"Tractor Bones and Rusted Trucks: Tales and Recollections of a Heartland Baby Boomer" is a nostalgic look at life in rural and small-town middle America in the twenty or so years following the end of the Second World War. This collection of poems and essays tells the story of these years through the eyes of a child growing up at the time and those of an adult looking back after years of reflection.
This was a world where the tractors, pickup trucks, and combines that had replaced the draft horses, wooden wagons, and threshing machines were themselves beginning to give out - repaired as far as possible during the war and now reaching their end. Worn out and of little trade-in value, many were towed to the corners of pastures and left to rust away and be overgrown with weeds, wild flowers and saplings.
The poems largely reflect the author's own childhood experiences growing up on an Iowa family farm. The people and events depicted in the portion, "Stories from Minley", are a mix of truth and products of the author's imagination. In those instances based on real people, one character and his/her story may represent a blend of several people whom the author remembers while growing up. No names of actual persons are used.
"The town of Minley, Iowa doesn't exist. It never has, really. I made it up. But in a sense, it is and was real. It is any of hundreds of thriving small communities spread across the heartland between the end of WWII and the time when interstate highways, superstores, and school district consolidations consigned them to history."
It is the author's hope that fellow heartland baby boomers will find the book a welcome reminder of their growing-up years and perhaps bring back forgotten memories of a simpler and more innocent time in their lives. For those who never experienced farm or small-town life in those years, the book will hopefully provide an educational and entertaining "narration" of what that life was like for those of us who lived it.
