Abandoned by her father and rejected by her mother, 4 year-old Jennie is taken without explanation from her kindergarten class and driven through the night to live with her grandparents. They live on a farm where gophers pop out of the ground, turkey gobblers give chase, the bathroom is in a little house near the woods, and which is austere and culturally limited. Almost from the beginning she tries to run away back to live with her mother in Minneapolis. But her grandparents, although undemonstrative, steadfastly support her. Grandpa helps her with her homework at night sitting around the kitchen table lit by a kerosene lamp, she sits on his lap, while riding the binder, and curls up with him on the sofa at nap time. She helps her Grandmother with the chickens, picking eggs and feeding the pigs. But conflicts arise. Especially with her aunt , Hilda who is spiteful and humiliating. Jennie wants to run away and find her father in Canada but all her attempts fail. As far back as in kindergarten, Jennie liked to draw. So in first grade when she was asked to draw the picture placed on the blackboard in front of the class, she worked hard to copy the exact likeness. The picture was The Last Supper. After that, she became known as the class artist. Hilda felt Jennie was wasting her time drawing and discouraged her. Reading, another of Jennie's interests, was also considered wasteful. All through high school Jennie continued to be the school artist. During this time she became attached to Frank, a future farmer with a kind, uncomplicated view of life. He loved her but knew her dream was to leave the farm and go to study art. After graduating from high school Jennie is offered a job in Washington, D. C. Her grandmother slips her thirty dollars and urges her to leave at once, before Aunt Hilda can interfere. Her new life in the city is a shock and a revelation. Jennie discovers art galleries, takes her first real art lesson using pastels, and begins to acquire a new set of goals and values. Two years later, she returns to Minneapolis and enrolls at the University of Minnesota in art. Life is a struggle as she has to work to support herself and pay for her education. While working at one of the her jobs, she meets Jim, a young psychology student who is using the G.I. Bill to attend university. Soon they marry, unknown to either Jennies' mother or her aunt Hilda. Jim is very supportive of Jennie's interest in art. Between leaving the farm and starting university a series of tragedies occurred. Her grandparents died—first her grandfather, then her grandmother. Earlier a favorite uncle shot himself. Another uncle died under questionable circumstances and her mother becomes committed to a mental hospital while her father remained a mystery in spite of efforts to locate him. After graduating from university, she paints and exhibits her work, exploring new directions of expression. It is not easy to find success. When galleries are either hanging her work upside down or failing to pay her, they disappear from sight. Her first real success comes from entering a painting in an exhibition in New York. Titled Subjective-Objective, the painting and received first prize. From then on Jennie's goal to become an accomplished artist plays an important part in her life. Still, she couldn't forget the farm where her uncle now lives. One day, she decided to go back to the place she'd grown up and had wanted to escape. Seeing the faded wallpaper on the upstairs hall the stippled paint walls, the empty bookcase, Jennie becomes aware she has slowly moved from the austere and culturally limited setting of the farm to a new world, one of painting, art, and intellectual interactions. She'd left the farm and could not return. Back in Toronto, Jennie walked into their condo, past th

In 1962 when Tim Bazzett graduated from high school he'd had enough of academia and classroom drudgery, so he joined the army - and received an education he'd never imagined. Perhaps one of the most unlikely and inept citizen-soldiers since Gomer Pyle, Tim somehow survives the terrors and tribulations of basic training at "Fort Lost-in-the-Woods, Misery," and after further training in the mysteries of Morse code in Massachusetts and Maryland, the small-town innocent is launched overseas and into the larger world. In northern Turkey he finds himself a link in the outermost defenses of America during a Cold War he only imperfectly understands. There he sees poverty and hatred in the faces of children and is forced to confront his own faults and inner demons. Later on in Germany, no longer quite so innocent, he chases girls and dreams of being a rock star. But at the heart of Bazzett's narrative are the characters - the friends he makes along the way. For this is ultimately a book about friendship - and about growing up. In his first volume of memoirs, Bazzett made his Michigan hometown in the fifties come alive for all his readers. In Soldier Boy, his military experiences are made just as real. Get ready to laugh, and maybe cry a little too, as the irrepressible Reed City Boy rides again.

MORE TC’S TALES is a second collection of short stories by Thomas McCavour. Trust Me is a story about the illicit drug trade, embezzlement and love. Hugs and Kisses deals with a romance and rescue. Arrowhead is a Native American love story and the curse of an arrowhead pendant. The Cave is a Tom Sawyer type of adventure tale involving drug traffickers, imprisonment and escape. Kelsie is a story about a paraplegic couple who inspire their daughter to compete in aerial acrobatics. The Cat Sign is play set in the depression years of the 1930s. Just Twins is a story about two identical twins pursuing a successful musical career. In The Lost Years, grandma follows the Golden Rule. The Golden Nugget is about a mining robot that discovers gold. The Burtons story outlines how five siblings experience love and murder. The Bluenose is all about catching smugglers. What is a Sister is a love poem. The Red Surge is a murder mystery about lethal injection. Home Sweet Home is a nostalgic poem. Change is a perspective about global warming. Trinity is a story about erecting a statue on Alcatraz Island. In Hiawatha, two Indians become rich and successful silver barons. The Oracle is some early writing by the author. Pine Tree Haven is a tale about unusual activities at a nursing home. Peekaboo is about an amputee who discovers a murder. I’m clean details how a drug addict recovers. Washed Up describes how a window washer is rescued.