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This is a masterfully written collection that establishes a new
voice for the spirit of the upper Midwest and Michigan and offers a
fresh look at the landscape as well as the everyday lives of the
people who make up the region's small communities.Equal parts
Robert Frost, Emerson, and Bill Bryson, ""Looking for Hickories""
is Tom Springer's ode to the natural beauty and lore of southern
Michigan - a place where bustling communities sit alongside a
mosaic of woods, fertile grassland, and miles of farmland.Filled
with touching and hilarious stories, ""Looking for Hickories""
captures the nature of things and highlights the unique character
and spirit of the Upper Midwest as it touches on many subjects
particular to the region yet often universal in theme: from barn
building to land preservation for the greater good to the sassafras
tree, now considered a weed tree but once thought capable of curing
many human illnesses to the southwest-Michigan man who makes
musical instruments from the wood on his land, and much more.Like
Frost's best poems, Springer's essays often begin with delight and
end in wisdom, and they combine a generosity of spirit and the
child-like pleasure of first discovery with the grown up sense of a
time and a place, if not lost, then in danger of disappearing
altogether - things to treasure and preserve for today and
tomorrow.
Sam the main character finds that he has a problem of being left
behind by the women in his life. At a very early age his mother
dies and leaves him and his father. When he graduates from high
school he loses his only girl friend. Both of these events are
devastating to him. But it only in college that he loses the love
of his life to circumstances beyond his control. He runs away to U.
S. Army for a stay before returning and marrying. Later he loses
the fourth female from his life and appears completely lost. Then
he returns to the town of Roelston for a funeral of a person he
didn't really care about and his ventures goes on. This is an
exciting tale of the life of Sam Riggs and his struggles to find
happiness.
Harry Jobber has run smack into reality and he was ill prepared for
the meeting. Harry has drifted in his comfort zone and been content
there much too long. He has become more of a kid than his own two
children. He has become a fanatic on religious devotion and wants
something going on at his church for the children of the community.
He can hardly wait until his oldest child graduates from college so
he, Henry, can come home to run the family business. Harry
envisions his life growing much easier whereby he can help the kids
fly their kites, the very young sail their little boats on his pond
and fill the church with the young teenagers. He has very little
ambition for himself. But Harry has an ungrateful wife that wants
to move up in society. She is a fanatic about attending various
clubs in the community where she can rub shoulders with the elite.
She expresses dissatisfaction with their comfortable old home and
wants to go to the suburbs. Harry dreads hearing of such a thing
and certainly attempts to discourage any move. He cannot win an
argument with his dominating wife. When the hard times come and
they certainly do, Harry seems better equipped to face the future
than his wife who has escaped poverty one time and wants nothing
further to do with returning. Gertrude, the wife, is not happy with
her lot and strains to make Harry into the man she thinks she
wants. She wants affluence that she can touch. Harry just wants to
live and let live in a world of his own. But the very hard time
come. There is some beautiful poetry sprinkled throughout the
novel.
This is a masterfully written collection that establishes a new
voice for the spirit of the upper Midwest and Michigan and offers a
fresh look at the landscape as well as the everyday lives of the
people who make up the region's small communities.Equal parts
Robert Frost, Emerson, and Bill Bryson, ""Looking for Hickories""
is Tom Springer's ode to the natural beauty and lore of southern
Michigan - a place where bustling communities sit alongside a
mosaic of woods, fertile grassland, and miles of farmland.Filled
with touching and hilarious stories, ""Looking for Hickories""
captures the nature of things and highlights the unique character
and spirit of the Upper Midwest as it touches on many subjects
particular to the region yet often universal in theme: from barn
building to land preservation for the greater good to the sassafras
tree, now considered a weed tree but once thought capable of curing
many human illnesses to the southwest-Michigan man who makes
musical instruments from the wood on his land, and much more.Like
Frost's best poems, Springer's essays often begin with delight and
end in wisdom, and they combine a generosity of spirit and the
child-like pleasure of first discovery with the grown up sense of a
time and a place, if not lost, then in danger of disappearing
altogether - things to treasure and preserve for today and
tomorrow.
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