The Left Handed Monkey Wrench

Selections from the author's uncompleted second novel and stories about a lonely warrant officer, a crafty sailor, and a proud engineer are accompanied by essays about historical research and naval life and reform.

Selections from the author's uncompleted second novel and stories about a lonely warrant officer, a crafty sailor, and a proud engineer are accompanied by essays about historical research and naval life and reform.

Additional edition statement from dust jacket.

Told against the backdrop of the American landscape of the late '80s to the mid-'90s, Growing Up Dead is the story of Peter Conners's journey from straight-laced suburban kid to touring Deadhead. Peter discovered the Grateful Dead in 1985, at the age of 15, through friends who exchanged bootleg tapes of live Grateful Dead concerts. A teenager living in the suburbs of Rochester, New York, he became exposed to an entirely new way of life, and friends who were enjoying more freedom and less parental guidance. At the age of 16, he attended his first Grateful Dead concert on June 30, 1987 - he was hooked. Between 1987 and 1995, Conners would attend Dead 'shows' all over the United States. He traveled with a makeshift 'family' of other Deadheads in a Volkswagen camper, selling drugs and whatever else would provide gas money to the next concert. His hair was a wild, unkempt bush and baths were infrequent. In short, he had progressed from suburban kid, to Grateful Dead fan, to full-blown Deadhead. Chronicling this progression, which culminates with the 1995 death of Jerry Garcia, Conners reveals the truth behind Deadhead culture and history. The result is a riveting insight into the obsessive fandom that made The Grateful Dead the most successful touring band of all time, as well as a cultural phenomenon.

Carl Sandburg’s ROOTABAGA PIGEONS is the sequel to Rootabaga Stories. This ebook is a most wonderful, magical flight of imagination that could ever be put in a printed format. Wonderfully whimsical in the same genre of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”, and like Alice in Wonderland, this volume is not to be missed. The whimsical, and sometimes melancholy stories, which often use nonsense language, were originally created for the three Sandburg daughters. The girl’s nicknames were “Spink”, “Skabootch” and “Swipes.” Each name appears in both Rootabaga stories, and offered here in the Rootabaga Pigeons. The Rootabaga stories were born of Sandburg’s desire for American fairy tales to match American childhoods. He felt that the European stories involving royalty and knights were inappropriate in an American setting, and so set his stories in the fictionalized Rootabaga country-that closely resembles the American Midwest-a place filled with farms, trains, and corn fairies. A large number of the stories are told by the Potato Face Blind Man, an old minstrel from the “Village of Liver-and-Onions” who watches the world go by from in front of the local post office. Originally published in 1923, the second volume of Carl Sandburg's beloved Rootabaga Stories includes tales about "Big People Now" and "Little People Long Ago." The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet wrote these American fairy tales for his children while they were growing up in the American Midwest. This edition contains the illustrations of Maud and Miska Petersham. 10% of the profit from the sale of this ebook will be donated to charities. ================= KEYWORDS/TAGS: Rootabaga Pigeons, fantasy stories, children’s stories, children’s books, folklore, fairy tales, fantasy tales, fables, Balloons, Blind, Blixie blimp, blue, boomers, Bozo, brass, bugs, buttons, cats, clock, corn, corner, Dippy, gold, goose, gringo, Hatrack, Hoo, Horse, Huckabuck, Jonas, king, lumber, moon, morning, people, Peter, pigs, Pony, pop, Potato face, Puffs, queen, Rootabaga land, roses, shadow, silver, sky, snoox, summer, thousand, umbrella, Village, wild, wildcats, wind, Wisp, Yang, yellow, zig-zag, zoom, Spink, Skabootch, Swipes, wonderful, whimsical, carl sandburg, nonsense, childhood, minstrel, liver-and-onions, post office, big people, little people, Pulitzer, prize-winning, American fairy tales, Midwest,

The Author was born in Cohasset, Minnesota, on August 28, 1925. Ms. Axt attended grade school in Cohasset and then high school in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. She married Kenneth H. Cress, who was killed in World War II, at Iwo Jima. They had one son. She later married her late husband, William Axt. They were married 38 years and had six children. He died in 1985. Ms. Axt now resides in Walker, Minnesota, with a significant other for the past eleven years. Sewing keeps her busy. She is blessed with numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. There are five generations here.

When John Gould was young, a boy learned about the sea--and arithmetic and knots and geography and life--from the old deep-water men living out their lives in snug harbors. He grew up knowing the woods; the way a church supper smells; the way the Ladies Aid bargained together before a food sale. The friendly, close-knit community life and the deep family affection gave him a foundation of sound sense to last through the years ahead. This is a book to read and reread. You will be glad to know that once, in Maine, a boy could have this kind of childhood; and you might be envious because you did not.

Arts in Earnest explores the unique folklife of North Carolina from ruddy ducks to pranks in the mill. Traversing from Murphy to Manteo, these fifteen essays demonstrate the importance of North Carolina’s continually changing folklife. From decoy carving along the coast, to the music of tobacco chants and the blues of the Piedmont, to the Jack tales of the mountains, Arts in Earnest reflects the story of a people negotiating their rapidly changing social and economic environment. Personal interviews are an important element in the book. Laura Lee, an elderly black woman from Chatham County, describes the quilts she made from funeral flower ribbons; witnesses and friends each remember varying details of the Duke University football player who single-handedly vanquished a gang of would-be muggers; Clyde Jones leads a safari through his backyard, which is filled with animals made of wood and cement that represent nontraditional folk art; the songs and sermon of a Primitive Baptist service flow together as one—“it tills you up all over”; Durham bluesman Willie Trice, one of a handful of Durham musicians who recorded in the 1930s and early 1940s, remembers when the active tobacco warehouses offered ready audiences—“They’d tip us a heap of change to play some music”; and Goldsboro tobacco auctioneer H. L. “Speed” Riggs chants 460 words per minute, five to six times faster than a normal conversational rate.