This memoir stands out as a beautifully written account of a mostly happy, mostly normal, fully real life at once both ordinary and extraordinary. Sheirer explores intensely personal experiences and relationships with humor, surprise, awe, suspense, and deep insight. With the depth of a memoir and the flow of a novel, Sheirer chronicles how his simple youth of farm, sports, school, nature, and family led him to an unlikely adulthood as an author and college professor.

A teacher of writing, public speaking, and literature for two decades, John Sheirer (pronounced shy-er) has been twice honored by Who's Who Among America's Teachers. He holds a B.A. from West Virginia Wesleyan College, an M.A. from Ohio University, and has done doctoral study at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Since 1993, he has been a full-time faculty member at Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield, Connecticut. He recently designed a memoir writing course to help students at Asnuntuck write about their own lives.

He lives in Enfield, Connecticut, where he is an avid reader of memoirs, photographer, and hiker who does volunteer land preservation work with the Northern Connecticut Land Trust.