May Days

Reaching into the past for anecdotes that live on and ranging in his personal experience from rural Nova Scotia to a New England college to small-town Tennessee, Sam Pickering finds his lessons in suburban and rural life, in the pressures of the workaday world, and in the temptations of nature. In his quest to further understand and appreciate our rich natural world and our roots in the past, he examines the many ways in which we are all kind and callous, loving and faithless, foolish and wise. Whether writing about Miss Kitty and Miss Jo Sewall, E. W. Childers and the fish he caught in Difficult Creek, or the naming and renaming of flowers, Pickering reveals an inquiring, gentle regard for nature and humanity. These eleven wry essays illuminate the ordinary, uncovering some of the subtle truths that lie unnoticed in the common events and realities of life.