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| Category: Fiction:Adventure | |
| About the Book | |
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Free Excerpt From The Book (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader) This book is in short story format—the kind a time harassed person can read at their leisure, chapter by chapter, in the quiet of their restroom where, at last, they take a well-deserved time out. This is the reason for the 120 short chapters, or vignettes—each easily finished at one seating—even if a slow reader—and before legs fall asleep. Some will enter a check mark in the table of contents—or even dog-ear the pages—as time may fly between visits and it will be much easier to zero in on the “Kid’s” next adventure.For many readers this book will bring back the joy, turbulence—and for some—the hard earned lessons of youth along the way to maturity—but it is not without its smiles. It is true to life, earthy, with no political correct editing, or minced words—just simply the way it was. The “Kid” lacks the feeling of oneness within his family and departs his home, attempting to find himself and a reason for being and to garner much needed self-worth. The adventuresome fifteen-year-old ends up hitch-hiking, camping out and riding freight trains—learning, while growing up in a hurry—in 1939—during the final days of the American Depression. His journey leads him from his home in Michigan, to Saint Louis, Dallas, and on to Juarez, where he spends a night of anxiety in a Mexican Calaboose. Sprung from the jail by a kindly Texas Ranger, he returns to El Paso, and then ends up riding a freight train on to Santa Monica where his westward travels are checked by the Pacific Ocean. In California, while hiking the length of the Big Sur, he finds himself enthralled and mystically attracted by its primeval majesty, solitude and oneness with creation—along with an ever-welling intuition concerning his human potential, inspired by Esselen Indian tradition. From Cannery Row, in Monterey, he is homeward bound; through Reno, to Salt Lake and over the Continental Divide. It is there the many lessons of his journey culminate in his spiritual enlightened—in a “Magic Canyon”—alone and deep in the midst of the Rocky Mountains. It is an enlightenment which is well founded, and serves him each and everyday day of the rest of his life. The following are a sample of about thirty-five titles of the easily read 120 chapters within this book’s covers, most of which are not without smiles. Just a Hot rod Ford—Flap Jacks and Fried Eggs—How to End Wars—The Sunshine Lover—Making Out—A Roughneck and His Essex—Happy Joe’s Place—Tin Can Tourists—A. B.C.’s of Texas—A Very Hairy Bed Partner—Pistol Packin’ Packard—Homesick and Dejected—An Ice Cream Cone Bean Sandwich—Anxiety Fruit Cake—ChantillyLace—The Sixty Niner—Railroad Justice—Professor Elbow Patch—The Lumberjack—A True Friend—Flamenco—Hearst Castle—The Big Sur—Tassajara Tassie—Esselen Mystique—Cave of the Handprints—Cannery Row—Reno Railroad Dicks—Black Jack—Fight or Flight—Tunnel of Hell—Shangri-La—The Magic Canyon—Almost Paradise… … … …plus eighty-five more chapters for your leisure time enjoyment.
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| About the Author | |
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Don Lilienthal is a “Jack of all Trades” and is acknowledged, by friends, to be master of most: Residential designer, builder, General Contractor, Land Developer, Banking (Board of Directors), boat builder, Scuba Diver, adventurism yachtsman, U.S. Power Squaron Instructor, writer, newspaper columnist, life-time scholar and a constant observer of the human condition. |
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