people from other countries.

“I would talk with everyone from families in the Netherlands, cab drivers in the Bahamas and other citizens, but not politicians,” he said with a wink. “I wanted people who read the book to learn something new about each topic and maybe see them in different ways.”

The author said his initial audience was his inner circle.

“When I finished it, I sent copies to close friends and family members,” Jacobs said. “I had an idea to send it to each of the presidential candidates, which I decided not to do.”

Jacobs said it was important that the book had a lot of humor.

“The reason for that is because I did know that there would be people who wouldn’t go along with some of my thoughts,” he said.

Jacobs also wanted the book to be small enough to fit in a pocket.

“I thought if the book was small, it would catch people’s attention,” he said. “It would also be easy to pick up and easy to read, and people could take it anywhere they wanted to.”

After writing his first draft, Jacobs turned to his wife, Carolyn Tebo, to edit the book.

“She has a degree in education, and she helped me figure out what was and wasn’t appropriate to keep in the book,” Jacobs said with a laugh. “While it didn’t take me that long to write the first drafts, it took a while for revisions.”

In addition to his wife, Jacobs credits his son Jeff for keeping him on track.

“Jeff was the one who actually got the book printed,” Jacobs said. “So between Carolyn and Jeff, the book became a reality.”

Jacobs also credits his late father, Vinding, for his love of books.

“He was in the iron business, but he wrote poetry and books that were similar to what I had done,” Jacobs said. “So he was the one who actually put the idea that I could do this in my head.”

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